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“Nope.I got locked up by your witch bitches after a human organization ratted me out.The Order.Ever heard of them?”
“No, but there’s no way the Senate would’ve worked with humans.They hate them as much as they do—” He snapped his mouth shut before finishing the sentence, his brain pinging too late with a warning about present company.
“Hybrids,” she said.“We know your Senate hates us.The humans know it too.It’s how the Order could use witches to come after me.”
“Why you?”
Alexei braked hard and fast, sending him slamming against the back of the man’s seat.Gravel clink-clink-clinked against metal.A cloud of dirt billowed around the windows, blocking out the moonlight.“Because they take what matters most.Family.”
Perry knew he’d regret the question, yet he couldn’t help himself.“Why would humans be after you?Either of you?”
Alys answered.“Because big bro is the scariest demon general in the world with the money, magic, scientists, and weapons to back his title.”She made the bragging sound somehow underrated.“Tell anyone, and I’ll make you wish I’d cut your tongue out.”
“Noted.”Perry hoped he hid the tremor of panic that thickened his threatened tongue.“Humans were after your guns?I mean I saw the rocket launcher, but couldn’t they find less…difficult weapons dealers to take on?”
Alexei’s voice rumbled in the silence.“The Order wanted our research.Witches, shifters, demon hybrids, even humans—we all come from a connected source.I funded origin studies for over a decade, and I’d finally gotten closer to the truth with Alys’s help.”
“What truth?”Because Perry had heard all the theories from the dad who’d abandoned him, but as far as he knew, no one had discovered the supernatural origin.
“Thetruth.Who we are.How we came to be.Why we are different but the same.I almost had the answer before they tried to kill my sister.When that attack didn’t stop me, they sold her to your Senate.So I took someone who mattered to the Order, and they’ll never get her back.”The way the man saidher—tinged with awe, rapture, and sacrifice—reminded Perry of pious humans who worshipped saints or zealous witches who prayed to their burned martyrs.
“What…?”He trailed off, unsure if he should hear a murder confession, one committed in the name of so-called righteousness.“Who…?”
“No more questions, witch.We wait for Vori.”
Alys held her phone up.“No signal.I can’t find her locator.”
“If we can’t find her, she’ll find us.”The big man made it seem as though the supermodel could see in the dark and run superhero-fast after their speeding vehicle.
Maybe they should’ve gone after the van and let these two unleash whatever terrible powers they had instead of dumping Vori in the middle of nowhere.
The silence in the desert was so different from the constant noises of the Senate’s prison—the clanging of harbor bells, the blasting horns of ships, and the wailing of sirens.That’d been on top of the jail sounds—the jangling of keys, knocking against bars, shouts, and screams of inmates depending on sanity level.This lack of sound settled over him heavy and suffocating, as if someone had stolen the air from inside the Hummer.He tugged at his ragged jumpsuit to breathe through the gnawing worry twisting his gut.
The light of Alys’s phone glinted off the gold watch Vori had left behind.Cartier.The supermodel had excellent taste.She’d left her clothes scattered across the back seat and floorboards.He reached to pick up her jacket, a supple and soft creation that must’ve been custom made for her given the lack of labels and the way it had skimmed her curves.For a moment, he hesitated.
This luxury had been his life once—expensive watches, couture clothes, foreign sports cars.All gone now.Most of it was with his father.Or so the man had claimed when he’d found Perry in the prison.
Vori’s clothes smelled of her and promised a tease of the life he’d taken for granted and squandered.The life he could’ve had with her.He traced the collar and stilled.Something was sewn into the seams there.A hidden compartment.He found more of the same in the zipper, the sleeves, in interior pockets.
A peek inside showed slim metal picks for locks and a lipstick tucked away in a design that wouldn’t interrupt the flow of the material.A long chain slipped from another pocket, and he moved to catch it.Two charms dangled from the gold.One was a Nahualli-crafted charm he’d never seen before.The other?The tracking spell he’d given her.Had she carried it all this time?Had she used it to find him?
A loudwhomphit the ground next to the Hummer—something heavy enough to shake the big vehicle.He couldn’t see anything other than the reflection of Alys’s phone in the windows.“Don’t the headlights work?”
“You don’t want me to turn them on.”Alexei didn’t explain further.
“I do.”Fighting something they couldn’t see would be so much harder.Perry tensed, ready to take on whatever was out there.
Alys snickered a snort-laugh a lot like the supermodel’s.“You don’t.”
“I really do.”He might reach forward to find the switch and flip the lights himself if the pain bringer and demon general wouldn’t stop him.
She smacked her brother’s arm.“Show him.Let’s see what kind of man our cousin picked.”
With a click, the headlights blared.The beams—so bright in what had been a velvet blackness with only the moon and pinpricks of starlight shining—blinded him.He blinked against the sudden change.Haloes danced across his vision.
In the glaring spotlight, a creature stood in profile.One from fairy tales of greed and gold and gluttony.This wasn’t a cute children’s book illustration.No, this was the horror made real.
It moved like a predator, rounding on the Hummer with a ferocious glare and curling its long fingers tipped in daggerlike nails into claws.A massive gold band circled its temples, a crown embedded in its green skin.Powerful muscles bunched in its arms and legs.This thing could tear them apart.
