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ChapterFour
“We can’t just leave Vori out there.”Perry raced to add logical reasons that even the destructive duo wouldn’t ignore.No matter how much they hated him.“She’s alone, unarmed, naked.In the middle of Death Valley.We’re in California, right?”He hoped the Senate hadn’t moved him across the country while he was knocked out, but one giant sandbox looked like any other in the dark.
“Be scared for the guards.”Alys, the pain bringer who’d been the worst of the prison’s worst, propped her booted toes on the dash.“Not for our cousin.”
If physical harm didn’t matter to them, maybe emotional did.He had no reference for how functional families worked, but the adopted cousins seemed close.“Being abandoned screws with people.”It’d ruined his childhood, his life.Yet he’d walked away from Vori the night they’d met.And now, he’d left her again.
“You’d better hope nothing screws with her.”Alexei hung a sharp left, and they dodged a giant cactus that scraped the SUV’s side with a stomach-churning screech.“Or I’ll need a damn good reason to follow through on our promise to her to keep you safe.”
“Which is why we should go back for her.”Perry had argued leniency for mass murderers in court more easily than persuading these two.
Alys twisted in her seat.“You’re why she’s out there.We told her to leave you to the Senate, although I’m glad she decided to trip the locks for you the first time.”
Pieces of the psycho prison puzzle lined up in his head.“The jailbreak.Not this one.The one before.When she let me out of the Senate’s cell, Vori was there for you.”
“Yes and no.She threw the lock to set you free, and my cell opened.You’re the latest of the lost causes.She saves strays.The puppies aren’t as smelly as you.”
“Smarter too.”Alexei’s deep voice edged above a growl.“Joining the Revelare, a cult with the mother of all demons leading it?Not a wise choice.”
The one time in Perry’s life that he’d stopped thinking and reacted based upon emotion, recklessness.Or ithadbeen the only time.
Until tonight.
Until he’d followed the woman of his dreams to who knew where they were headed.
“It was the only way to survive.For what’s left of my family to survive.The Revelare doesn’t take no for an answer.Reject them and they kill you and everyone you care about, not in that order.Plus, I thought they had my sister.I was wrong in so many ways.”
“Sometimes death is the noble choice.”Alexei glanced at his sister.“But protecting your family, that’s a worthy cause.”
Great.The supermodel had left him with a demon hybrid who had a hero complex.
“You tried to kill some of the Senate’s heirs, right?”Alys asked him.
“Revelare compulsion wards.Your cousin already made sure they’ve been sliced, burned, and salted out of me.”
“Cool.Canyon.”She sounded as though she narrated insane desert rides daily.The Hummer skidded into a hairpin curve.
Perry looked out the window, and his pulse sped as if racing the Hummer.They hugged the edge of a steep drop-off.One wrong move by the mobster or a single tremble in earthquake country would send them careening down the side.A white current danced over his fingers.
“Are you trying to fry the electrical system?”Alexei jerked the steering wheel.
“No, I’mtryingnot to light up anything.”Perry breathed to calm the magic.He failed.“Sometimes I have control.Other times I have almost none.”
“Because it’s not a witch power.That’s a demon ability you’re throwing around, and that magic takes years to master.”The demon mob boss should know.“At least yours is low voltage.”
It wasn’t.Perry had shot a helicopter out of the sky, almost killing two Legacy witches.Thank the powers Vori had taken the edge off his magic tonight, or it’d be sparking all over the Hummer.
“If you’re a witch, how can you do that?”Alys asked.“Male witches…”
“Don’t have active powers,” he finished the sentence for her.“I know.I’ve been told how useless I am since I was born.”He lapsed into the professor voice he’d learned the lesson in.“Witches have always been ruled by their women because we men have only two purposes.To protect and procreate.But my power to manipulate electricity?That was a gift.”He said the last word like the curse that it was.
The pain bringer fluffed her hair in the visor’s mirror.“From the Revelare’s leader?”
“Yes.”His chest tightened with the memory of the surges ripping through him the first time.“I hope those Legacy witches banished that demon back to the hell where she belongs.”She and whatever succubus spawn of hers had possessed his dead sister’s body.
“Us too.”Alys clicked the visor back into place.“The Revelare has caused us enough problems.”
“Your imprisonment?”That made no sense.The mother of all demons didn’t have any business with the Senate except to overthrow it.
