My vision grayed, frayed. In one last desperate attempt, my mouth formed the wordplease. I didn’t want to pass out, afraid of what he was going to do with my body. What if he chained and tossed me into the Seine like he’d done with the woman’s father? The womanhe’dsent to kill me. My immortality would allow me to survive, but it wouldn’t melt the chains. It wouldn’t make me magically float up to thesurface.
I searched his pale eyes for a glimmer of hope but found nothing but hatred and a coldness that iced my already clammy skin. His soul was soiled beyondrepair.
Something moved over Tristan’s shoulder. I imagined my oxygen-starved brain had conjured up the disturbance. The room swam, darkened. I fluttered my lashes, fighting the only way I knew how—quietly andsteadfastly.
If I ever made it back to a guild, I would tell the Ophanim they needed to train us better, give us more adequate tools, because not every situation in the human world could be fixed with words andgoodness.
“To think I brought you to him,” Tristanmused.
I would’ve found my way to Jarod without hishelp.
The same way Jarod had just found his way tome.
Tristan’s hand was wrenched off my body. I collapsed on the floor, and air streaked down my throat like scalding coffee. Thewhooshingin my ears distorted Jarod’s shout and muffled Tristan’s squeak ofsurprise.
Luc and Muriel rushed into the bedroom. Jarod yelled, and both lunged toward me. Muriel crouched, gathering my hands off my neck to witness the damage, while Luc shielded us, gun aimed at Tristan, who stood so close to Jarod that I was terrified a loosed bullet would injure the wrongman.
“No . . . gun,” Icroaked.
Jarod’s fist flew into Tristan’s jaw, snapping his head sideways and sending him stumbling backward through the gaping French windows and onto the balcony. Muriel helped me onto my feet, binding her arm harder around my rib cage when I teetered like adrunk.
For all his putrid intentions toward me, I didn’t think Tristan would harm Jarod. I tried to reach over and draw the guard’s arms down, but my trembling hand swiped air before uselessly tumbling back against myside.
Jarod backed Tristan against the limestone guardrail, hands fastened around histhroat.
My heart was still banging too hard to hear any of the words they exchanged, but at least, my vision had cleared. Muriel pivoted my body away from the tussle and attempted to drag me out of the bedroom, but I dug my heels into therug.
“Muriel, I need . . . tohelp. . .”
“There’s nothing you can do,Leigh.”
“ButJarod. . .”
“Jarod will befine.”
A thunderous grunt slashed the air, and I flipped around in Muriel’s arms, my wing bones jostlingher.
That sound had come fromJarod.
My pulse knifed through me, blighting the gasp tearing up my throat, transforming it into a frozen puff ofair.
Only one man remained on thebalcony.
Chapter 57
IflungMuriel’s arm off my body and sprinted toward Jarod, who was clutching the stone guardrail as though contemplatingjumping.
“Get away from here, Feather,” he growled between raspingpants.
His gaze was fused to the fountain, to Tristan’s body that lay unmoving inside, legs sprawled and submerged, arms stretched over his head pillowed on the rim. Blood glistened on the gray stone, clouded the water like ink. I shuddered, bringing my attention back toJarod.
“Get away from me,Leigh!”
A rib-cracking sob fractured the air, made his big bodyquake.
I placed my hand on his hunched spine. He spun and tossed my arm away, glaring down at me and my wings with a violence that stopped myheart.
I magicked themaway.
