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“Balor?” Danu appeared from behind Declan, moving to the front of their group to face off with the men as if they wouldn’t chew her up and spit her out, old lady or not. “You truly have no idea who the god you worship is, do you?”
The men in the back of the mob squirmed. The high and mighty holy justice they were going to dispense was petering out quickly now, and Arioch only had his backup for so much longer.
Maybe, just maybe, Bryn could wait them out long enough to work her way through. To negotiate with the rational part of the group to release her and her friends.
It was a nice thought for all of the five seconds she’d had it before she realized that Daran and Arioch were in charge now and no longer needed the people’s vote. They could have what they wanted without needing the townsfolk to approve.
“Balor, the true god,” Mallory piped in from where she had been hiding in the back. Nice to know her aunt was finally taking an interest in her, even if it was just to watch Bryn die.
“Mother? You’re part of this?” Jace asked, and Bryn could hear his heart breaking. For that alone she wanted to walk over and break Mallory’s jaw. Too bad she’d have to get through all the men armed to the teeth to do so.
“You planned to leave me!” Mallory whined, and something in Bryn relished at the smell of her distress and fear as it carried to her on the breeze. Strong and potent and familiar; at the scent of it, she was back in the apartment having it out with her aunt.
That memory sent the demon inside Bryn raging, shoving at the walls of Bryn’s brain to get out.
Her control began to flounder as she watched Mallory walk around the group to where she was in view of Jace, but not close enough for Bryn to get to her without being shot first.
Still, she watched the woman closely as a wolf would a wounded rabbit.
“I was planning to go back to the apartment to talk some sense into you! To try and have a rational conversation and possibly work on you coming with us! Shot that all to hell now, haven’t you?” he yelled, backing away from the townspeople he had known and treated as their doctor. From his mother, who was his own flesh and blood, gone turncoat.
Danu’s laugh caught them all off guard.
“You worship the true demon himself! The one who brought this wrath and plague upon you and this world! The demon king’s own father! Evil Eye himself!” Before Danu could go on, someone pulled the trigger of their rifle and shot her, sending everyone into a panic until a growl reverberated through the crowd that shot everyone’s prey drive into frozen-deer mode.
Finian bit into Bryn’s skirt, attempting to pull her away from the chaos, but Bryn only moved to cover Danu as Jace ran toward the older woman.
The look on Mallory’s face told her she knew nothing of who they actually worshipped, and Bryn watched her aunt’s eyebrows furrow as she puzzled out what Danu meant... but it was the grins on Arioch’s and Daran’s faces that said they were all too aware of who their master was.
They’d known all along.
Chapter 42
“Getback,Bryn,”Declanordered, and Bryn had the urge to punch him in a different head this time as he tried to take her place at the front of the mob.
“The hell I will! Quit trying to take my power, Declan,” she growled, holding tight to her position as Cyerra flew in and landed on her shoulder.
Mallory’s eyes narrowed at the crow, and it seemed that sparked the murderous mob back to life.
Oops.
Danu started to speak softly in the language Bryn had heard before from the dead man, her voice growing louder as the mob inched closer to them with weapons and torches raised. Someone had a rope ready to tie Bryn and Niamh down like a runaway calf.
The old woman was speaking prayerfully andloudlybehind her, and all the while Bryn was trying hard to focus on the threat in front of her. The words started to pierce through Bryn’s mind as she took a defensive position, her knees slightly bent, her hand moving to her blade.
“May the great queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann guide your blade in battle and see you safely to the other side of the battlefield, whole and alive. Should you cross the veil, know the Tuatha Dé Danann are honored among those in the Fae realm and will find their rest there,” Danu said softly.
Bryn somehow suddenly understood the words in another language, and her skin became even more sensitive. Like a snake, it had grown far too small for her, and she needed to shed it.
The words Danu had said triggered something in Arioch and Daran too.
Her grip tightened on her knife as she watched the two men’s bodies begin to violently shake.
Bryn stepped back and watched in horrified awe as Daran and Arioch sprouted hair, and muzzles extended from their faces. Their forms a grotesque mix of man and beast with yellowed fangs that dripped saliva onto the sand.
“Werewolves?” Declan asked Bryn as if she had any idea what they were or what was going on any more than he did.
Callum came up beside Bryn as the townspeople were shocked out of their stupor and ran into the night from the nightmares that Arioch and Daran had become. Horrified screams pierced Bryn’s sensitive eardrums as she watched torches being dropped into the sand, rolling toward buildings as the townspeople ran from the very men they had worshipped almost as much as they did Balor himself.
