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She recoiled at my words. “I’m your sister. We’re family!”
“You were never part of our family. You were sheltered from the truth, from the abuse that came with it, from the things I had to witness and take part in. I became exactly what Dad made me, and then he kicked me out. Exactly like Mike. I’m the creation of other men, of demons, and then when they don’t like what they’ve created, they blame me.” Scoffing to myself, I ran a finger over the gun in my hands. I needed to center myself because I was getting off track. Talking to Nikki like this would do nothing except give her false hope that she could somehow reason with me.
Turning on my heel, I stormed away from Nikki’s cage. I no longer wanted to look at her because I don’t think I could stare at her this entire time while I waited for Mike to come to me. It wouldn’t take long for him to get the information from Earl, not with Ray and Ilsa by his side. Pretty much any shit goes down in the city that is outside of Emrick’s reach, and you can assume Earl is involved somehow.
When Mike came, I would kill Nikki first. He didn’t know her, but he didn’t need to. She was an innocent, and that would be enough to torture him, along with the satisfaction I would get from doing to her exactly what our father did to me, and much worse. Then I’d turn on his fuck toy and make him scream in pain before taking his life.
Only when Mike was broken would I kill him too.
Turning, the scent of a demon made my nostrils twitch. But this wasn’t Mike. The scent was familiar, and I tried to place it.
“Cade!” Nikki cried out, and I spun on the spot. He was barreling toward me, all yellow eyes and fury. Bordering on losing control of his demon, his skin dappled with pops of black and glowing red. I only had moments to reflect on the irony that my sister and I had chosen demons as partners before he was on me.
I’d smelled him in her home on previous days when I’d been there to scout out the location, and I figured there was a chance he would come for her. My only regret was I hadn’t finished rigging the cages up yet, but that would come soon. Cade could be controlled via Nikki, and that was all I needed to know.
And discovering her partner was a demon opened up an interesting opportunity to control his strength. As he bowled me over, I reached down, scooped up the knife I had abandoned only minutes earlier, and drove it into his chest. Cade roared, tossing his head back, his mid-length dark hair falling back from his face. Without letting go of the handle, I dragged the blade down before removing it. It wasn’t as deep as I had hoped. He was fast, but young, and I was able to get at least an inch into his flesh. The blade was silver, but that didn’t account for the severity of his reaction, and it was only when the fabric of his T-shirt flapped open to reveal his chest that I understood.
He’d had his pentagram removed, the mark that allowed demons to move between Hell and Earth. I recognized the shape of the scars because I’d seen Mike’s mark glow when our bond was being severed, and he was barely in control of the pain.
Cade reared back, his first instinct to protect his chest, and I took the brief opportunity to slash at him again, hitting everywhere I could get—his arms, torso, legs, and then his back, every inch of his skin he made the mistake of exposing to me. He was fighting in a flurry with nothing practiced or thought through about his movements, and I forced myself to keep calm. If he got too agitated and turned into his full demon form, I would have no chance of overpowering him. Even right now, he was stronger than me. I was human, although my blood was contaminated, and I was no match for a demon.
But an out-of-control demon who was young and fighting in a rage because I took his girl?Maybe I had a chance.
Mike wouldn’t storm into the building like Cade did. Mike would take only controlled and well-thought-out steps and would measure each move before making it.
They both had a weak spot.
Twisting out of Cade’s flailing grip, I removed my gun from my waistband, cocked it, and brought it up to face Nikki in one smooth motion. Cade stopped.
“Get in the cage,” I said. He lifted a lip and snarled at me, the animal he truly was peeking through more and more. “Get in thefucking cage.”
When he didn’t move, I fired a shot at Nikki’s feet. To her credit, she didn’t scream, only leaped backward in surprise and looked helplessly at Cade. Moving sideways, stepping one foot over the other, I unlocked the cage that held Nikki while keeping the gun trained on her.
“One move…” I muttered to her, “… one wrong move, and I’ll kill you.”
Nikki retreated to the back of the cage, and Cade stalked toward it, a constant growl rumbled through his throat. When he came level with me, he snapped his teeth at me through the air. I didn’t flinch. I’d seen worse, only tightened my finger on the trigger. The movement caught his eye, and with another snarl, he stepped into the cage. The second he crossed the threshold, I slammed the door shut, and the moment the lock clicked into place, Cade was at the bars, swiping at me and snarling like the trapped beast he was. I stepped back, a half-smile twisting my lips, and Cade turned on Nikki, embraced her, and crushed her against his chest. I felt a hint of irritation that I had put them in the same cage, as now she had comfort, but torturing Nikki would be even more fun now there was a witness who cared.
Cade brushed his fingers through her hair, and they said nothing. They simply looked at each other and probably exchanged some wordless communication. A moment I was all too glad to interrupt.
“Funny,” I said, pacing in front of the cage. “We both chose demons.” Nikki only looked at me, unsure what I wanted her to say. Cade turned and snarled again, dragging Nikki closer to him and shielding her the best he could from me with his body. I tapped the barrel of the gun against my chin, still warm from the warning shot. “What’s even funnier is that you two never bonded.”
Cade’s shoulders stiffened, and Nikki’s grip on the back of his leather jacket tightened.
Looks like I’d found a sore spot.
“I wonder why that is. I’m sure a big, possessive male such as you would have wanted to bond with someone you loved so much. So that must mean it’s my little sister who’s holding out. What’s the problem, Nikki, don’t love him enough?”
“I love him very much,” she mumbled. She knew exactly what I was doing, but she simply couldn’t let even the implication she didn’t care about Cade hang in the air.
“What’s even more interesting is I don’t need you two to be bonded in order to control him.”
Cade was trying to hold Nikki back, to continue to shield her from me with his body, while she was desperate to ask the questions that were popping up in her mind, wondering what I’d done.
“What are you talking about?”
“Surely, you know if a demon loves someone, their partner’s blood becomes a weakness?”
She stilled, and Cade did too, his shoulders heaving. He looked around, taking in the cage around him.
