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She stepped into the living room to make the call—calm murmurs broken here and there by a slightly sharper tone that told me the Assembly representative was being less than fully cooperative—and returned tearing a page from a notepad she’d pulled from her purse. She held out the paper to me.
“Here are the things Evianna told me she’s looking to collect that I’m not sure where to find. The Assembly officer said you’ll get the call in about an hour.”
As I stuffed the list into my jeans pocket, the twins came in, already grinning in anticipation. Technically identical, the two didn’t share much more than their imposing height and the same tawny hair and gray-green eyes. Kyler the eager brainiac was skinny as a stick, his face clean-shaven and his messy waves nearly reaching the tops of his ears, while stoic Seth packed an enviable amount of muscle onto his frame, his jaw shaded with scruff and his hair cropped short.
They were both equally enthusiastic to see our consort back home, clearly. Ky bounded over to pull Rose into a kiss, and Seth approached behind him, giving her a long hug when his twin released her.
“How’s the new contract going?” Rose asked Kyler, and he started chattering about the job he’d gotten setting up a new network for some company in the same town where Seth was now working on getting some kind of architectural certification at the local college. Seth hefted the suitcase Rose hadn’t had the chance to move from the hall. As the other four guys headed upstairs with her, I trailed behind, my hand passing restlessly over the phone at my hip.
We were all together again, like it’d been when we were kids and Rose had to sneak out to play with us while our parents worked for her dad, except now we didn’t have to hide the love we shared for her. I shouldn’t have had a single thing to complain about. But as I reached the second floor, a prickling sensation flowed through my skin from beneath the studded leather cuff I’d taken to wearing.
I had to stop in my tracks and grit my teeth against the urge to dig my fingers beneath it and scratch at the silvery mark etched into my forearm. Had to clench a fist to keep from jerking that arm through the air with the need to slam it into something—anything.
The rest of them kept talking and laughing away. As far as I could tell, they’d moved on from the chaos of the past year completely—new work, new projects, newfound happiness. I was happy too… some of the time. Other times, at random moments, memories of the demon that had dug its claw into my flesh to leave that mark still flashed through my mind with a lurch of my pulse.
Sometimes I lay in bed with Rose and often one or more of the other guys, and a sense of deep-seated, stomach-twisting dread trickled through me, like the sensation that had come over me when I’d looked at the portal into the creatures’ hellish world.
Why could everyone else get over what we’d been through so much faster? I’d been through plenty of hell before—I should have been strong enough to put this behind me if they could.
I wasn’t strong enough to heal from that basic wound, though. Over the months, the prickling had come more often and more piercingly. The manic impulse to lash out somehow had been heightening too.
And now and then in the last few weeks, when I’d dared to unclasp the cuff to check the mark, the silvery lines had beenglowing.
When the wound had first been healing, I’d promised Rose I’d tell her if anything about it seemed off. I’d thought about bringing the recent weirdness up with her… but every time I considered it, an echo rang out in the back of my head of the cry of pain she’d made when she’d broken the spark of her magic.
I wouldn’t be another problem for Rose to solve. She’d given up so much—most of her magical power—to stop the demons before. How could I let myself turn into more of a liability than a lover? The situation might be weird, but it wasn’tserious. I had to do everything possible to figure it out on my own before I laid anything on her.
And her prick of a dad would help me.
The call came at just five minutes shy of an hour. I ducked into the bedroom Rose had given me when I’d moved here from my shitty basement apartment in town, closed the door, and locked it.
“Call for Damon Scarsi from Maxim Hallowell via the Assembly Justice division,” a clipped voice said when I answered.
“This is Damon,” I said. “Put him on.”
There was a pause and a click, and then Mr. Hallowell’s voice, flat and dry and with a tinge of exhaustion I had to admit I liked the sound of. “The Scarsi boy. What do you want?”
After the dismissive, almost disgusted way he’d talked about me the one time we’d been in each other’s company since my childhood, his rancor didn’t surprise me. The asshole could think whatever he wanted of me while he rotted away in that cell. It was his daughter’s opinion that counted.
“I’m calling on Rose’s behalf,” I said with an evenness I felt was impressive. “Your former stepdaughter, Evianna, wants her to turn up some things she left with her mother after she moved out. Rose figures you’d know where they are.”
The older man sighed. “And why should I bother?”
My scar prickled again, and a flare of annoyance shot through me. “I don’t know,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “Maybe because as far as I know no one’s bothered to investigate you for your second wife’s death yet. You’re hoping to get out of that place eventually, aren’t you?”
We didn’t know for certain that he’d been involved in orchestrating Rose’s stepmother’s fatal accident, but Rose was pretty sure. The threat seemed to hit home.
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to have to go through all that hassle,” her dad said, sounding twice as weary now. “What is she looking for?”
I went through the list, and Mr. Hallowell gave curt but seemingly complete answers for me to jot down. I got the impression he’d decided that getting this conversation over with was preferable to stalling any more. The whole exchange took less than five minutes.
After the last item on the list, I paused, debating how to continue.
“Is that all?” Rose’s dad shifted with a rustle on the other end. “If so, I’ll take my—”
“Hold on,” I broke in. “I— There’s something else I need to ask you about.”
“Spit it out then.”
