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“I go from one extreme to the other,” I say, thinking of the generally stoic Slade to…my madhouse.
Something very unpleasant wafts into the house, and I pinch my nose.
“Yeah, that’s your urine. Not even magic couldn’t expunge that territory marking,” Dice drawls, smirking at me as horror washes over me.
Thoroughly dead and pissed on…
That’s utterly mortifying.
“Awesome,” I state dryly, as Chaz works damn hard to keep a straight face. “What do we know right now? Anything new?”
“Gavin still refuses Slade’s offer, and—”
“He doesn’t think he can do it?” I ask, frowning. “Because I’m pretty sure Slade is the only one who can do it. He works magic differently than we do.”
“Oh, Gavin certainly thinks Slade is capable of doing it, because he said the same thing,” Dad says on a harsh exhale. “He doesn’t think Slade will do it. Whatever power he’s siphoning would be possibly enough to vaporize Hannah if Slade manages to be a conductor. And that’s the route Slade would more likely take.”
I can’t even argue with that, even though the urge to defend him is almost stifling.
Dad looks back down at his phone before speaking again. “We’re in the process of relocating. Again. I don’t know if Hannah sent Adam to us or if he tracked us himself. But I’m going to stay at the safe house with Alyssa for a while, because I didn’t know things like that existed, and I now know Drackus and Calypso can’t handle anything even close to that,” Dad says, lifting his phone.
“You can’t handle anything close to that either,” I say, my heartbeat speeding up.
His brow furrows as he looks over at me.
“I’m just like you, Ella. I can—”
“You’re not just like me. You’re more night stalker. That…whatever it was…can’t be destroyed with your strongest weapon. Its blood is equivalent to tasting toxic waste. Hannah knew that when she made it. It didn’t just withstand our magic. It baited us into using magic that it siphoned from us. Then he used it against us,” I go on. “It toyed with us.”
“Then what would you have me do, Ella? Not fight it and allow it to kill everyone?” he growls.
“No. I’d have you call me so I can fight it. The thing I’m best at when I’m too far gone is replicating the damage done to Slade. Hannah knows our strengths, so instead of using our strengths, we use hers and the methods of her predecessors. That’s what killed him. That magic I used wasn’t to actually hurt him. It was to bait him into absorbing too much, and clearly it worked.”
Not that I remember anything past the point of letting the magic free from me.
My chest is heaving, because I can feel panic clawing at my throat, the image of my father bloody and on the ground in a heap trying to niggle its way into the forefront on my mind.
I know I’m stronger than Dad, and I couldn’t have killed it alone, not even when I gave into the power and let it run free with the force of the darkness tied to it. I could sense Slade with me, even as my mind stayed blank.
I felt his power fuse with mine, even as the blinks seemed seconds apart, shielding me from what piece of my mind had taken over.
“I can handle it, Ella. I’ve seen how to handle it now,” he says softly, his hand cupping my cheek.
Dice’s phone starts playing Boogie Nights, and we all look over at him as he ignores Karma’s call again.
“Have you seriously not gone to see your pregnant girlfriend simply because you don’t want her to make fun of you?” I ask on an irritated breath, deflecting.
Dad won’t listen to me. He doesn’t have to. He’s the one in charge, and I’m left spinning in a circle, feeling helpless.
“Uh, no,” Dice says, holding a finger up. “Her blind infatuation with me is what keeps her believing I’m charming. If she sees me like this, it’ll shatter the illusion.”
I open my mouth to point out the fact Karma, for some unknown, insane reason actually loves him, but Dad waves me off.
“Don’t even bother. I’ve already tried,” he says dismissively.
“Is Mom really going to allow the Dragonites to exist outside our law?” I ask Dad, and he huffs out a breath like he wasn’t expecting that random shift.
“We don’t want a war with them. They don’t want to go to war with us. I know you and I discussed this, and I completely agree at the possibility of this having consequences, but for now, it’s the most diplomatic resolution. One war at a time, Ella. I really do have to go. I’ll see if I can make sense of this portal book Chaz said you think has the answers.”
