Page 56 of Cold Sacrifice

I was something else.

And Kronor shivered, and I knew that, as well. I knew, because I felt him. I was connected to the demons. Now I could fight Kronor. Now I could hurt him.

The demon fire burned me to the bone, and when I dropped to the frozen earth once again, I was missing parts of myself only recently awakened.

I was missing things—the shapeshifter, the butterfly, the magic from the bites of the vampire ghost and the daywalker and Zach. They were wrapped up in the energy that made me what I was.

But everything I’d been born with remained, and those parts would never leave me. My fierce wolf, because if she died, all of me would die. My ability to see the dead, because they were my very soul. If they died, it would mean I’d deserted the physical realm for the spiritual one.

I knew what I was. I had no doubts about what might be hiding inside me. I knew all of myself, for the first time in my life.

Abruptly, I was back inside the council hall, but I was alone. It didn’t matter. I no longer needed the elders.

And Wes Korda would have to wait, because at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about Voss or those who’d created him.

I just wanted my people. And that right there was what separated me from the demons, and that was what I would embrace.

I still did something no demon could ever do.

I still loved.

Chapter Twenty

Aaron stared at me when I reached the car, and I’d seen him looking at me with something similar in his eyes before.

I returned his stare. “What do you see, Aaron?”

He sighed, the brim of his cap creating shadows in his eyes. “I see the council changing you once again. What did they do to you this time?”

I was sure my smile was rueful. “They actually helped me,” I said.

He frowned. “You’re different.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “I think all of me is here now.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how it will manifest.”

He opened my door for me. “How what will manifest?”

I surprised myself by telling him the truth. “My demon, Aaron. Apparently, I’m part demon.” Although when I’d been changing and burning, when I’d felt phantom wings unfurling at my back, it hadn’t felt like I was part demon. It had felt like I was all demon.

And maybe that was the thing I wouldn’t admit aloud.

“Home?” he asked when we were on the highway.

“Shadowfield,” I told him. “Wake me when we get there.”

He nodded. “Rest, Kait.”

I was asleep immediately. The next time I awakened, Jared was pulling me from the car and lifting me into his arms. For one instant, there was something in his eyes, just as there’d been something in Aaron’s eyes.

But it was just a shadow, quickly gone.

“You’re tired,” he murmured. “A run in the woods will restore you.”

Maybe he could clearly see my demon and wanted to make sure I didn’t forget my wolf. Or maybe I was just being silly.

“Let’s run,” I said. I wanted to be my wolf.

I laced my fingers with his as we walked to the woods. “I think my butterfly, my shapeshifter, even my psycho are gone, Jared.” Then I immediately grimaced. “No, not gone, but bundled into the demon. I think all those things were simply parts of the demon that I never allowed to be whole.” I shook my head. “I’m not making sense.”