A crowd was gathering in the courtyard. Sloan and Father Conroy were already there. Conroy’s sunken eyes were hungry as he unfurled the whip. Since Nicolas was in the lead, he marched Aidan over to the post and shackled his wrists.
Aidan struggled hard, yanking uselessly on the chains. When it was finally done, Nicolas stepped back with an imperceptible sigh of relief, stopping beside Ashton and Sam. The hard part was done. Now all he had to do was witness it and pretend he didn’t hate it with every fiber of his being.
“This is wrong!” Aidan screamed at the crowd. “We tried to fight! It was too powerful!”
Nicolas believed him. Ashmedai had held Nicolas against the wall with just a thought. If he didn’t want them getting in the way, he would make sure they couldn’t.
He stood at parade rest with his squad, tuning out Sloan’s grim lecture to the surviving squad members and the watching crowd. He’d heard all of this once before, after all. They were weak, they were cowardly, and they should repent. The circumstances might be slightly different, but the message was always the same. Sloan didn’t care about the truth, only his perception of it. It didn’t matter how strong the demon was, or what powers he had. In Sloan’s eyes, the loss of their squad members was a moral failing that they should be punished for.
Nicolas tried to tune out the crash of the whip hitting skin and the chaotic cries of pain.
Ashmedai was supposed to stop killing paladins. Sloan was holding the Alvarez kids hostage until the Sentinels ‘stopped’ Ashmedai, and Nicolas couldn’t leave until they were freed, one way or another. They wouldn’t be able to convince Sloan that they’d done that if he was still out there killing paladins. Why hadn’t he stopped?
Well. Nicolas knew why. He was obviously hurt. But did that mean he would keep killing, keep making things harder on Nicolas and everyone else? Was he trying to punish Nicolas for sending him away? Or did he just not want to stop?
No, that couldn’t be it. He’d told them during the meeting that he could stop. Maybe Nicolas needed to reach out and see what was going on. Maybe the Sentinels didn’t know he was still killing.
He didn’t know how to reach out to Ashmedai without showing up at the Rink, but he had an excuse to call his brother now. They hadn’t talked in days, and he was a little ashamed of how relieved he was for a reason to call. He was supposed to be the big brother, the strong one. But he didn’t feel very strong right now.
When Nicolas finally—finally—gothome, he shed his clothes on his way to the bathroom and stepped into the shower, letting the water scald him until his eyes watered. His chin wobbled, and for a moment he thought about loosening the reins he held on his emotions. But his day wasn’t yet done.
After he scrubbed himself raw, he dried and dressed, avoiding his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t want to know what he would find staring back at him. He felt like a hollow rind, everything good scooped out and devoured. He stopped at the closed bathroom door, remembering another time, not so long ago, when he’d opened the door and seen orange eyes staring back at him from the darkness of his bedroom.
He hadn’t turned any lights on when he entered the apartment. He didn’t turn many lights on at all these days. Some part of him hoped Ashmedai would be waiting out there for him. No matter what he told himself during the day, in his weakest moments—alone here in his apartment where no one could possibly find out—he couldn’t hide the truth from himself. He missed Ashmedai, and he wanted to see him again. His dreams were filled with remembered touches, the rasp of Ashmedai’s voice in his ear, the tickle of gentle claws on his skin. He would give almost anything for Ashmedai to appear and take him into his arms. Torelieve himof the burdens he carried during the day.
He grasped the doorknob and turned it slowly. His other hand shut off the bathroom light as the door swung open, heart in his throat. Would he be there? Would Nicolas finally be relieved of the guilt he’d carried beneath his breast since the moment he sent Ashmedai away?
No. There were no glowing eyes waiting for him in the shadows. He was alone, just like he’d thought he wanted.
With a heavy sigh, he padded across the room and fetched the burner phone from his closet, then sat down on the bed and went to the contacts. He brought the phone to his ear as it started to ring and leaned back against the headboard, staring at the blank wall across the room.
“Hello?”
Nicolas closed his eyes at the sound of his brother’s voice. “Hi, Danny.”
“Nic,” Daniel breathed. “How are you? How’s the search going?”
“Not so good, really. They don’t trust me yet, so nobody’s telling me anything. That’s actually why I called. Sloan will supposedly free the kids when he thinks Ashmedai is dead, right?”
“Right.”
“So, why are we still getting mummified bodies in the medical wing?”
“Because Ashmedai hasn’t been doing what he’s told. The others had a talk with him, and he’s agreed to back off for real this time.”
“When was that?”
“Last night.”
“Okay, so after today, there should be no more bodies.”
“Correct. He was, uh, pretty upset about what happened between you two. He was taking it out on the paladins, I think.”
Nicolas’s face twisted, and he was glad Daniel couldn’t see the stark misery he felt. There was no way he could hide it. “I figured. I didn’t mean… I…” He wanted to apologize, but Daniel wasn’t the one he needed to say it to.
“I know, Nic. It’s okay,” Daniel said softly.
Nicolas laughed wetly. Tears didn’t count if there was no one there to see them. The darkness would keep his secrets. “I don’t think it is, but maybe I’ll get a chance to make things right.”
