Dragon Awakened(65)

“Yes, it did. The hunt, the kill, is an adrenaline rush.” Even now he wasn’t softening the truth.

“Damn you!” She hit him again, hearing her fist smack against muscle.

“Control your rage, Ruby.” He didn’t flinch or move back, nor did he give away any hint of the pain she was inflicting. Did he have any emotion or regret about what he’d done? Not by the passive expression on his face.

She laughed, tears salty where they gathered at the corners of her mouth. “Control my rage. Yeah, someone as cold and ruthless as you could say that to me.”

“Hit me if you want. But be in control.”

“Even now, being my teacher. How quaint, the man who killed my parents is the man who would teach me. Awaken me.” She spat out those last words because he’d awakened her in more ways than one. The anger took her like a wave, thrusting her up high and out of control. She threw herself at him, her words unintelligible as she pounded at him. She didn’t even know what she was saying anymore. Finally, drained, tired and aching, she slid to the floor. She was that girl again, learning that her parents were dead, that she couldn’t go back home.

He didn’t try to comfort her, which both hurt and relieved her. She would have thrown off any show of solace. Or any apology, as if that would make a difference.

She used the couch to push herself to her feet when she finally got herself together. Her shirt gaped open, and she didn’t even care. She avoided looking at him. “I want Mr. Smith dead.”

“We’ll make him dead.”

“I’ll make him dead.”

Ruby turned to leave, but Cyn grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her to within an inch of him with his iron grip. All she could see was his chest, red where she’d pounded him, streaks where her nails had scratched.

“Ruby, look at me.” His dark eyes, the embers jagged, bore into hers. “You showed your strength when you didn’t give away that a tulpa was standing next to your Mundane friend. Use that strength, that restraint, now. You need me. I know you hate that, but you need me if you want to make these people pay.”

“I don’t need you,” she gritted out.

“Remember what Brom’s visions showed.”

The book. She needed to see if anything new had materialized on the pages. He wouldn’t let her go, proving that he was stronger than she could ever hope to be. “You lost control just now, Ruby. That’s dangerous. I let you go off on me; your enemy will not. He will take advantage of your lack of focus and kill you. Master your emotions.”

He let her go. She stalked outside to the car, seeing him follow in the corner of her eye. She forced herself not to look at him, walking around to the passenger side but stopping short at the sight of the man hunched there, waiting for her.

Brom. With his demon parasite, if Cyn was right.

Out of instinct and fear, she backed away with a yelp. Brom reached for her, his eyes wide in desperation. The demon reached, too, with long spindly fingers.

She backed into a hard body.

“He wants to touch you, to show you,” Cyn said, his hands bracing her shoulders. “I’ve never heard of a parasite transferring to someone else, but I wouldn’t let it grab on to you. It’s there to keep Brom from speaking mostly.”

She shuddered at the sight of its “roots” sinking into Brom’s throat. God, this was sick, crazy sick. “Can’t we kill it?”

“No, because we’ll kill Brom.”

Cyn grabbed her wrist and jerked it toward Brom’s wavering fingers. She struggled, but it was too late. Brom’s hand clamped over both hers and Cyn’s hands. She jerked with the impact of the images that bombarded her mind: people collapsing, gasping for air, writhing in pain. Children crying as they clawed at their parents’ sleeves. Jack, right there at the Yard, stumbling against the Harley. Leo falling to the passenger seat of his car, driving right into the side of a building. Glesenda and others dropping at the dojo. Oh, God, a whole class of kids staggering, falling to their knees as they called for their mommies. The vision panned out, showing people falling all over Miami.

She saw a flash of her and Cyn fighting together, and then the vision disappeared. Brom had backed away. The parasite’s hand was nearly touching hers.

Cyn pulled Ruby closer, his arm going over her shoulders. “Brom, what can we do to help you? I don’t know much about parasitic demons.”

Brom shook his head and made those horrible sounds she’d heard earlier. “J…J…”

“Justin? Is that what you’re saying?” Ruby asked.

The parasite tightened its hold around Brom’s throat, cutting off even those words. And then they both simply disappeared.