MY HANDS TREMBLED.  This wasn’t possible.  This couldn’t be possible.  Ash couldn’t be the person at Amarose working with Kye.

But then, he would have access to student records.  He would know who was pureblooded and where the family was.  He would know about other relatives.

My eyes flickered to the list.  He’d already compiled a pretty damn long list of purebloods ready for Kye.

“I really wish you hadn’t seen that.”

My head snapped up.  Ash stood in the doorway, shadows covering his face.  There was something so menacing about his stance it sent chills over my skin.  “Why?” 

He stepped inside his office and closed the door behind him, locking it.  He looked like Kye, the Kye I’d first met.  The one that had terrified me.  “Because the ferrum race is already so weak with all the human mixing.”  His lips curled in disdain.  “Kye had the right idea.  Turning our purest ones into something better to wipe out all the half-breed scum was brilliant.”

Betrayal burned through me.  I stared at the man I’d trusted, the man I confided in as a friend.  He knew me almost as well as Rex.  “How long have you been working with Kye?”  I was going to get the answers I deserved, and with any luck, Rex would return to his suite and realize I was gone.  He’d turn Amarose upside down looking for me.

Ash shed his jacket, tossing it on the back of a chair.  “I met Kye when I was sixteen training to be a hunter.  I snuck off my school campus in New York and ran into a group of demons.  I killed them all.”  A smile tipped his lips.  “I was even better than you, Kory.”

The couple dozen tattoos covering his torso were proof he’d been good at one point in his life.  I’d underestimated him.  The image of him wailing on that punching bag the other night flashed through my mind.  He was more of a fighter than I’d thought.

“Kye showed up.  He was going to kill me but paused when he noticed our resemblance.”  He motioned toward his face.  “He said we could have been brothers.”

Kye was always looking for a companion and thought he’d found one in a young ferrum. 

“He told me about his vision for the future of our race.  And, hating the lower mixes of ferrums already, I thought it was exactly the kind of change our world needed.  I wanted in.”

My stomach twisted.  I swallowed the bile oozing up my throat as I listened to his warped speech. 

“Kye told me not to be a hunter, but to become a teacher instead and work my way up to headmaster at one of the more prestigious schools as quickly as possible.”  He loosened his tie and pulled it off.  “A school was much easier to infiltrate and control than The Council.”  He spat the name out.  “Council my ass.  It’s filled with a bunch of half-breeds who think they can govern us.” 

“You are one racist asshole,” I snapped, glaring up at him.  All the little hints began to add up.  The way Ash talked about his sister and her human husband should have tipped me off.  He practically admitted pureblooded ferrums were better by nature.  Bennie had been right about him.

“Where’s Alec?”  His name wasn’t highlighted on this list.  Not yet anyway.  I held up Ash’s phone.  “Didn’t Kye tell you to stop?”

His lips thinned, and he took the seat across from me.  “Yes, Kye told me to stop.  He’d been telling me to hold off for weeks now,” he growled.  “After all these years we finally set the plan in motion, and suddenly he wanted to stop?”  Ash took a deep breath, sucking his anger back in.  “I knew it was his obsession with you, but I couldn’t understand why it was so crippling to the thing Kye had been working toward.”

I swallowed hard.  “Until I told you he was my former caetera.”

“Then I understood.”  Ash brushed pale blond locks from his face.  “But even before then, I knew if Kye thought there was a chance you would develop feelings for him, he’d do anything you’d want.”  He scoffed.  “You had him wrapped around your little finger.”

“So sorry to have ruined your plans.”

“That’s okay.  I found another benefactor to help me.” His smile turned menacing.  “I was quite surprised when Lorne showed up, proposing a deal with me.”

The color drained from my face.  That was not what I was expecting. 

“Lorne agreed to help me turn the ferrums I already had on my list as long as I left any other purebloods alone.  I could be the leader of my demons, and I could extinguish the half-breeds and partials.  In return, I needed to watch you and keep you away from Kye.  He didn’t want him spoiling his chances by turning you into a demon or running off with you.  It was much easier doing that when you hated Kye.”

My head spun.  “It was you Rex and Brett saw.  Not Kye.  He wasn’t even there.”

He shrugged.  “Like I said, we needed you to stay away from Kye.”

I swallowed hard.  They made me think Kye had tried to kill Rex.  Instead it was Lorne.  And Ash.  My nostrils flared, and hands curled into tight fists in my lap.  “I’m going to kill you for this,” I growled.

A barking laugh escaped his mouth.  “No, you won’t.  Now that Lorne has the book of bloodlines and your birthday is approaching, you’re going to be a little tied up.”

My eyes narrowed.  “You told Lorne I had the book.”  It wasn’t long after I slipped up in front of him that Lorne came for it. 

“I wasn’t sure it was the book, but it was worth a shot.”

Anger and darkness unfurled through my veins, sinking through every muscle fiber.  I’d been betrayed once again.  How did this keep happening?  I let people in and then they stomped on my chest with steel cleats.

Before my brain could catch up with my body, I vaulted over the desk and slammed into Ash.  The chair he was sitting in toppled over.  In his surprise, I crushed my fist into his jaw.

The shock quickly wore off, and he rolled over, pinning me to the ground.  “You are sadly mistaken if you think you can take me, Kory.”

“Screw you.”  I rammed my elbow into his ribs, and he grunted.  “I was almost a demon, remember?  I’d rather every ounce of darkness I have consume me than let you win.”  I kicked him off and scrambled up.

He was just as fast getting to his feet.  I dodged a hit to the face and countered with a right hook.

Pain exploded across my knuckles.  “For as good as you keep saying you are, you suck.  I’ve managed three hits on you, and you’ve barely touched me.”

Ash snarled and tackled me.  He picked me up and slammed me down on his desk.  The back of my head throbbed, and my lung seized as the wind was knocked out of me.

I might have seriously pissed him off.

“I don’t want to kill you, Kory,” he said, his breath dusting my face.  “And you’re lucky for that because if I was trying to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

“Well, I am trying to kill you,” I hissed.  “I just like to drag it out.  Slow, torturous deaths are my specialties.  I like to break a lot of bones first.”  I managed to get my knee free and shoved it into his side.

He released me, and I slammed my heel into his ribs.  A crack echoed followed by a howl of rage.

“See.”

Ash didn’t waste time.  His fist flew at my jaw.  I blocked it and a kick.  He was too fast, and my face was open.  He landed a punch on my cheek.

Son of a bitch.

Red pulsated through my vision.  That was going to leave a bruise. 

I shook it off and countered with a kick to the shin. 

He snarled from the pain.  “I’m done with this.”  He dove, catching me around the throat.  He slammed me into the wall, his fingers choking off my airways.

So much for not trying to kill me. 

I thrust my knee up.  As he blocked my hit, I crushed my elbow into his nose.  A loud crunch echoed, and blood spurted across his flushed skin.

He cursed and released me, grabbing his face.  Ash’s eyes blazed.

“Not as good as you thought,” I spat, leaning away from the wall.  I cracked my knuckles, ready for another go.

“Enough.”  A deep voice resonated through the room, power weaving through each syllable.

Lorne marched in, those angelic features as deceiving as Ash’s entire good guy persona.

My pulse spiked, quickly filling my veins with icy dread.  Getting away from the traitor Ash was doable.  Fighting Lorne was not.

“She broke my nose.”  The headmaster’s voice was muffled by blood.

“That’s not all I’m going to break.”  What could I say?  I’d never lose my snark even in the face of evil.  And Lorne was pure, unadulterated evil.

His golden eyes scrutinized me.  “I hope you at least enjoyed these last few weeks of your life.”

“Actually, I haven’t.  I’ve been—”

“Quiet.”  Oily darkness swirled in his eyes, like nighttime stealing a beautiful sunset.

His compulsion slid over me.  I clenched my teeth against it.  “You asshole,” I hissed. 

“Don’t worry,” he said.  “It’ll all be over soon.”

My nostrils flared, and I fought against his mental hold.  I could feel it, invisible steel chains around my body.  I imagined breaking them, shattering them like brittle glass.

Something popped, and his compulsion disintegrated.

His eyes widened.

“What?” Ash asked.  “What is it?”

My head tilted back as I laughed.  So it wasn’t just Kye’s hold I could break now.

A dark look crossed Lorne’s features.  “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”  Without warning, his fist slammed into my face.

Crimson pain exploded behind my eyes, and then darkness dragged me under.