A dark smile twisted Zephyr’s lips. “Traitor.”
Gritting my teeth, I stepped out from behind Xerxes. Immediately, the vampire’s eyes found me. “That’s funny coming from you, since you betrayed your own team first. It was you who got your teammate killed, right? You told Dante where to find us at the safe house. You killed Corbin.”
The vampire blinked hard, the cruel smile twisting into a sneer as he lifted his gun. He didn’t aim it at me, though. It wasaimed at Cato. “You don’t know anything,” he snarled, clicking the safety off. “So shut your bitch mouth up.”
I sighed through my nose, stomach churning uncomfortably as I lifted my hand defensively. “We want to save Hawk. If you ever cared about him—if you ever saw him as your friend—then you would help us get to him. He won’t be Hawk anymore if Dante keeps messing with his brain, his memories. You know that.”
Zephyr’s eyes narrowed and hardened. “Why do you think I care?”
“Because you love him,” I replied, feeling my heart twist. “That’s why you got him put on the list, right?”
I’d never figured out why, of all people, Hawk was chased by Dante. Maeve, I understood. She had a skill so few vampires had, and that made her an asset. There was no way to hide memories when they were kept in blood. She could have undone any magic Dante used on his people to hide memories.
Hawk was half-Fae, half-demon. There were no special gifts he could offer Dante. I’d seen other Aither Fae here, with their large wings on display. They had the same magic Hawk did. And although he was half-demon, there were clearly demons from all houses, except for maybe Elysian, here. They might have been the minority in Dante’s army, but there’d been enough in the crowds for me to know that Hawk possibly couldn’t offer anything special to the cause.
And then there was the wholeerasing his memoriespart. All his memories of me, specifically. They’d turned Hawk into a zombie of his former self.
The gun swung to point at me as Zephyr’s eyes shuttered. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” I stepped towards him, but Xerxes’s hold on my hand stopped me from getting any closer. “Because I know unrequited love when I see it. You pretend like you don’t, but it’s so obvious.”
Zephyr growled, but the gun twitched. “Shut up.”
“You can save him,” I said, desperately. “You can stop him from being erased by Dante. Because that’s what’s going tohappen, and you know it. It won’t be Hawk that walks out of that room. It’ll be a shell that looks like him. But it won’t sound like him or act like him. It won’t have his personality or fight. Youknow that!”
The gun trembled in his hand now as his eyes flickered between me and the elevator. The Pit was falling apart around us; there were soldiers fighting to break through the ice wall Cato barely held on to.
“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t let Dante destroy him.”
Zephyr’s lips parted on a breath as the gun lowered. I couldn’t help but sigh, even as Xerxes pulled me back behind him, becoming a barrier between me and the vampire. I felt Thor move closer to my back, his large snout nudging my hand as he did.
I had to look around Xerxes to watch Zeph step aside. A dark nothingness entered his eyes as he holstered his weapon. “I won’t stop you,” he said, voice low. “But I won’t help you, either. You have three minutes to get on that elevator. But if I catch you, I will shoot you.”
A chill rolled down my spine at the clear decisiveness in his tone. There was no chance he was lying about that. He meant every word.
It didn’t make much sense, but that didn’t stop Cato from lowering his gun and rushing to the elevator, quickly followed by Xerxes and me, then the bear. The entire time, Zephyr watched us with dark, emotionless eyes, no longer showing any sign of weakness, but no intention of stopping us, either.
The doors opened with a ping that alerted the other soldiers to us, but the ice wall went up behind Zephyr, blocking the others from stopping us or launching an attack. Still, the vampire watched us with that unreadable expression.
Even as the doors closed, he didn’t move. He just stared after us until the ice behind him melted and disappeared within the crowd of soldiers racing to catch us.
39
Adrian
Icouldn’t remember the last time I was sick. Shivers wracked my body, my bones aching with the ferocity of whatever illness burned my veins.
I barely even registered the door to my cell opening or the light that flickered on. My head felt impossibly heavy, making it difficult to lift my eyes, but when black boots entered my vision, I forced my gaze to follow the length of the body up to a familiar face.
“Elias,” I sighed, throat raw. Not from talking or screaming. Whatever it was Dante was doing to me, it completely fucked me up.
The wolf crossed his arms, concern darkening his eyes. “I’m going to send for a healer,” he said, taking a step back.
“Wait,” I coughed, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain in my head. It throbbed, making my eyes hurt. “Not yet.”
“Kingsley, you look halfway to death,” he snapped, a growl entering his voice. “I don’t know what he’s doing to you, but he’s draining you of your power right now.”
Another shiver wracked my body. “Yeah,” I replied, opening my eyes again slowly. “I feel it. But you have to bring Blythe. I don’t…I don’t trust him not to come out.”
