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“Alys?”
“No, my other cousin.”That shut him up.As if he was thinking hard about the possibility of Vori bringing yet more family with deadly magic.Or he could simply be pushing past the pain.She put her arm around his waist, and he didn’t protest.He had to be hurting.
He leaned against her and let her lead the way out of the dirty hovel.They’d cleared the side door when he stopped them both.“I knew this was a bad idea.”
She jerked her head up.The all-black Hummer blended into the bleak desert night with the lights off.Alys sat cross-legged on the roof.
“Fiiinally.”Her cousin made it sound as if the last few minutes had been years.“We gotta go.Witch guards are coming for him.”She yanked buglike goggles down to cover her eyes and shouldered a giant gun.“Let’s blow this joint.”
Perry stood so rigid, he could’ve passed for a gargoyle instead of a witch.“Is that a rocket launcher?Why does the pain bringer have a rocket launcher?”
Vori ignored the way her heart double-timed worse than it had during the photo shoot she’d done on a trapeze.“An RPG isn’t part of the plan.”
“What?No laughs?”Alys lowered the launcher so that the warhead pointed at them.“Blow as inboom, and joint ’cause it’s a prison.”She giggled at her oh-so-bad joke.
“You’re not helping me sell the whole fake husband job.”Vori yanked open the rear passenger door and gestured for Perry to get inside.
He didn’t move.“She won’t really use that, will she?”
“Yep.”Alys sounded like a demented cheerleader at hell’s championship pep rally.“Those guards need to think you went splat.”The happy way she described pretend graphic death for Vori’s fake husband?It almost made stoic Alexei grumping behind the wheel look all life-of-the-prison-break party.
Until her cousin opened his mouth.“Your witch reeks.”
“Thank you, General Obvious.He’s not mine.Not yet anyway.”She could’ve done this alone.Sheshould’vedone this alone.“He’ll clean up, but he’s hurt.Pop the back for me.I need the first aid kit.”
“No time.”He revved the Hummer’s engine.“You can play nurse on the way.”
“Get in.”She shoved her witch toward the back seat, but he resisted.
“AlexeiMaronov is your other cousin?”Perry’s voice wasn’t anyone’s idea of a whisper.Not at all.“How’d your family not make the press with your celebrity status?He’s the mob boss of this continent when it comes to demons.”
“I’m not a mob boss.”Alexei almost sounded like he wasn’t lying.“No criminal convictions.”That part was true at least.“And we’re demon hybrids.That’s a big damn difference from the mother of all demons you worked for.You’re awfully judgmental for a man who joined an evil cult.”
Perry didn’t answer him but stared at Vori.“You can’t trust demons.”
“Maybe you can’t, but they’re family.Adopted doesn’t make them any less so.”They’d taken her in as one of their own—the one blessing in Baba Yaga’s corrupt bargain.“Time to go.”
Her almost-consort didn’t budge.“What if your cousin is lying?What if there are no guards?What if no one’s coming for me?”
“Get.In.Now.”Vori broke down the order as if he was an idiot because he was acting like one.“Look around.There’s no one else here.You were drugged and dumped.You do the not-so-magical math.”
Alys thunked the top of the Hummer with the rocket launcher.“Alexei’s spyware lets me listen in on their radio chatter.They’re coming to kill you.”She twisted the death threat into singsong.
Vori mimicked her cousin’s annoying tone.“You’re not helping.”
Alexei didn’t bother.“Yank him in or leave him.Either way, we go.”
Perry’s gaze locked on her face, seeming to search for something.Whatever it was, he’d better find it fast.She opened her mouth to reason with him, but he ducked his head and climbed into the back seat.
“In you go with your consort, cuz.”Alys followed the command with an air kiss.“I’m strapped in and ready for action.Floor it, bro!”
Vori jumped in with a lack of grace that sent her crashing into Perry.The door behind herclonkedshut at the same time as the Hummer shot forward.“Get down.”She couldn’t promise his safety in Kradnovtl, but they had to make out of this realm alive first.“Cover your head.”
“We’re fine.”Alexei tore through the dark desert as fast as he could fly in full demon general mode.“The Hummer has been stripped to its chassis and rebuilt with ballistic plate steel.We’re protected.”
“But what about the crazy on the roof?”Perry and his endless freakin’ questions.“Isn’t she exposed—”
Vori interrupted.“I’m more worried about the staph infection or gangrene setting up in those gross cuts of yours.”Scrambling to hang over the seat, she dug for the first aid kit.Boxes, flats of water bottles, and what looked like a body bag shifted back and forth in the cargo area.“Projecting pain isn’t Alys’s only talent.”She wouldn’t share more with someone who’d ghosted her and betrayed his own government.
