Based on what I’ve seen of my father, I suspect he’ll be too angry to care if he hurts his followers in his efforts to catch me.
Satisfied that Gad and Valki will stay away from us for now, I reach out with my free hand to my nearest family members—Anarchy and Lucian—ensuring they’ve gathered close to me.
They all crowd in toward me and I’m hit by their familiar scents. The musky mix of panther and dark elf. The fiery ash of Jonah’s presence. Even my half-brother’s crisp, angel scent.
All of it is comforting. And sharply contradictory to the iciness of Emil’s hand, which has remained around the back of my neck, and the ragged press of the broken book, which I’ve kept clutching against my left side.
“Veda?” Jonah’s alarmed voice sounds. “What the fuck is that?”
“Light magic,” Riot snarls, answering for me from where he crouches next to Anarchy.
Their faces are pale with the growing intensity of the light spilling beneath the nearby church door and the increasing pressure in the air.
It’s been mere heartbeats since they all skidded to my side, each one of them now crouching as close to me as they can get.
Like me, they will feel the burn of the light magic across the distance. Sense the impending explosion. And know that we won’t survive it.
My focus is now on Emil.
Once again, he has the power to save us or destroy us, but the mist still isn’t thickening fast enough.
“Emil?”
His jaw is clenched and his cheeks are pale.
Maybe the cracks in my heart haven’t healed enough for him to regain his full power. Maybe he can’t transport us out of here after all.
Or maybe…
Suddenly, all I can hear in my ears is his warning that I should have killed him while I could.
My breath stops as I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
He surprised me by bringing me back to this alley, where I could rejoin my family. He told me to call them and bring them closer if I wanted to save them.
Like a fool, I trusted him.
Despite what I saw in the book…
I still. Fucking. Trust him.
He has all of us in his grasp now.
My father’s light magic is spreading all the way across the alley, blocking the way out. Even Lucian won’t be able to out-fly it.
If Emil wants to hurt me more than he already has, he could transport himself out of here, and me with him, concentrate his protective energy around only the two of us, and leave my family behind to be killed.
Torn apart before my eyes.
If he wants to destroy me, all he has to do now is rip away my hope that my pack will be safe.
With my heart in my throat and a terrible panic rising up within me, I ask, “What is our fate?”
He is like ice, frozen and cold, as the mist finally—finally!—thickens around us.
But then he replies, “I’m taking you to hell.”
CHAPTER FIVE
