And Tempest had gleefully egged on that side of me. She’d stoked my flames and my contempt, and nothing had made her applaud louder than seeing our mortal targets twisted into agony. If she’d been around when the hunters had burst in on the innocent creatures I’d inadvertently led them to, she’d have laughed at their mistake and found some way to amplify it without a second’s regret for the deaths of the lesser beasts.
And maybe I’d have done the same if she’d still been standing with me in all her sly, vicious glory.
But I was better than that now, even if she didn’t understand. I was better than that… and was there perhaps a better way through this mess than had occurred to me before?
Tempest might hold a different sort of answer. She might even delight in providing it, if I played the game right. I had known her awfully well, and she didn’t appear to have changed much.
“It has been a long time,” I said, bringing out all the inner cool I’d worked so hard to cultivate. “But of course I haven’t forgotten. I know exactly where I’ll find you when I have the chance to make my way in your direction. Since you’re so enthusiastic for that reunion, I’ll see if I can’t make it there in a day or so.”
“If you’re going to dillydally about it, be prepared that you might find yourself stranded on your lonesome for a good while before I get around to stopping by,” Tempest retorted, but I doubted she’d leave me hanging all that long. If nothing else, she had to be dying to brag about this bizarre, immense scheme of hers to someone with the discernment to fully appreciate it.
I smiled thinly. “I’ll see you sooner or later, then.”
Before she could respond, I hung up. Let her stew over that rather than think she had me wrapped around her finger.
I turned to Thorn. “We’re taking a little trip. It’ll be useful to have back-up. Assemble whichever of our allies is inclined to stick with us and meet me in Barstow with the RV—that should make a suitable halfway point. I’ll see to Sorsha.”
Thorn frowned as if he wasn’t entirely sure he should trust me with that responsibility. “We’re continuing our campaign against the Company as before?”
“Not exactly as before. I need to determine what precisely Tempest is using those mortals for. But you can be sure I intend to see the lot of them crushed—and for our mortal to be right there alongside us making that happen. Now get on with it. Or are you still in an insubordinate mood?”
Thorn’s jaw tightened at the memory of just how far he’d pushed against my orders less than a half hour ago. His gaze lingered for a moment on the few wounds his fists had dealt that were still seeping trickles of smoke, and then he dipped his head in acknowledgment.
As he stepped into the shadows, I drew in a heavy breath and headed back down the passage to confront my most recent crimes.
When I slipped through the shadows around the door, I found Sorsha sitting in the same spot on the bed, tensed as if she expected the next being to emerge in the room to be arriving to lead her to her death—or perhaps to kill her on the spot. A reasonable enough assumption, considering what I’d put her through.
At the sight of me, her stance went even more rigid, but a familiar determination lit in her eyes. While she’d agreed to willingly surrender herself to the Highest, she hadn’t surrendered her spirit. If I’d been coming to haul her off, no doubt she’d have gone with plenty of choice remarks.
The worst shame of it was how much her defiance made me want her—and how much her surrender had crumbled my defenses against admitting that. Even with her hair rumpled and her clothes wrinkled, her face drawn from lack of sleep, she was breathtaking.
And that damned joke about the chain had wormed its way inside my head. For a moment, I couldn’t help picturing chaining both her wrists to the bedframe and then working over her body so thoroughly she’d lose both her own breath and all those snarky remarks, until we both reached an even more ecstatic release than the last time.
I wasn’t going to kid myself that she’d be quite so forgiving as to go for that proposition, though. And we did have a maniacal, nearly immortal evil genius of a shadowkind to contend with on top of all the problems we’d been up against before.
I stalked over and unlocked the cuff at Sorsha’s wrist, doing my best to tune out the heat that coursed over my body when I stood so near her.
She swallowed audibly. “How are we doing this? Are you taking me to a rift?”
“No. I have a better idea. One that, if it works, will ensure the Highest never think about having their minions brutalize you again.”
She blinked at me. “What? I thought you figured they might be right to want me dead.”
“I changed my mind. Even shadowkind are allowed to do that, you know.”
“But—why?”
I grasped her forearm, careful to avoid the reddened marks where the cuff had rubbed her wrist, and tugged her onto her feet. “Don’t look a gift hound in the mouth, Disaster.” And then, because the nickname had brought a tightness of regret into my throat as it’d rolled off my tongue, “You wouldn’t have told me to hand you over if protecting shadowkind didn’t matter more to you than your own existence. That’s enough for me. It just won’t be enough for the Highest.”
Sorsha stretched, limbering up now that she had her full range of movement. Her gaze stayed wary. “And what do you think will be enough?”
I smiled again, even narrower than before. “We’re going to set it up so it appears you’ve destroyed someone who’s foiled them far more than ‘Ruby’ ever did. Tempest might even agree to help us with the ploy for the extra chaos it’ll cause. If you accomplish more on their behalf than even their most loyal subjects ever did before, how can they possibly accuse you of meaning them harm?”
At least, I hoped that was the case. And if it wasn’t, well, then I’d have a battle with their minions on my hands. If Sorsha died at the Highest’s command, it’d only be over my dead body as well.
6
Sorsha
I’d never been to any sort of reunion—family, class, or otherwise—but I doubted there’d ever been one as joyful as when Omen ushered me across the cracked pavement of an otherwise vacant lot to the waiting RV.
I was still ten feet from the door when it burst open. Snap sprang out first and dashed to me with his usual serpentine grace.
He wrapped his arms around me and tucked my head under his chin with a sigh as if my arrival had put every wrong thing in the world right. I hugged him back just as eagerly. Didn’t I wish our problems could be solved that easily.
Pickle scampered after the devourer with excited little squeaks, Thorn chasing behind the little dragon with a worried glance over his shoulder to make sure no mortals were close enough to the parking lot to see. My foster creature twined around my ankles, still chirping away.
Ruse sauntered over to join us at a more languid pace, but his smile beamed with far more affection than his typical smirk. Heedless of the hold Snap had on me, the incubus leaned in to claim a kiss so intent it left every part of me tingling, in part because I knew just how enjoyable it could be to be adored by both these men at the same time.