One of his mother’s favorite quotes to explain the misery that always seemed to hunt her down.
And that reminded him of something Acheron had once said to him.“Deserving’s got nothing to do with it, Nick. Life is always going to try you, and it’s not going to stop as long as you have breath in your lungs. You can’t tell anything about someone when everything’s going their way. The real mettle of a person shows when everything’s going wrong, and especially when they’re suffering. You either lie down and let life run you over, or you get up and flip it off. Not today, bitches. You’re not going to defeat me. I won’t let you.”
But it was hard to stand up when you’d been kicked down your entire life.
And right now, they had demons demanding his head.
Pushing that pain away so that he could focus, Nick followed the others to the back, where the solarium allowed them to see the demons that were attacking the shield.
Ambrose took one look at them and sneered. “Really?” he shouted. Then he blasted them with more power than Nick had ever seen.
The demons screamed in agony before they burst apart.
Aeron, Vawn, and Kaziel gaped in unison.
Vawn grabbed Aeron’s arm. “I don’t want to burst into flames, man.”
Ambrose glanced at her over his shoulder. “Then don’t piss me off.”
Xev smacked his lips. “From one who has done that, I will say that Ambrose isn’t as mean as his father. Adarian was without a doubt one of the worst psycho Malachais ever born.”
“Says the one who’s been in service to them since the beginning.”
Xev nodded at Caleb’s comment. “None of them were tolerable … until Ambrose. He’s a lot more forgiving, even when pissed. I would simply suggest you stay away from his shields.”
Caleb turned away from the demon barbecue to face Ambrose. “So where exactly are our future selves … in this time period?”
Ambrose gave them a snide smirk. “You know where Nick is.” He indicated himself, then jerked his chin at Kody. “She’s in grade school.”
“Stop!” Nick put his fingers in his ear. “You keep grossing me out with that. I don’t know who the bigger perv is at this moment. You for dating her, or her for being an old woman who came back to see me. Either way, it screws with my head.”
Ambrose ignored him. “The zoo crew”—he indicated Aeron, Vawn, and Kaziel—“went back to the U.K. with Zavid. Been a long time since I’ve heard anything from them, but when last we spoke, they were living it up and having a great time. Caleb is still in my service, as is Xev, but I refuse to tell you any more about them, as I don’t want to screw up history.”
Nick agreed. He knew exactly why Ambrose wasn’t telling them their futures.
“Same with Simi.” Ambrose turned toward Kody. “You know what happens, right?”
“As long as it doesn’t change. I know what they were doing when I was a child and after Nick and I started dating. I assume they’re living the same lives they had before.”
Ambrose inclined his head. “That’s our goal, then. Preserve the timeline.”
“How do we do that?”
Caleb snorted. “Erase Nick’s memory and put him back at home.”
“We tried that,” Xev reminded him. “And they kept coming for him.”
“Because of Cyprian.” Kody sighed as she met Ambrose’s gaze. “You have no memory of him, correct?”
“None.”
“Then he wasn’t here before. You ran across him in high school, but not at any other future time … until you two battled and he killed you.”
Nick placed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “This makes my head hurt.”
Aeron clapped him on the back. “Time travel always does that, laddie. It’s why most creatures don’t tamper with it.”
Nick shook his head. “But Were-Hunters do, right? They don’t live chronologically. How do they not damage lives when they pop back and forth?”
