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I stared at him, my stomach suddenly twisting itself into knots. “No.”
“There may be no choice,” he said, voice even but somehow relentless. “If the elemental has won the war, then Tao is already lost to you.”
“No!” I clenched my fists against the anger—the useless, sick anger that was fueled part by fear and part by the knowledge that he was right—and added, “I will not give up on him.”
While there was life, there was always hope.
Besides, I’d promised Tao I would do all that I could to help him win. Giving up at the first major hurdle was not doing that.
“Risa—”
I made a chopping motion with my hand. “I don’t want to hear it, Azriel. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what fate plans. I don’t care about being sensible. I will not give up on my friend. Okay?”
He studied me for several seconds, then crossed his arms and turned back to the window. Every inch of his muscular back seemed to radiate displeasure.
“Okay.”
“Glad we agree,” I muttered. I grabbed my phone, then stalked out to the kitchen.
I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry, but I wasn’t about to fall into the trap of not eating. Not when I actually felt reasonably healthy for the first time in ages.
I made myself a coffee, then sat down and consumed a large bowl of Coco Pops complete with lashings of whole milk. Not the healthiest of meals, but a slight step up from the chocolate cake that had initially tempted me.
As I rinsed the bowl out, my phone rang, and the funeral march tone told me it was Hunter. I closed my eyes and, for all of three seconds, resisted the urge to answer it. But Markel’s warning loomed large in the back of my mind. I swore softly, then did the sensible thing.
“There’s been another murder,” she said before I could even open my mouth to say hello.
Of course there was. I mean, why wouldn’t fate just chuck more fuel into the bonfire of insanity that was my life at the moment? “Same MO?”
“Apparently. The report came in via Directorate channels, and it is not someone I know.”
Thank god for that. The last thing we needed was for someone to be targeting Hunter’s friends or lovers. She was close enough to the edge as it was. “I’m guessing you want me to check it out?”
“Yes. The address has been sent, so get there.” Something flashed in her eyes. Something that was almost unholy. “Find this thing, Risa.”
She hung up. The phone beeped as her message came in. I glanced at it, noting that this time, the murder had occurred in the more middle-class suburb of Caulfield.
Azriel appeared in the kitchen. “How do you wish to travel there?”
I hesitated. “As much as I’d love to go on my bike, I’m thinking that when Hunter said ‘get there,’ she meant immediately.” If not sooner. I grabbed some gloves out of the cupboard under the sink, then stepped toward him. “Ready when you are, chief.”
His arms came around me, wrapping me in warmth. “Hardly an appropriate name when you never listen to a word I say, let alone do what I say.”
Though his tone was light, there was an edge that suggested there was more emotion behind the comment than he’d intended me to hear. I glanced up quickly, but his power surged, sweeping us from flesh to energy in a heartbeat before zipping us through the gray fields.
“Azriel—” I said, as we re-formed, but the rest of the sentence was cut off by a sudden and angry, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
And the shit just hit the fan, I thought, but plastered a smile on my face as I turned around. Uncle Rhoan stood in the doorway of the ultramodern brick and concrete two-story house, his red hair glowing in the last remnants of daylight and gray eyes glinting with anger. Obviously, Hunter had not given me priority over the Directorate this particular time.
“I was asked here,” I said. “Believe me, I’m no happier about it than you are.”
He eyed me for a moment, expression disbelieving. “Are you saying Jack ordered you here?”
“Yes, I am.” And heaven help me if Jack didn’t back that statement up.
If Rhoan detected the lie, he gave no indication of it. He came down the steps and strode toward me. I held my ground in the face of his fierceness, even though all I wanted to do was run.
“Why the fuck would he do that? You’re not Directorate.”
