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I spun around, feeling my heart thundering in my chest.
Fake-Sariel sighed, running his fingers through his hair and looking frustrated. As ifhewas the victim here. “This all got out of hand. You were supposed to realize sooner.”
“Where… Where’smySariel, then?”
Johnny put a hand on my back when I asked, and I realized he was holding me steady when my vision started to dim at the edges.
No. It had to be a bad dream or something; there was no way this was real.
“Hell.”
Everything seemed to move in slow motion for a moment. Fake-Sariel began to bend and stretch andwarp, and then there was Barimuz, staring at me with an unreadable expression…
Right before my fist slammed into his face.
“Howdareyou—”
I could vaguely hear Johnny calling my name behind me, but it wasn't breaking through the sudden rush of rage. My entire body was trembling, and the burning sensation that filled me reminded me of how it felt to shift for a moment.
Except I wasn’t shifting. I was still very much human-shaped, despite the way my wolf’s howl was echoing in my head.
“—takemymate.”
My voice didn’t even sound like me, but that was irrelevant. All I could focus on was Barimuz.
Barimuz, who had stolen my soulmate and masqueraded as him for weeks.
Even the idea of it made me sick, and an enraged scream threatened to tear from my throat. How could he? I’d thought he was—well, notgood, but notthis.
Evil.
The word kept repeating over and over, and the longer I stared at him, the more it hurt and festered.
I’d thought we could ally with him or befriend him, and the whole time he’d beenlaughingat me.
Naive little Aria, not realizing he’d replaced her mate, saw the world through rose-tinted glasses.Stupid little hybrid,who thought she could make deals with Archdemons or that they were even capable of caring about anything other than themselves.
My eyes were burning. I couldn’t pinpoint if I was more mortified or devastated at that point, but I tried to blink away the tears.
“I’m going to kill you.”
The decision hits me square in the chest, the idea taking shape and forming before my eyes.
In the next instant, I’m moving again, launching myself across the street. Barimuz doesn’t bother trying to run from me, opening his arms and accepting every blow I rain down upon him like he was paying penance. It infuriated me more, and when my claws finally started to escape and shred at him, he shoved me off with a disgusted look.
Large hands rubbed at the damaged skin, and he huffed.
“You’re the one who didn’t notice,” he rumbled out as the gashes on his chest began to heal. “Just because I was being a doting lover—”
“You’renotmy lover,” I snarled, and he scoffed.
Pain flared between my shoulders. I’m nearly blinded for a moment when I lurch toward him again.
All of my training with the twins was for nothing because my mind was blank, running on instinct and rage. The Archdemon simply danced out of my range, chuckling at the display, like my pain was entertaining to him.
It hurt. All of this hurt, and I was confused by that feeling.
Barimuz himself was nothing to me—he would never have even been able to get close enough to wound me had he not been pretending to be Sariel—so the heartbreak I was experiencing was particularly overwhelming.
