Seconds later, a door clicked at the top of the stairs. Classic vamp exit. Bastard probably went mist and headed straight to the guest room and his spare silk suit.
Ko finally relaxed. Minutely.
When the crucible finished belching, he hefted it up with asbestos gloves, and we headed upstairs, moving almost in perfect sync. He went one flight; I went two. Our bedroom door stood ajar to show me Casimir and Seri curled together, him out cold again and her hair fanned across the pillows like liquid moonlight.
She stirred, lashes fluttering.
“Zoodle? Where’s Koko?”
“Waiting for me downstairs.” I kissed her brow. “Just wanted to check on you, bluebell, before taking out the trash.”
Her nose wrinkled at the stench of burnt diapers clinging to me, but she asked no questions. Smart girl. Sometimes love means letting your husbands scatter the ashes without commentary.
Koa waited for me at the back door, still holding the crucible, his face turned to the sky.
“Next time, we’re using a fang-rotted woodchipper.”
“Better idea!” I held up my index finger. “Industrial blender! Dark witch margaritas!”
Our laughter was as fragile as moth wings, but it held, same as it always did.
Some nightmares you don’t outgrow. You just learn to laugh louder while they chew on your bones.
31. Heart To Burn
Foster
Austin Cho’s heart in a box.
That’s what sat next to me on my truck seat as I drove away from Scary Central at dawn.
The cooler wasn’t anything special, just a cheap styrofoam thing you’d grab for a six-pack, but it contained proof of last night’s butchery. If Greisen were awake, my wolf would be pacing beneath my skin, agitated by the scent of congealing blood and the memory of cartilage giving way beneath my claws.
I cranked the window down further, letting the crisp morning air dilute the iron tang that permeated my truck’s cabin. The country roads stretched empty before me, gray ribbon unwinding through Michigan farmland. Spring was just starting to breathe color back into the world, but all I could see was red. Austin’s blood pooling on the basement floor, his eyes going wide with shock, then empty.
Yeah, last night had been a special kind of hell.
I’d stood there, face impassive while my insides twisted. While she’d called the demon, a shadow with too many teeth and eyes like burnt holes in reality. While the demon opened its maw and—
Moon Mother have mercy.
I could still hear the sound. Not a scream exactly, more like every exhale Austin had ever taken being pulled violently back into his body at once.
His soul leaving. That’s what it sounds like.
After that, the rest had been mechanics. Arabesque ordered me to finish the job, to remove the heart and sever the head. And I did. Wolf shifters, especially fighters, get immune to blood and guts fairly quick, but it wasn’t the brutality that bothered me. It wasAustin. He’d been an innocent kid. Trying to do better. Trying tobebetter.
And this whole time, I’d been watching him, suspicious he was spying for another witch coven or maybe even a rival shifter pack. Never once considered he might just be a normal kid with a bad past, trying to disappear.
He’d been groomed since birth to join the family ‘business,’ but he’d run soon as he turned eighteen. Taken just enough money to disappear and crossed an ocean to start over. And for what? To end up as a sacrifice to Arabesque’s demon and a bounty collection opportunity.
I felt ashamed of myself for suspecting him now. He’d never been something Dark or spying for another party. Just a normal twenty-two-year-old guy who enjoyed sex, drank awful protein shakes, and kept his head down and his mouth shut.
I remembered how he’d looked at Amabel when she sauntered around the house, part terrified and part horny as hell. How he’d flushwhen she’d brush against him deliberately. How later, when I’d find her scent all over him, he’d avoid my eyes, probably thinking I’d be pissed about her sleeping with the help. Like I gave a shit who Amabel slept with. Same with Eluned. Our arrangement was simple. No strings, no jealousy, just chaos and release. Not that I thought he’d enjoyherkind of sex.
And now I was supposed to deliver his heart to the Cimmerians while Arabesque cashed in his head for a ridiculous amount of money from Cho’s own father. Money that she would most definitely use to fund her evil deeds.
“You know where to take this,” she’d said, handing me the cooler this morning, Austin’s head already carefully packed in a separate container, nestled in her designer luggage for the trip to Korea. “Make sure they understand the message.”
