CHAPTER ELEVEN
I watched them, even as they watched me. I supposed it made sense, given my reputation. I was the rebellious baby vamp who’d made it possible for their master to claim his current lofty position, even as I rejected everything to do with their society.
I’d probably be curious too if I was in their position.
“How very understanding of you,” a voice murmured from a few feet away.
I didn’t jerk, having spied Aiden’s approach. I hoped he’d bypass me, but it seemed the younger vampires before me weren’t the only ones who were curious.
“How rude,” he said.
Aiden took a sip of his wine as he joined me. His hands weren’t the overly manicured ones of many in my generation. They were rough and calloused. It was obvious at one point in his life he’d worked in some type of manual labor. A trait he must have continued for his hands to be as rough as they were.
Aiden always reminded me of a young boxer, with his slightly crooked nose that had been broken and not set when he’d been human, and strong, square jaw that practically dared someone to come at him.
“I thought my mental defenses prevented you from reading my mind,” I said.
He gave me a slight smirk. “They do. Except when you think very loudly.”
I hadn’t been thinking loudly. Protecting my mental space was a technique I’d had to develop as a courier, since a few of the people I served were skilled empaths and telepaths. Letting them pluck secrets from my head would have meant a much shorter career and possible death for breaking my contract with Hermes.
Those telepaths had been on par with Aiden. Or so I’d thought. Either he had downplayed his strength or something had changed since our last encounter.
“Of course, your face is also very easy to read,” he said with a teasing glint in his eyes.
I wasn’t sure if I believed that. Perhaps that was his intention.
He propped himself against the wall with me. Together we watched the rest of the crowd.
“Have you come to tempt me to join your clan again?” I asked.
“No, I’m afraid that is no longer an option,” Aiden said, his voice idle.
I glanced up at him and frowned.
“You’re the master’s now,” he explained. “Any clan you join would be his.”
I settled back. That was an interesting little tidbit. So, when Liam and the rest pressured me about a clan, they were in effect pushing me towards Thomas. Good to know.
“What do you think of your guests?” I asked.
“You mean ‘our.’”
“Right, that’s what I meant.”
Aiden’s gaze was watchful as he turned his attention to the party. Musicians had begun playing and there were several people gliding about the dance floor elegantly. Nothing like what Caroline and I had been doing last night. These were stately movements in a graceful pattern that almost made me wish I hadn’t quit those dance lessons as a kid.
Before Aiden could answer my question, he let out a small curse and took a gulp of his wine. I looked to see what had caught his attention and nearly cursed myself.
I was familiar with the woman striding purposefully toward us. Kat, formerly of the Davinish clan, was one of the first vampires I’d ever met, aside from my sire and Liam.
Needless to say, she hadn’t left a good impression. She’d done a thorough job of souring me on my fellow vampires when I didn’t need the extra help.
She was an unrepentant social climber, determined to rise to the top of their society by any means necessary. It seemed to be working for her too, because she’d somehow inveigled a way into a position as one of Thomas’s aides.
Her skirt whipped around her legs, a clear sign of her agitation as she approached. She looked at Aiden like he was scum on the bottom of her shoe. The expression didn’t suit her model-perfect face.
He sighed. “You do know I still outrank you?”
She scowled at him.
“I see your rise in circumstances hasn’t made you any better at guarding your thoughts,” he observed.
There was a banked rage in her gaze as she turned to me, obviously intent on ignoring the patriarch. Always a mistake. You never put a predator at your back unless you were sure you could survive them.
“Your master desires you make yourself useful,” she said.
“Oh?”
It was interesting how he had passed along that message when he hadn’t gotten within ten feet of Kat all night. I knew because I’d been watching.
She arched an eyebrow.
I didn’t twitch, meeting her gaze with a calm that seemed to irritate her. Petty of me, I know, but in the case of this vampire, I was okay with resorting to such tactics.
“What are you waiting for?” she snapped.
Aiden didn’t bother concealing his amusement at her expense, his expression slightly taunting. “Perhaps she is waiting to be told what exactly it is you expect her to do.”
I snorted, not even bothering to pretend a respect I didn’t feel. The vampire before me was a bully, one who liked to use her status to get others to dance to her wishes. I didn’t plan to be one of them.
“You’re needed in the parking lot.” Her very red lips curved upward. “To park cars.”
When I still didn’t move, her gaze turned angry. “Now what’s the hold up?”
I favored her with a bland smile. “I have my orders and they don’t come from Thomas.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thomas’s orders trump everyone else’s.”
“If they had come from Thomas, perhaps,” I said, pleasantly. Even then I probably wouldn’t have obeyed. To do so would be to admit his hold over me was real.
“I outrank you,” she spat, insult on her face.
I shrugged. “I don’t care.”
She huffed and stalked off.
“That woman is either going to end up ruling us all or dead when her maneuvering finally backfires,” Aiden observed.
“Someone like her is too smart to take the wrong side of any battle,” I said tiredly. “She’s like a virus that just won’t go away.”
Aiden’s laugh was surprised. I noted a vampire in the crowd near us turn his head slightly, intelligent eyes meeting mine before he bent his head to his companion. Neither vampire had moved in the entire time Aiden had been standing near me, as if they were hoping to listen in on something interesting. Or act as guard and protector, I thought, noticing as they shifted to block Aiden from view as one of the Fae circled in our direction.
They must be part of Aiden’s clan. Enforcers by the look of them, their presence unobtrusive but with the obvious intent of protecting their patriarch.
It was similar to those revolving around Thomas as he mingled with his visitors.
“She doesn’t outrank you. In case you were wondering,” Aiden said, pulling me from my thoughts.
I hadn’t been. What I told Kat was true. I truly didn’t care if she outranked me or not. She was playing a game when I wasn’t even on the board and had no intention of ever being on it.
Aiden seemed to follow the line of my thoughts or at least had learned to accurately read my body language. “Fascinating. I think I will enjoy watching you find your place.”
“I already know my place,” I told him, turning back to the crowd.
He took a sip of his wine. “Do you? Please, enlighten me.”
I didn’t answer.
“Because from my eyes, you’re lost and alone yet you yearn for purpose.”
I didn’t react, even when his words seemed to channel thoughts that plagued me during the deepest part of night when the world was still and I was on my own.
He was wrong, but he was also right.
I wasn’t lost; I knew exactly where I was. It just wasn’t necessarily where I wanted to be. I missed being part of something. I missed the sense of purpose that came from doing what you loved, or at least doing what was important.
In that sense, I was lost, but I also knew joining the vampires and toeing their line wasn’t going to give me what I wanted. It wouldn’t fill that void inside me, despite what vampires like Aiden and Thomas might believe.
“You never did answer my question earlier,” I said, not reacting to his words.
He tilted his head as I looked up at him.
“About your thoughts on our guests,” I said, expanding.
“Didn’t I?” He took a sip of his drink.
“I would remember.”
“Hm.”
“There you are,” a velvety voice said.
A woman approached, her eyes alive with laughter, dancing to a joke only she knew. She glided across the floor, the movement seduction itself.
“Sofia Davinish, you are breathtaking,” he said, appreciation in his voice.
He took the hand she offered and brought it to his lips.
Interest filtered through me at her name. This was the Davinish matriarch. I’d been to her clubs, met some of her vampires but had never met the woman herself.
She held herself regally, her head up as she flirted with Aiden—surprising given the depth of dislike Kat had always shown the patriarch. I’d always assumed that Aiden’s clan and the Davinish clan didn’t get along.
From the byplay between the two now, I saw I might have to revise that assumption.
“From the look on my protégé’s face, I can assume you’ve been tweaking her tail again,” Sofia said, amused.
“Your protégé is a shark given legs,” Aiden said, his voice light and airy as if he hadn’t just insulted someone from the woman’s clan.
Her laugh was throaty and husky as she threw her head back.
“One of the reasons I chose her. Even as a human she possessed few scruples.”
“Be careful her ambitions don’t turn in your direction,” he cautioned.
I glanced at the man and woman who had trailed behind Sofia. Unlike Aiden’s guards, these two made no attempt at blending into the crowd. They were dressed alike, their clothes dark and tight, while still managing to not seem entirely out of place in this glittering room.
The man matched Sofia’s coloring—they both looked like they were of Italian descent, or full-blooded Italian. His dark eyes surveyed the room, cataloging. The woman at his side was shorter than him by only an inch, her hair cut short and pulled back from her face. She had high cheekbones and plump lips, with skin the color of night. She was striking, and not just because of her bone structure. She looked like a sharpened blade, meant to cut through everything.
She met my gaze briefly, interest and curiosity there, before returning to watching the room.
Both of Sofia’s guards were powerful. Not as powerful as the two flirting beside me, but enough so that a small headache was forming.
“Is this Thomas’s wayward charge I’ve been hearing so much about?” Sofia asked, her eyes bright and curious.
Aw, how nice. Being discussed as if I wasn’t standing right there, a thinking, feeling being.
I held my peace even as irritation bit at me. However, Thomas had been clear—seen and not heard.
It was a phrase I had to repeat to myself as Sofia drifted closer, reaching out and touching the lock of hair that curled against my cheek.
“Very pretty,” she said as if looking at a piece of art. The art being me. “And more obedient than I’d been given to expect.”
I didn’t react, just met her eyes with a bland expression that said I couldn’t be bothered with responding to such ridiculousness. It was the avid interest in her eyes that told me she was testing me, poking and prodding to get my measure.
She’d have to work harder than that.
I turned to find Aiden staring at me. He knew what I was up to.
For whatever reason, he decided to take pity on me.
“Shall we dance?” he asked Sofia, holding out one hand.
She took it with a coy smile. “I thought you would leave me in suspense for a little longer.”
“Never,” he told her.
The two left me to hold up the wall, waltzing toward the dance floor, a string quartet playing as people slowly rotated before them.
Sofia’s guard hesitated, giving me a small nod before she and the man slowly trailed after their matriarch.
“I’ll never understand the draw between those two,” a slightly accented voice said by my side. Anton stared after the two clan leaders, a considering expression on his face.
I felt a small flicker of surprise that he was addressing me. Another of Liam’s enforcers, Anton had made no secret of the fact that he wasn’t my biggest fan—even going so far as exiting any room I happened to enter, or turning on his heel and heading in the other direction if he happened to approach me in the hall.
That he was addressing me now, had even made a point of tracking me down to talk to me, left me feeling like the world might be in imminent danger of ending.
His dislike of all things me was understandable—up to a point. It was my presence and stubbornness about joining a clan that had, in a roundabout way led to the death of his human companion. Granted, she’d been plotting against me and had gone so far as to attempt to place the blame for several werewolf killings at Caroline’s feet. In addition to that, she’d had several vile things planned for my eventual demise.
“Then again, Liam’s obsession with you doesn’t make sense to me either,” he said as an aside.
My lips twitched at the statement. So, we had progressed from him ignoring me to thinly veiled hostility. I suppose that was progress. At least he wasn’t pretending I didn’t exist anymore.
The formal uniform Anton was dressed in seemed ill-suited for the man. He wore it poorly, like he itched to tear it off. He would have been more at home on some battlefield swinging a sword, a warrior from some long-ago era.
His skin was permanently tan. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the faint lines on his face said he’d been turned later than me, after a lifetime spent living to the fullest and laughing at every opportunity.
“Speechless. This is a first.” His words were dry and cutting, his dislike coming through very clearly. “I hadn’t thought you capable of such restraint.”
“Tell me—are you mad I exposed your companion for what she was or because you didn’t see it?” I asked, finally turning to look at him fully.
I’d had time to think since everything had gone down. Granted, his obvious problem with me didn’t take up a lot of headspace given all the other problems in my life, but I had given him some consideration.
My bet was on the latter reason. I’d seen him with his companion before she died, and while there’d been affection there, it had seemed almost patronizing—that of an older man with a woman he thought cute but ultimately slightly stupid. Not to mention, Anton had a bit of a reputation as a player.
His expression turned frosty, implyingI’d guessed correctly. It seemed finding her killer and delivering him for Anton’s revenge hadn’t been enough to alter his attitude toward me.
I didn’t let it bother me. I had never aspired to be liked by everyone. His sour outlook, while slightly irritating, had little impact on me in the long run. One of the perks of not being very involved in Thomas’s affairs.
A waiter appeared before us, a woman whose gaze was bright and her smile cheery as she offered a tray of drinks.
“Can I interest you in a refreshment?” she asked, tilting the tray our way to entice us. She was a bright spot in the somber room where the laughter seemed more playacting than reality.
“Run along, the adults are speaking,” Anton said in dismissal.
The woman’s smile wilted and for a moment she looked like a kicked puppy.
I smiled at her, noting the small fangs denting her lower lip and the faintest trace of power. She was older than me by at least a century but not much more than that.
“I’ll have one,” I told her, grabbing a glass of what looked like white wine.
She beamed at me.
Anton made a small scoffing sound, waiting until she had left. “Kindness won’t get you far in our world.”
I shrugged. Maybe, maybe not.
I sniffed the liquid. It smelled lighter and sweeter than any wine I’d ever had. Given the fairy wine circulating, I decided it might be best to hold off on tasting the drink.
“What is it you want?” I asked, still considering the liquid. It was obvious he wanted something, or he wouldn’t have deigned to visit me in my little corner.
He handed me a pair of opera gloves. “He said you forgot part of your outfit.”
There was only one person he could be referencing. I turned, spotting Liam in the crowd, his gaze on mine.
As I watched, Niamh laid one hand lightly on his chest. A flash of jealousy at the other woman’s proprietary gesture took me by surprise.
It didn’t help that Liam made no effort to evade her touch, standing there stoically, his expression unchanging as her hand moved up to his shoulder.
“She wants him back,” Anton observed unhappily.
Back implied they’d been together before.
“Who is she to him?” I asked, curiosity prodding me.
“An old flame,” Anton said, a twist to his lips.
The words did nothing to stem the jealousy that was winding its way through me. The two seemed like they’d stepped straight from a painting, from some bucolic scene. The Fae princess with her prince. How sweet. Not.
“I have a hard time seeing the two of them together,” I said. She was vicious and petty. Liam gave every indication of wanting to be as far away from her as possible.
“What? From your limited time spent with Liam, you think you know him?” Anton asked. He thought about it before conceding. “Maybe you’d be right about the current Liam, but once upon a time the two made quite the name for themselves, each trying to outdo the other for pure viciousness.”
I held up the gloves. “What are these for?”
“Just put them on,” he said impatiently.
I held his gaze with my own, not changing expression and not making any move to don the gloves.
“It escapes me why you were the first person he visited when he returned,” Anton muttered, reaching for my arm and turning it up.
First person? I looked back at Liam again, remembering his recent visit, seeing it in a new light with this news.
“It’s best not to advertise your marks to the world,” Anton explained with a forced patience, grabbing one glove and pulling it up my arm as I watched Liam.
He glanced up at that moment, his gaze connecting with mine. It was like being hit with a fist of electricity, an inescapable awareness, as potent now as the first time it had happened.
He took in the two of us as Anton shoved on my other glove. The smallest warmth entered his expression and he cocked his head, the gesture an unmistakable summons.
I gave him a look that said ask nicely.
In response, he glanced at Anton and jerked his head.
“We’ve been summoned,” Anton muttered, grabbing my arm and hauling me after him. He took the glass from me and set it on a waiter’s tray as we passed.
Liam looked at me and smirked, obviously feeling pretty pleased he’d gotten his way. I gave him a challenging smile. We’d see how long that lasted.
“Are you my keeper for the evening?” I asked Anton, shifting my attention from the small group we were approaching.
“Something like that.”
I gave him a considering look as he avoided my eyes. That was not the response I’d been expecting.
A shoulder bumped me and a pair of familiar eyes met mine. Cadell looked at my companion and then touched my shoulder. For a brief moment, his hand was warm, almost hot against me.
“You should watch where you’re going,” he said. The words were at odds with the slightly wary look in his eyes, one I understood when a piece of paper was slipped into my hand.
He turned and walked away before I could say anything, weaving around the floor as he headed back to Niall, who very carefully wasn’t watching us.
I looked around, finding no one seemed to have noticed the exchange, or if they had, they’d written it off as the baby vampire making a fool of herself.
“What was that about?” Anton asked, his gaze suspicious as if he knew something had just happened, but not what.
I gave him a bright smile, clasping my hands and hiding the paper. “Nothing. Let’s find Liam before he has a coronary over you not doing what you’re supposed to.”
I stepped past him before he could say anything, reaching up casually to tuck the folded piece of paper into the top of my glove.
Before Anton could ask any further questions, we reached Liam. He slipped smoothly away from Niamh, evading her as he reached me.
“Aileen, good. You saved me that dance you promised,” Liam said smoothly. “Come, dance with me.” It wasn’t really a request.
I took the hand he offered, somewhat reluctantly. My dancing skills were average at best.
I was very aware of Niamh glaring at us as we walked away.
A new song started up as he set one hand against my waist and took my hand in his other.
“This brings back memories of the last time we danced,” Liam said, his body brushing against mine as he turned us and set us to gliding across the dance floor.
“Hopefully, this evening has a better ending than that one,” I said. Last time we’d ended the night with a body on the ground.
Liam was a masterful dancer, making it seem like I halfway knew what I was doing. He led me through the steps, the slight pressure of his hands guiding me.
“What did the Fae slip you?” Liam whispered in my ear.
I leaned back, catching a glimpse of Liam’s face as he swept me across the floor. He looked like he was making idle chatter about the weather.
“What makes you think he slipped me anything?” I asked, stalling. I didn’t know what Cadell had given me, but from the way he and Niall were acting it must be important.
“Anton wasn’t in a position to see, but I was,” Liam said, never raising his voice or losing that slightly patronizing look on his face. “It was a skilled pass.”
I remained quiet, unsure what would be the best response. Liam was technically my employer. Yet my previous relationship with the two Fae complicated things, especially since I felt like I owed them a debt.
“I have to commend you on your lack of reaction. If I didn’t know you so well, I would never have spotted anything amiss,” he murmured, his expression loving.
To the ballroom’s occupants, it would seem like we were having a moment between lovers. An impression that didn’t seem to go over Niamh’s head, her expression turning vindictive as she glared at us.
If I didn’t know better, I would think Liam was doing it on purpose.
“How do you know the two of them?” he asked.
His question answered one thing. He didn’t know they were my downstairs neighbors, something I found surprising given how he seemed to know everything else in my life.
I sighed. “We should really leave this conversation until we’re not surrounded by potential enemies.”
My forced smile was loving, adulation shining from every pore.
“A secret,” Liam murmured. “You know how I feel about those.”
Yes. It seemed most vampires couldn’t resist a secret, going to excessive lengths to ferret them out. Secrets might as well have been the lifeblood of my new species. That, and actual blood.
“I will find out what you’re hiding,” he warned in a deep voice as if he relished the thought.
“Yes, but perhaps not here,” I told him.
“Challenge accepted.”
I fought against rolling my eyes.
The music ended and we both clapped politely before Liam escorted me off the dance floor to where Anton stood watching. He’d drifted to the opposite side of the room from Niamh and the other Fae, something that was no doubt on purpose.
“Anything interesting to report?” Liam asked Anton when we reached him. He kept one firm hand on my waist, keeping the side of my body pressed against the length of his.
Anton shook his head. “It’s been quiet, so far.”
I subtly watched the gathering through my othersight, noting the thin streams of magic that drifted through the air. They seemed aimless, harmless as they ducked and swooped near the ceiling.
“What is it you think will happen?” I asked.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be stuck waiting,” Liam said. “I’d already have taken care of the problem.”
There was frustration in his face and voice. I could tell he didn’t like sitting back and waiting for his enemies to strike. No one did.
Waiting was the worse feeling in the world. Knowing there were people out there who wanted to kill you or at least fuck up your world, but not being able to do a damn thing about it because you didn’t know how or when they would strike.
A server circled our way. I shook my head when the tray of wine was offered to me, noting Liam and Anton did the same.
As they resumed their hushed conversation, I watched the magic, fascinated. It was rare to see so much of the stuff in an ambient form, just swimming through the room as if it was a giant aquarium. I idly wondered whether the ribbons of magic had been created or if they were a natural phenomenon.
Columbus was supposedly on several ley lines, one of the reasons it had such a strong supernatural population. Ley lines were great wells of magic that could be tapped to amplify a person’s strengths. Not to mention, their presence was capable of sustaining those spooks whose very lives were dependent on its presence.
I was so consumed with the hypnotic beauty above that I momentarily forgot about watching the people around me.
A server drifted past, jostling me and distracting me from my thoughts. I stared at her, not knowing why a sense of danger and impending doom skated along my nerves, wondering why the woman had snagged my attention in the first place.
It was the one from earlier, the one who had interrupted me and Anton.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly it was about her that struck me as “off”. Soldiers understood instinct and gut urges. Sometimes a soldier could look at someone and know they had an IED or weapon on them. Later they wouldn’t be able to explain how or why they knew, they just did. It had something to do with experience and intuition converging to warn them. Of course, sometimes they got it wrong.
For that reason, I remained in place, watching for a clue that would tell me how to act. I didn’t want to start something without knowing for a fact I wasn’t simply being jumpy.
She seemed normal enough, the tray in her hands oddly full despite the crowd she moved through. I saw why, as she ignored a vampire who tried to signal for a glass of wine.
She was moving too fast through the crowd, not using that slow meandering walk most of the servers used while enticing people to take another glass. Her path was too direct, her mission pre-determined.
Then I realized what had bothered me all along. It was her expression, eyes vacant, face blank, as if she was a doll someone else had wound up and sent on her way.
I moved before I could think, cutting through the crowd at an angle from her.
“Aileen,” Liam snapped.
I barely paid attention, conscious of the server as she momentarily moved out of view when a red cap lumbered past.
Liam’s hand caught my arm and pulled me to a stop. “What are you doing?”
“Something is wrong,” I said, already twisting to locate the woman.
“What?” he asked.
I grimaced. “Not sure.”
“Try to explain,” he said with forced patience.
I considered. It couldn’t hurt.
I nodded to the woman. “You see her.”
He frowned and nodded.
“She’s not in her area,” I said, finally articulating one of the things that had been bothering me.
It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but the servers had cut the room into quadrants and tended to stick to their space unless summoned. This woman, however, was ignoring all that, moving in a way counter to the rest of the servers.
Liam picked up on the significance of that.
“Anton, find out who she is and her master’s name,” Liam ordered.
Anton looked between the two of us but didn’t argue, already moving to follow orders.
“Do you see anything else?” Liam asked, a weight to his question that told me what he really wanted to know.
I shook my head. “There might be something, but I’m not sure. There are too many power players to get an accurate read.”
He touched me on the hip. “Then we’ll get her to a place where you can get that reading. Stay here.”
I was more than willing to oblige as he signaled one of his enforcers before moving away. The crowd parted for the dangerous shark in their midst as he cut through them.
Even as young as this vampire was, she could probably wipe the floor with me. She had to have decades on my three years. Vampires were like fine wine, they grew more powerful and dangerous with age. Something I wouldn’t have for many, many years to come.
Liam appeared in front of the server, a genial smile on his face. She stepped back and drew up short as another enforcer appeared behind her. The one I called Viking. He was large and intimidating as he scowled down at her.
The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders dissipated as they corralled her. Whatever her intent, whatever had been planned was contained now.
A sharp scream ripped from her. She crumpled in the Viking’s hands, falling to the ground as she jerked and shook. A space widened around the three as those in the vicinity drew back to watch the drama in their midst.
Liam and the Viking tried to protect her from injuring herself, their efforts only mildly successful as she convulsed, her eyes rolling up in her head as white froth spilled out of her mouth. Blood leaked out of her ears and mouth.
A halo surrounded her in my othersight, getting stronger and more vivid with every scream. Whatever was happening to her, it sounded like she was being slaughtered as we watched helplessly.
I glanced away, looking in the direction she’d been heading. Distantly, I noted Thomas surrounded by his guests, Niall and Cadell among them. They all watched dispassionately as the woman’s cries suddenly ceased.
That was nearly scarier than her screams, the silence unbearably loud in the full ballroom.
Thomas frowned with curiosity as he looked between where I stood, and Liam and the woman on the ground, something building in his gaze.
A movement to his right caught my attention. A vampire, vaguely familiar, turned toward Thomas’s group. His face displayed the same vacantness as the woman.
His lips moved as he muttered.
I moved before I could think better of it, discarding the possibility of using the Judge. There was too much of a chance of hitting civilians.
Fifteen feet from Thomas. Ten.
I wasn’t going to be fast enough. The man raised his hand, something warping the air in front of it.
I sprinted for them.
Thomas’s eyes widened at the sight of me pelting in his direction, his gaze rotating as he sought what had caused my panic.
The vampire threw the ball of writhing air. I arrived, yanking Thomas out of the way. Not fast enough. The protection Dahlia had given me shredded with a crack that ripped through the air.
The ball hit me—excruciating pain consuming me. Arlan and the twins watched with fascination as they sipped on their drinks. Then nothingness.