She may have been a witch—a very powerful one, even if she didn’t realize it yet—but underneath all that magic and fire and thoseseriouslyarse-kicking boots, she was still a human. A beautiful, vivacious, twenty-five-year-old woman with hopes and dreams and a soft heart, no matter how badly she tried to convince herself—and the rest of us—otherwise.
She deserved better than this. Every witch in this room—Sophie, Marisol, Helene—deserved better.
When I touched Gray’s shoulder, she flinched, but I held firm. “I’ll finish it, Gray. Clean up as best you can, then wait for me upstairs. Your friend is probably worried.”
“Do you know,” she said, her voice suddenly devoid of warmth, “Ronan was the one who taught me how to kill monsters? No offense.”
“None taken.” I winked to let her know it was okay, hoping to bring back a bit of her spark. Her face had gone so pale, her eyes glassy. “It’s a bit of a required skill in this city, isn’t it?”
“He was my first friend here,” she said, her voice still strangely detached, “and almost before I knew his name, he was drilling it into me about never leaving home without weapons. About identifying the entry and exit points for any room or closed-in space.” She smoothed her hands over the front of her short skirt. “I know the fastest ways to kill a fae with an iron blade—and the slowest. I’ve memorized the Achilles Heels of every creature known to the Bay, and some that’ve only appeared in mythology books, just in case. I might be outmatched, out magicked, outpaced, and I might not stand a chance against three vamps or a rabid shifter or winter fae magic, but even then, I’d never go down without a fight. But you know something, Darius?”
“What is it, love?”
She picked her way through the carnage and stood before me, turning her blue eyes my way. In the span of thirty seconds I watched her age a hundred years.
“All of that is just knowledge in my head,” she said. “Monster or not, I’ve never actually killed anyone. I’ve always found another way.”
“There’sstillanother way, Gray. Let me—”
“No. I can’t keep letting everyone else clean up my messes. You fought for me, and I just… It’s time I… I have to do this.”
“But you don’t.”
“No. I really do.” She took the bloody bone saw from my hand, a brutal contrast against her pale skin, and approached the woman still lying unconscious on the floor. I listened to the beat of her heart—one, two, three, four, five—and then she took a breath and dropped to her knees, blade in hand, and began.
It was bloody, messy work, but Gray was determined to see it through. When she finally finished, the woman’s lolled to the side, her auburn braid glistening with dark blood, and Gray rose,
Working her way toward the vampire I’d staked, she said, “One down, one to go.”
I stopped her mid-step, prying the saw from her hands. “You’ve done enough for tonight, Gray. Truly.”
She held on for a moment, but eventually relented, heading for the sinks while I finished the job.
After scrubbing her hands raw for a full five minutes, she finally turned off the water and turned to me, wavering on her feet. “Darius? Something’s… off.”
I rushed forward on instinct, catching her just as she collapsed.
“Oh, Gray. It’s alright, love.” I scooped her into my arms and carried her out of that wretched place, away from the blood and destruction, away from the reminder of what she’d done. Pressing a kiss to her temple, I said, “We had no other choice. Don’t feel bad for this.”
“That’s the thing, D. Idon’tfeel bad.” Her voice was faint, her body trembling with exhaustion and leftover adrenaline. When she looked up at me again, her eyes were utterly flat. “I don’t feel anything.”
Twenty-Seven
Gray
“Jonesin’ for a caffeine hit?” I eyed Darius from the passenger seat of his custom Aston Martin Spitfire as he pulled in behind Luna’s, a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop at the edge of Hudson Marina.
We’d just dropped off Haley, who deserved a medal for keeping that guard distracted while Darius and I waited for his “people”—a group of shadowy vampires that arrived within minutes of his call and wordlessly swept into the morgue, cleaning up our mess and eradicating the evidence that tied us to the deaths of those bloodsucking fuckwaffles.
I’d lost the case files in the melee, but at the moment I didn’t think I could look at them again, anyway. Right now, all I could see was blood.
All I could smell, all I could feel, all I could taste was blood.
Murderer…
You did this to me.
Witch.
