Stephanie
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED so hard I was afraid it was going to crack right down the middle. Cassius rushed past Ethan like I was chasing him with a gun, and he actually pushed Mason out of the way to reach the upstairs bedrooms.
Another door slammed.
I winced.
“Trouble in paradise?” Alex joked as he waltzed lazily out of the kitchen. His smirk was undeniably irritating. If he wasn’t family I’d probably attack him or at least freeze his ass for being such a pain in mine.
“No,” I lied. “He’s human. They get grumpy when they don’t sleep.”
“Uh-huh.” Ethan nodded. “You sure that’s what you want to go with? He’s tired?”
Genesis walked into the hallway and stifled a yawn. “Who’s slamming doors?”
“Cassius,” Alex said helpfully. “I’m just going to come out and say it, he was uncontrollable when he was actually able to control his emotions and could choose not to feel. Now that he’s human? He’s a danger not only to himself, but the rest of us.”
“How cute.” Mason chuckled. “The Siren’s afraid.” He winked. “Don’t worry, the dog will protect you.”
Alex flipped him off. “When has a Siren ever needed protection?”
I held up my hands. “Guys, like I said, he’s fine, just tired. We were at his house and—”
“Whoa!” Mason froze in place, gaping at me. Then he shook his head as if coming to his senses. “Back up. He has a house?”
I swallowed. “Of course! Where else would he hang out?”
“Funerals, prisons, Antarctica.” Alex sighed and examined his fingernails, “Take your pick.”
“It was nice,” I said defensively.
All movement in the hallway stopped.
Ethan was the first to speak. “Did you… hurt him?”
“Oh, good grief.” I pressed my fingers against my temples. “No, I didn’t hurt him, everything’s fine. I’m fine, Cassius is fine, the whole world is fine.”
“Fine.” Alex grinned.
My temper surged as I thought of freezing one of his fingers off.
“Ouch!” Alex stumbled back against the wall then held up his hand. “What the hell was that? It felt like someone was sawing off my finger!”
I shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. “He’s been teaching you tricks, damn him.”
“Maybe.” I pushed past him. “Maybe not.”
“Stephanie,” Ethan called out. “Wait.”
I paused in the doorway. “What?”
There they went again with the shifty eyes and uncertain posture.
I growled. “Just tell me.”
“The numbers don’t match.”
“What numbers?”
“Demon.” Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets. “According to our reports from last month they’ve added another sixty to their ranks.”
“Sixty!” I blurted. “But that’s insane! They have to keep their numbers under three hundred! If they added sixty—”
Ethan held up his hand. “It makes no sense. I know. They’re claiming that they’ve been the victims of a Vampire attack leaving them with no choice but to… create.”
My blood chilled. “That’s illegal not to mention stupid, they can’t just create more of themselves. Not without the help of Angel blood.”
I hadn’t been alive back when Pompeii was destroyed but I knew the toll it took on all of them to this day. Ethan had said Cassius refused to talk to anyone for weeks. I knew there was more to the story. One of Cassius’s closest friends had been killed soon after the city was destroyed, but nobody talked about it.
Immortal blood should never be in the hands of the Demons. Because to create a Demon—you had to give up your soul. And most souls didn’t go willingly.
“Right.” Ethan sighed. “But with this whole Cassius scenario we can’t really send him in there to settle things down.”
Guilt crept over Ethan’s face. Cassius truly was the only one who could control the Demons, and if they went against him, he simply destroyed them with a snap of his fingers.
“Crap,” I mumbled searching Ethan’s eyes. “You want to send me.”
“But you aren’t ready.” Genesis said softly.
At least she was on my side.
“We discussed this.” Mason crossed his arms. “I can take care of it.”
“Like hell,” Alex spat. “If any of us go we’re just putting ourselves in a situation that we may not be able to get out of without Cassius’s help.”
I licked my lips. “Maybe I can talk to him…”
“Oh?” Alex’s eyebrows shot up. “And how’s that been going for you?”
Another door slammed upstairs. What the heck was he doing? Just opening and slamming doors because he could?
“Stephanie,” Ethan reached for my hands. “We need you… and for some reason he still won’t explain, Cassius needs you too.”
I hung my head.
Shame filled me to the core.
I was going to kill him.
That was the future I had seen.
I just didn’t understand it, no way was I naïve enough to believe that it was the only future ahead of us. Futures changed, just like the wind. I refused to concentrate on one so fleeting and meaningless. I loved Cassius, I would never hurt him—ever.
It would take ultimate betrayal.
And even then, I wouldn’t be able to follow through with it.
Besides, love or not, he was my King.
“I’ll try harder.” I bit down on my lip, nearly drawing blood. “I’ll have him teach me, and I’ll try to be less argumentative.”
Alex snorted.
I glared in his direction, and he held up his hands.
“I can do it.” I took another deep breath. “This is my job, right? All of us have jobs on the council, mine’s just shifted a bit.”
“Right.” Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll send a few of my men with you, just in case.”
“And by men he means starving Vampire soldiers who would love—and I do mean love—to get a good meal in.” Mason gave Ethan a fist bump and walked out of the room. Alex and Genesis followed.
Ethan didn’t budge. His green eyes flared to life. Oh great, I’d somehow pissed him off. How, I wasn’t sure.
He stalked toward me, picked me up off the floor and slammed my body against the wall as his fangs slowly slid out from his lips. “Tell me I can trust you.”
In all the years I’d known Ethan, he’d never been violent toward me.
Ever.
I knew it was his love for Genesis that made him paranoid, but it stung that he thought so little of me.
“I swear.” My voice trembled. “I would never betray any of you.”
“Or Cassius.” Ethan’s grip tightened on my neck as he squeezed. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I could fight back—potentially kill him or hurt him, but I had no control over what I could and couldn’t do. They were right, I needed Cassius. We all did.
“Never.” I gasped.
Ethan released my body abruptly. I crumpled to the ground and rubbed my neck, I was going to have marks from his fingers.
“Betray us again—” Ethan shrugged, his fangs digging into his lower lip. “And I’ll be forced to take you to Sariel.”
My body chilled at the thought. “Ethan, you can trust me.”
He nodded, his incisors retracted, and a friendly smile flashed across his face. “Good talk. Sleep tight.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall. “Damn Vamps.”
“Heard that,” he yelled from the other room.
I glanced down the hall and at the stairway. I could do this. I just needed Cassius’s help.
The last thing we needed was the Demons gaining a foothold. The peace between immortals was only kept if each of the groups stayed within their boundaries, and if they kept to the council rules.
If you wanted to procreate, you needed an approved human from the list, just like Genesis had been brought to us. She’d brought balance back to a world full of chaos, meaning we were already going to be opening up the calling again.
Where we’d call numbers of humans who were, in our opinion, superior to others, and allowing them into our world.
An immortal needed a human in order to create more immortals, possibly the reason that we kept our numbers low was because for so long the humans had died at our hands. But now… now, things were working again.
Thanks to Genesis and Ethan’s love fest.
I rubbed my neck again. If the Demons were already picking off humans we had a much bigger problem than Cassius trying to teach me millennia of self-control.
We’d be faced with war.
And possible annihilation.
The Archangels only let us exist if Cassius ruled with an iron fist, and Cassius was at this moment throwing a temper tantrum upstairs and his fists were anything but iron.
The last time Cassius had shown mercy—immortals had died.
I exhaled and rose to my feet. At least he only had twenty-eight more days—and we’d have good ol’ grumpy Cassius back.
I’d miss the human one—he at least smiled—and in rare times, blushed.