After he was adequately amused, he tilted his head back down and narrowed his eyes on me. “I want you to stay away from Seth.”

“Sure, no problem,” I quickly agreed. “Are we done?”

“Don’t patronize me, Stella,” he snapped. His patience was gone and even though he stood perfectly unmoving, he seemed like a swirling tornado of Dark energy. He was terrifying in his composed stillness. “I want you nowhere near him.”

“If only we always got what we wanted,” I taunted.

He took three steps toward me and seemed to catch himself. He stopped and clenched his fists at his side, visibly trying to calm down.

“You’re disrespectful, Child, and it will only hurt you in the end.” His accent was thicker with his emotion and his malicious green eyes were alight with fury.

I was going to go with some kind of spanking joke, but thought better of it. I was trying to be a smartass, not take us into super weirdville. So instead I said, “Doesn’t Seth live with you now? Isn’t the entire point of his life now to officially stay away from me? Why are you here, Aliah?”

He glared at me but remained silent.

“Why are you here, Aliah?” I repeated.

“I want you to stay away from Seth,” he bit out.

“You are the one that owns his soul. Maybe you should be having this conversation with him.”

“I do own his soul, which means I want him nowhere near you. There are very specific requirements in the contract. You had better be very careful lest you get your soulless Counterpart killed.”

“A contract that I did not read, agree to, or sign. Nothing I do can be held against the contract. I’m not a party to it. And I’m not worried about Seth’s life in your hands.”

A malicious smirk tilted the corner of his full lips. “You’re saying you trust me with Seth?”

“I’m saying you have been searching for the better part of ten years for him and one mistake isn’t going to send you over the edge. Obviously you have ridiculous patience. And on top of that I don’t need to trust you, because I trust Seth to be able to take care of himself.”

“But do you trust him to take care of you?” He was mocking me. And what I couldn’t tell him was that I did. Even if it was stupid and pathetically naïve, I trusted him.

The sword handle itched in my palm and I gripped it tighter, desperate to plunge it into the empty cavity of his chest where I would find no heart. “Leave,” I growled. “It’s time for you to go.”

“Hey boss,” Jude drawled while coming to stand next to the dusty Honda Civic, next to my huge truck. “Finally going after that GED I keep bugging you about?”

I would have laughed at Jude had I not been so completely pissed off. He sounded like he was reciting lines from a sitcom, and his acting skills were atrocious. He leaned back on the Civic and crossed his ankles and arms, and then just waited casually to be included in our altercation.

“Jude,” Aliah sighed. “Obviously, if I’m here you haven’t been holding up your end of the contract.”

“I’m missing something,” Jude pointed out. He looked back and forth between Aliah and me and finally ended on Aliah.

“She’s not allowed near him, Jude. That was the deal. You keep her away from him or you will be replaced.” Aliah was back to his cool confident coldness.

I was surprised that Jude seemed able to appear just as unaffected, though. If Aliah was threatening my life so directly, I would have had to say something. I wouldn’t be able to let it roll off my back.

I would have opened my mouth and said something that got me into trouble.

“I’m doing my job,” Jude shrugged. “The contract would tell you if I weren’t.”

That gave me pause. Living contracts were an extreme rarity. That also meant this one was bound by the signers blood. It was one thing to say Seth had sold his soul, even to see the evidence of it. But knowing they used a living contract meant the soul was actually trapped inside the contract. This was both good news and bad news. The good news meant that because the soul hadn’t been imprisoned in hell during the duration of the contract, Seth would actually have a chance of getting his back. The bad news was that just because Seth got his soul back didn’t mean he wouldn’t already have changed into the Fallen he was pretending to be. It also didn’t mean that his soul was going to be held apart from the evil that surrounded it. But the worst piece of news this brought was that the contract was extremely all-seeing. Where a simple paper contract was left to the signer’s honor system, this particular contract would know if there was deceit or malpractice.

It also meant I wasn’t told the entire story. If anything, living contracts were extremely wordy to ensure that all of the parties got exactly what they wanted, since they bonded the contract by blood both sides of the deal were carried out without any of the signer’s wishes. They just… happened.

Some people believed there was an entirely secret sect that was devoted only to living contracts. A mixture of Fallen and Warriors that carried out the contracts until they were satisfied.

“The contract will tell me when you fail,” Aliah reminded Jude, turning around so that they were face to face. “The contract will not tell me if you are on your way to failing.”

Jude’s face became a mask of unemotional placidness. His gray eyes were shuttered and his body remained relaxed against the car. He was too easy-going for me to fully believe him, and I suddenly felt nervous for him. Aliah would see through his façade easily and then Jude would die.

It was going to be simple and quick.

I just hated that; I actually felt bad for Jude. I should know better. I should be glad to get rid of him.

Finally Jude let out a long sigh, “Are you finished boss? I have to get to class.”

“I’m finished,” Aliah finally answered.

But Jude didn’t move. Instead, he just looked at me and waited.

“Stay away from him Stella.” Aliah’s words were steel and titanium, both unbreakable and unbending.

“Or what, Aliah? You can’t hurt me. You can’t touch me. Stop with the threats. They mean nothing to me.”

“I can’t hurt you, but I can hurt him, Stella. Understand me when I say that I own him now. I know very well that you’re looking toward the day he gets his soul back. Well, it won’t be any good to him if it’s blacker than he is. You better pray I take it easy on him while he’s in my care or can you imagine what that would be like for you? You’d have to kill your own Counterpart.” He paused for dramatic effect and then said, “That might be fun.”

And then he was gone. We stood watching him disappear down the line of cars and climb into a midnight blue Porshe. He peeled out of the parking lot in record time. Jude and I just stared after him while the first bell rang in the background.

“You’re a crazy person, Stella!” Jude exclaimed in a high-pitched laugh. I couldn’t determine if I should agree with him or be extremely offended. “You can’t talk to Aliah like that! Hell, you can’t even talk about Aliah like that!”

This was the most worked up I’d ever seen Jude, and it was almost amusing. Almost.

“Jude, we are enemies. I can talk about him however I want.”

“You don’t understand what he will do to make you suffer,” Jude shook his head, all traces of humor gone. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it before sucking in a long drag. His eyes went a bit unfocused; he dropped his tone as if he were afraid of being overheard. “Aliah wants complete obedience. It doesn’t matter who you are or what side of the war you’re on. You defied him, Stella. He will punish you for that.”

“I defy him every time I see him,” I pointed out. “I defy them all.”

“And look at what he did to you!” Jude threw up his hands in exasperation. “Look at how he’s making his point!”

“Seth made his own decision. He chose this to protect me.”

He let out a cackle of bitter laughter. “And you think he just came up with this plan all on his own? You think he wanted to sell his soul?”

No. I didn’t think that. But I thought he chose this. I assumed this was ultimately his decision.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

Instead of answering my question he just continued smoking and looking down at his worn-out Chuck Taylors.

“Jude, tell me what you’re talking about.” He looked up at me from under his full lashes and just stared. His eyes were bleak and dark, his jaw tight and his lips pressed firmly around his cigarette. He wasn’t going to give anything away. “Please, Jude. I need to understand this.”

He let out a whoosh of white smoke, nothing like his usually careful exhales that came out in “O’s” or concentrated streams. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Please.” I sounded pathetic, but if this tactic didn’t work I was taking my sword and gutting him with it. He would eventually heal. And I would have some satisfaction.

I realized I was still holding my sword, in broad daylight, surrounded by high school students and without any explanation that would make sense to my teachers. I kept my eyes locked with Jude’s and returned the katana to its hiding place. I slid up sideways onto my driver’s seat and rested my elbow on the steering wheel. I was late for class, but this was more important.

“The day you were… attacked,” Jude looked around and then moved closer to me. He was still smoking and the strong scent of tobacco filled my car and filtered into my clothes. But I let him get away with it so he would talk. “You weren’t the only one. Your boyfriend was attacked too. Seven, she can…. She has this way of affecting the atmosphere, making it seem like there’s no trouble.”

“I knew that,” I said confidently. Only, I didn’t exactly know that but I suspected it.

“Sure, but it doesn’t always work with you and Seth. Or, that’s what I figured out. Because you have that…. bond. Anyway, so they planned this whole thing. They knew you would be separated that day. And they knew you would be unarmed. When Saul took you out to that desert…. There’s no way they would have been able to find you. And Aliah knew he would never be able to convince Seth to change sides without killing him first. So he gave him the…. opportunity to save your life.”

“My location for his soul,” I filled in the blanks.

“Seth added a few of his own provisos. But the deal was made before Saul lost his head.”

“Aliah sacrificed his own man to get Seth to sign?”

“Aliah would have sacrificed all of his men to get Seth. He has this…. obsession with it, with him and his sister. You were collateral. A means to an end.”

“Seth had already signed the contract before he saved me?”

“And then he was given the weekend to say goodbye. His stipulation, not Aliah’s.”

“What else did Seth add?”

“Small stuff. The majority of the contract was not up for negotiation.”