Urian watched as Ash checked the blades in his boots to make sure they were working. Suddenly, he turned his head as if he knew Urian was there.

Furious, he glared at his boss. “You’re helping my father?”

“We have to stop War.” That dry, flat tone did nothing to improve Urian’s mood or need to beat Ash’s ass.

“Stryker murdered my wife,” Urian snarled.

“I know.”

Oh well, he was so glad they got that cleared up. “How could you help something like him?”

Ash growled at him. “Get off the cross, brother. Someone needs the wood. You helped your father for centuries. Need I remind you of how many lives you took under his command? Lives of people who were related to you—you killed Phoebe’s mother and her sister.”

He flinched at a truth he didn’t want to hear. Ash was right. He should have stopped their deaths. It was all his fault. He’d been the one who tracked them down. Stryker would never have known where they were had he not found them. He led the assassins straight to their location. “I loved my wife. I never meant to hurt her.”

“Changes nothing. You took your wife from the very people she loved more than her life. For too many centuries, you and your brothers were a tool Stryker used most effectively.”

“Times change.”

“Yes, they do … And you should know that you have another sister.”

Stunned, Urian stared at him as he tried to digest the impossible. “What?”

Ash met his gaze levelly and kept his expression completely stoic. “It’s the life of your other sister we’re going to protect. Not your father’s.”

No … not possible. “My sister died eleven thousand years ago.”

“Medea is a half sister.”

Medea? How was that possible?

But in the end, it didn’t matter. “And I should care, why?”

Ash held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. You shouldn’t care at all. She’s nothing to you, which is why I haven’t invited you to join us.” Ash started past him.

Urian pulled him to a stop as the need to beat him flared to an all-time high. “How would you feel if my father had killed Tory?”

Ash answered without hesitation. “I would feel soulless. Lost and hurt beyond repair.”

Urian looked away. “Then you understand me. And why I want him dead.”

Ash pulled Urian’s hand off his arm. “He knows that, too. But have you ever considered that he might regret what he did to you?”

Yeah, right. “My father? Get real. The bastard has never regretted a single thing in his entire life.”

“We all have regrets, Urian. Nothing that lives is immune from that nasty emotion.”

The problem was, his father was dead. “So what? You want me to go kiss and make up?”

“Hardly. But I want you to set aside your own hurt and anger to see clearly for a minute. This isn’t about you and your father any more than it’s about me and Nick hating each other over something we can’t change. This is about saving the lives of a million innocent people. People like Phoebe who don’t deserve to be hunted and killed. If I can stand at the side of my enemies for the greater good, so can you.”

Urian scoffed. “Well I guess I’m just not as special as you are.”

“No one knows their true mettle until it’s been tested. This is yours. Whether you pass or fail at being human or a hero is entirely up to you. I can’t tell you what to do, but I know where I’ll be tonight … fighting beside my enemies to save the lives of those who can’t fight what we have to.” He hesitated before he asked the most important question. “So what do you choose?”

“Gory death.”

Ash shook his head. “You stubborn bastard. Take it from someone who knows firsthand, there’s a lot to be said for forgiveness. Grudges seldom hurt anyone except the one bearing them.”

“And there’s a lot to be said for knocking enemies upside their heads and cracking their skulls wide open.”

Ash felt a tic start in his jaw over Urian’s obdurate nature. “To everything there is a season, and tonight ours is to stand together or lose everything. I’m not fighting for Stryker or to save your sister. I’m fighting to protect the ones I love. The ones who will suffer most if war isn’t stopped … children like Erik, Tyr, little Phoebe, and—”

“Low fucking blows,” he snapped at the mention of his nephews and niece.

“Do you?”

Urian’s gaze hardened. “I will be there, but once our enemies are put down—”

“We fight each other again. Understood.”

Urian nodded. “I want the honest truth about something. Could you really fight with someone who did as much damage to you as my father has done to me?”

Ash met his gaze without blinking. “I subjugated myself to the goddess who drugged me to the point where I couldn’t protect my sister and nephew the night they were brutally slaughtered, and they were the only two people in the universe who’d ever given two shits about me. Later that same day, she stood back and let her twin brother butcher me on the floor like an animal to protect humanity, yet within hours after that I sold myself to her to protect mankind. For the sake of the Dark-Hunters, I subjected myself to her cruel whims for eleven thousand years. So yeah, Urian, I think I could manage to suck it up for an hour to protect the rest of the world.”

Urian let out a slow breath as Ash put his own pettiness in brutal perspective. He was being a spoiled brat and Ash was right. “You know you’re the only man alive I’d ever follow after what I’ve been through. You’re also the only one I respect, and who could talk to me the way you do and not get slapped for it.”

“And you’re one of the extremely few I trust.”

Urian held his hand up to him. “Brothers?”

“Brothers to the end,” Ash said, taking his hand and clutching it tight. “Now before we break into tears, get your ass upstairs and prepare for what’s coming.”

“Don’t worry. I always have your back.”

“Yeah, but this time, we’re up against the god of war.”

Which meant all the backup in the world might not be enough.