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I dive for the cupboard and yank out the salt, tossing it to Cain. “Catch!”
Cain catches it and scatters it around Raven and Donovan in a circle. North hurries to grab the rope again and the holy water, jumping in to switch places with Raven so that he can tie Donovan up and keep him in the circle.
“Congratulations,” I snap. “With all the hard work you did to betray us, you still ended up in the same fucking place: at our mercy.”
Donovan lunges for me, but he smacks into the air like it’s a brick wall the second he hits the spot where the salt is. He’s completely animalistic, and the holy water sprinkled on the ropes tying him up makes his skin burn and sizzle.
“You are going to regret this,” he snaps at me, his voice mangled and deep from his anger and talking around his fangs.
“I might say the same thing to you,” Cain snarls, getting up in Donovan’s face, putting himself between Donovan and me.
I’m not surprised that Cain is especially furious. Donovan poked at Cain’s wounds when we last had him, bringing up the fact that Cain’s own brother sold him to be a blood slave to vampires. I don’t know the exact details, but I do know that Cain got his revenge on both his brother and the vampire he was sold to, and North and Raven helped him with it.
But it’s why Cain doesn’t trust people. Why it took him so long to warm up to me. Even as he fell for me, and wanted to protect me, he wasn’t sure that he could trust me. That I wouldn’t hurt him the way that his brother had.
Donovan poked at that wound. How he found out about it, I don’t know. Vampires talk to each other. He might have seen Cain back when he was being sold to the other vampire, or he might have heard about it through the vampire grapevine.
Cain looks like he wants to rip Donovan to shreds. Donovan looks about the same.
“What do we do with him now?” Raven asks.
“We kill him,” Cain growls. His voice is sharp, and I can see fire starting to crackle between his fingers.
“No, no, no.” I step in between the two men and hold my hands up at Cain. “We are not killing him. Not yet, anyway.”
Donovan smirks. “Ahh, yes, listen to your handler, Cain. Do as she tells you.”
Cain snarls, but I shove him away. “Come on, let’s go.”
I practically have to shove Cain out of the room and down the hall. North and Raven follow, North glaring at Donovan as we head out.
“What do you mean we can’t kill him?” Cain hisses. “What other fucking use could we have for him? He betrayed us once. We can’t possibly use him against Roanac again!”
“Cain has a point,” North says. “I don’t like the idea of getting rid of good leverage, but he’s not useful if he was able to get around our binding potion. We can’t risk using him against Roanac again if he could betray us once more. We barely survived last time.”
“But we need him,” I point out. “He’s got information on Roanac and we have no other inside intel on him. And we have to stop him, but we can’t do it on our own.”
“What about your glamour?” Raven asks.
“Even with my glamour!” I retort. “I’m still working on it! I don’t trust that I could use it against Roanac! He’s too powerful! The only reason I was able to confuse Donovan was because he’s weaker, and I’m not sure how long I could’ve fooled him for.”
North seems contemplative while Raven and Cain look frustrated.
“I appreciate the faith you have in me,” I tell Raven, because I do, I do appreciate it. “But I don’t think we should rely just on that. Even if I could use it to trick Roanac, I can’t use it to actually attack. It’s more of a defensive thing, or a distraction. And that’s only if I could use it against Roanac himself. We still have to consider his whole shades army and anyone else like Donovan who he might have under his control or be forcing to work for him.”
Raven considers this, then at last nods. He doesn’t look happy about it, but he sees the wisdom in what I’m saying.
“He has a whole fucking army,” Cain mutters. “That’s the problem. If we could just get him alone, we could have a chance.”
“You don’t know that,” I point out.
“Whatever power he now has, you also have,” Cain replies. “He activated whatever’s in your blood. That means that you can do whatever he can do. You’re evenly matched.”
“Theoretically, maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m good at wielding it. Roanac has had time to practice, time to get used to having this magic and to prepare for it. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“An army,” North says.
We all look over at him. North’s brow is furrowed.
