Page 94

Ryan snickered and lifted his beer in a mock toast. “So… Eryn, can you control Bennett now? Because, I’ve got some ideas.”

“I wouldn’t even know how.” Eryn looked at her hand before dropping it into her lap.

“Was it different?” Astrid asked, curled into one of the side chairs now, the baby cooing on her lap.

“That was like that comparison to drinking blood, I guess. Not like guzzling from a fresh spring, like it was with my dying patient. I had to work to get even a drop.” Eryn looked around the room. At the fantastical people who were born to fight. She landed on Bennett, the powerful being, whose soul was so tasty that even a drop of it tasted like a feast. “If you can take Tisiphone so easily yourself, why don’t you? Save me the trouble?”

He flicked a glance at Vann.

Vann shook his head, chewing the side of his tongue. “When she absorbs your soul, she’s binding you to her. Not in a nurturing or connecting way, like when demons marry, but… it’s about control for her.”

“So we kill her.” Eryn leaned back and studied his distant expression.

“If we kill her, it’ll kill you, too.”

18

A new pinch stabbed in his knees as he squatted at Eryn’s apartment door and installed the new knob. The wyvern claw had gone deeper into his knee than he’d realized. Braced with a tool bag on one side and a box of supplies on the other, the door wobbled in the wind.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Eryn said, climbing the stairs to meet him. A popsicle of a human—a person. Fuck. She wasn’t fully human.

She reminded him of Lana. More of Archer’s loving bitching about Lana’s icicle feet freezing him at night. Except it was Eryn’s whole body entwined around him all night, and she was literally hypothermic.

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Not much.” Every joint simultaneously raged and cheered as he changed positions and sat on the top step. He patted the landing next to him and looked up at her with a silly, winning grin.

A few steps down, she drew her phone from the pocket of her borrowed hoodie and unlocked it. Without a word, she passed it across. A fucking text message from a local number. “Sister, it is time. Friday night. Let’s share a bottle of wine and plan your future.”

Vann’s breath halted in his bruised lungs.

Eryn scrolled to show her response. “If there is a single wyvern waiting for me, you’ll never see me again.”

He smiled at the phone.

“No harm will come to you. I promise.”

“She won’t trust me if I don’t fight back when I can.” Eryn shrugged as he read her response. “Don’t avoid the subject, sister. No wyverns.”

“No wyverns. You will find this last step far more comfortable.”

“After years of making me search for her in the woods, we’re now on texting terms, and I have a personal invitation to her house. I’m flattered.” Eryn took the phone back and inhaled.

He offered a quiet smile. Still a kid, and she’d bargained her soul away to save her sister. Not once had she even considered running.

Eryn huddled into the sweatshirt, lowered to sit, and leaned into him.

Fluidly, he wrapped an arm around her and held her close, fueling what warmth he could into her.

She rested her head on his shoulder and traced her fingertips along his forearm before linking fingers with his.

“Um, Eryn…”

“Yeah?”

“There’s more you should know.”

“No.” She nuzzled close and heaved a sigh.