The woman broke free of her grasp and scrambled for the door.
His breathing ragged, he shook his head. “You can’t… kill her.”
“Why ever not?”
“It’s Urian’s Phoebe. Kill her and he’ll never forgive you!”
18
Those unexpected words floored Medea and leashed her claws as she stared at the open door through which the Daimon had just vanished.
Urian’s Phoebe?
It couldn’t be. There was no way.
Davyn staggered away from her to reach for a blanket so that he could cover himself while that name sunk in past her sudden stupor.
Stunned beyond belief, Medea stood there, gaping.
No…
Wasn’t possible.
Lots of women were named Phoebe. Right?
Yeah, but he’d saidUrian’sPhoebe.
“You don’t really mean Urian-Urian’s Phoebe.”
Pale and shaking, Davyn wrapped the blanket around his lean waist. His caramel skin had a grayish tint. Obviously shaken, he sat down on the bed and raked a trembling hand through his tousled blond hair. “I don’t know how, either. Like you, I thought I was dreaming at first… but it was her. I’d know her anywhere. Saw her many times over the years. It was her, beyond all doubt.”
Her thoughts reeled. “It can’t be. My father killed her.” That was what everyone had been told.
Everyone.
“That’s what I thought, too. It’s what we were all told. Yet I know what I saw, Medea. I met her when she lived in the commune. Many times when I went there with Urian.” He wiped at his thigh, smearing the blood over his skin. “I swear to the gods, it was Phoebe. I know it was. I even felt her scrambled thoughts while she fed from me.”
She sank down on the bed to sit beside him. “Was she brought back somehow?”
It could happen. In their world? Weird was normal. Impossible doable.
“I don’t know. I mean how could they? We disintegrate on death, right? But that washerbody. Not someone else’s they used to host her soul.”
Yeah. Daimons turned into a gold dust that quickly scattered whenever they died. While their souls could be brought back from the grave, they required a new body to house them in. It was impossible to put them back into their disintegrated body, since it was gone.
To her knowledge, not even the gods could do that.
Scowling, she looked over at him. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know, Chicken Little,” he repeated. His features were even paler now. His expression turned sinister. “This will destroy Urian when he finds out. There’s no telling how he’ll cope with the news.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. “Will it? All he wants is Phoebe back.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t her. I mean it is. But…” He ground his teeth. “She’s not right anymore. That wasn’t the same woman he knew.”
“Gallu?”
He pulled the blanket back so that she could see the bite mark on his thigh. “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t I be turning into one by now if she was one of them?”
