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“Don’t,” he says, his voice dangerous. “It’s been the same story my whole life. From the day I was born.”
I see all of the hurt in his eyes at his words, even though he pulls away from me at the same time. Not so much physically, but it’s like I can feel a mountain of walls spring up between us.
I want to tell him no, that I understand his hurt—maybe I don’t know how bad it was with his archaic father and the abuse his brothers and him endured or what that kind of prolonged trauma was like—but I do know what it’s like to want the love of a parent and feel constant rejection instead. If he would just let me in instead of pushing me away and assuming the worst about my intentions—
“Is it so impossible to believe that I could love both of you?” I ask, my heart breaking at the hardness on his face. “Is there no world where you could believe that I’m the kind of person with enough love in my heart to finally give you the absolute, unconditional love you’ve always deserved? Because I do, Remus. I love you. And I see how you’re hurting. I want to prove to you that you can be loved completely in a world where he exists, too. Let me prove to you how worthy I think you are.”
He’s only standing a few feet away from me, and I can see him shaking with emotion he doesn’t know how to express.
An explosive knock at the door stops both of us before anything else can be said or thrown onto the gauntlet between us.
Remus stalks toward the door and yanks it open with an explosive, “What?”
“It’s happening,” Abaddon says, voice urgent.
“What’s happening?” Remus is impatient.
“Goddammit, Remus, you and Romulus need to figure out whatever’s off between you two because it’s really fucking obnoxious to have to say everything twice. The end of the world meeting we had this morning? It’s happening.”
End of the world meeting? I sprint over to where they’re huddled at the door.
“Stay here,” Remus orders me gruffly, stepping through the door and trying to shove it closed in my face.
“Are you kidding?” I slip through the open slit in the door before he can shut it. “He just said end of the world! I’m not just staying huddled in a dark room.”
I see the other women pushing out their doors, too, babies swaddled against their chests in makeshift cloth carriers.
“Where you go, we go,” Ksenia says firmly.
“We don’t have time,” Abaddon says curtly, turning to Hannah standing beside Ksenia. “And I need to know you’re safe.”
“Are any of us safe?” Hannah grasps his arm. “Better not to be separated.”
He looks reluctant but turns. “Follow me. And stay close.”
We do, a huddle of monsters and consorts hurrying down the hallway. We head back into the large central courtyard where we first entered. Do they think we’ll have to take off again in the helicopter? I don’t suppose anyone’s going to stop and explain the whole “end of the world” thing to me, are they? Uh, hello???
“Do you know what’s going on?” I ask Hannah as we rush forward.
She clutches her toddler to her chest and shakes her head as we spill out into the cloudy light of the courtyard. “Something about rogue spirits and a prophecy or something? I don’t know.”
In the distance, in the very center of the courtyard, I see the chief vampire’s granddaughter, Phoenix, bent over with chalk in her hand, along with a woman I don’t recognize. Several fire pits are set up along four points to create a giant circle with lots of symbols chalked all over the ground inside it.
Layden runs around the circle, and I jump back a little when I see light spring out of his hands, illuminating the chalk runes on the ground.
“What’s happening?” Abaddon demands.
Layden doesn’t stop, light still pouring out of his hands into the circle as he yells, “We finally figured out what the AI’s doing, and there’s no time!”
“Well? What is it?” Vlad shouts from outside the circle near where Phoenix stands up, surveying her work. Her grandfather steps forward, almost into the circle, when Phoenix shoves him back at the last moment before his foot crosses the line.
“Don’t!” she shouts.
Vlad looks furious at that. I look to Remus, wondering if he’s in the mood to do something foolish after our fight, but he stays back, his eyes darting around as if he’s soaking in all the information of the situation, just like me and the rest of his brothers.
“The circle’s almost complete,” Phoenix explains hurriedly, eyes still on Layden and the other woman chalking lines. “And we just saw the AI start the sequence to launch nuclear codes in Russia and China. It doesn’t want to control the world. It wants to destroy it.”
I stumble back, Remus’s hand steadying me.
