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“But you’re sure she told the Nightwalkers to keep me here if I won?”
Tabby nodded. “That’s why I jumped down—”
“Fell down.”
Adam chuckled when his slayer stuck her tongue out at him.
“Anyway, I was back-up. What kind of back-up would I be if I let you take out this corpse only to get snagged by the goons waiting in the next room?” Tabby made a small, aggravated noise in the back of her throat. “She called you her betrothed.”
Adam’s heart just about stopped breathing his ch
est. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
He’d asked her that same question once before. The night he brought her to meet Eva, when he first began to think that maybe Tabby saw him as more than a romp in the sheets.
Tabby reached into her pocket, pulling out the glass vial with the orange slayer dust in it. Her dark eyes glittered with honest affection, though her words sounded flippant when she shot back, “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
Yes.
Yes, he would.
And, as he closed his hand around the vial, he smiled down at her. He even showed off his dimple.
Because that’s what she’d said then, too.
23
Clean-up was easy, courtesy of Tabby’s slayer dust. He had a grim sort of satisfaction, sprinkling the glittering orange powder over Rafe’s remains and watching the Nightwalker disappear into nothingness. After months of working toward this exact moment, he waited until the last of Rafe Silverson was nothing but stray dots of ash on the tile before dragging the tip of his boot through the mess.
There.
All gone.
Tabby hung back. Apart from handing him the glass vial of dust and wet wipe, she didn’t say anything as Adam finished with the scene. He used the wipe to erase the spray of blood that coated his cheek, his neck, his upper arm. Remembering how she sprinkled the dust on the Nightwalker in Woodbridge after she took him out, he did the same to Rafe.
As soon as the last of his remains were turned to nothingness, Adam rose from the floor.
“I guess that’s that.”
“I… I guess so.”
“I meant to tell you… nice strike with the falchion.”
“Thanks.” Glancing down at his blade, he watched the lights flicker and reflect against the glossy, wet streak of blood along the edge. The machete would’ve done the job, but he’d spent so long imagining what it would be like to take out Rafe with Julian’s dagger. The fact that he recognized it when it took him so long to remember Adam? It only made his victory sweeter. “I’m glad I got to use this. It only seemed right.” He paused. “Falchion? Did I say that right?”
“Yup.”
“Falchion, huh?”
She nodded. “That’s what it’s called.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
Because he was going to keep it. Even though he knew he should probably clean it up and ask Diaz to toss it back down to evidence now that he’d used it like he wanted, it didn’t seem right to give it up. Besides, if his old squad hadn’t figured it was missing yet, it probably wasn’t like they’d go looking for it any time soon.
It was his. From the moment he accidentally triggered the enchantment with the tip of his claw, it belonged to Adam. And now that his hopes of getting the elixir were as dead as Rafe, he might as well continue to use it.
So long as he used the magic to guide him to exterminate the Paras who didn’t have a shred of humanity in them, maybe Adam could hold onto the last of his.
