As he watched Gideon depart, Owen’s face went red. “Who does he think he is?”
“Your alpha,” Remy said flatly.
Owen propped his fists on his hips, looked at his feet. After several deep breaths, he looked back up. “I don’t know if I can do this. I mean, I know I have to, but I don’t know if I can stay with that bastard without trying to kill him.”
“One thing at a time.”
“You don’t understand,” Owen said, darting anxious glances the direction Gideon had gone. “He thinks he’s going to take Lan’s house. The only way that will happen is if—”
“I know what it means,” Remy said, “and we’re not going there. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but certainly not unless we’re totally out of options.”
“Lan’s still weak. He can’t fight Gideon. That monster would kill him.”
“All you have to do is hang tight,” Remy said. “Give me a chance to find Tasha and Lilith. You need to trust that I’ll bring them back and then we will settle this thing.”
“Doing nothing,” Owen said in a bitter tone. “Something I fucking good at.”
Silence spooled out between them until Remy jerked his head toward the door. “You should go.”
“That fucker doesn’t own me.”
Remy shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think he considered your submission a mere formality.”
“It was only for Tasha. Nothing else.”
“Gideon doesn’t know that. Or he doesn’t care.”
Owen raised haunted eyes to Remy. “It wasn’t like this when I was thirteen.”
“That when you submitted to Lan?”
“Yeah,” Owen said.
“Go, we’ll figure this out.”
Owen nodded.
Remy waited until Owen closed the door between the banquet room and the hall before he unlocked the glass door and stepped out onto the terrace. Spotlights mounted on the back of the building illuminated the waves crashing on the rocks and sand below. He breathed the cool, clear air.
He’d promised Lan that he would take care of things in the alpha’s absence. He’d vowed to protect Lilith. He’d promised Gideon that he’d find Lilith and Tasha. He’d promised Owen they’d find a solution.
From where he stood, the only way to keep all those promises was if someone died.
The question now: who?
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tasha ran uphill along the side street, wincing every time her bare feet smashed into a pebble, more terrified of the silence lurking in the dark behind her than the strange creatures.
What in hell were those things?
Were they even real?
A shoe dangled from her right hand, banging into her thigh with every stride.
And then it hit her.
Shoe. Singular.
Shit.
She slowed to a stop, rested her hands on her knees, her chest burning, sucking air like she was dying. Her 4.7 pound weight loss and ten days of training did not an athlete make her. She must have dropped the other shoe in her haste. They were Laboutins, and she should be more upset, but in the overall scheme of things, it was better to escape demons from hell than to lose one very expensive shoe.
But still, she’d loved those shoes.
Turning around, she peered down the street to where the spray of light from the street lamp ended trying to see if she could make out Lilith, but mostly hoping the other woman had managed to get away and would appear any moment, running like hell.
She couldn’t see a thing.
Wishing would not make it so.
She needed to find help instead of scampering back to Chill like a ninny. If she ran inside yelling about creepy, floaty monsters, who would believe her? She wasn’t sure she believed her own recollection. Besides, when she’d needed more conventional assistance, it wasn’t like she’d managed to enlist anyone to help her get Erin back to the car.
She’d been on her own. As usual.
Light flashed, sudden, bright and intense.
Tasha threw up a hand to shield her eyes. The flash was close enough that she should have felt the heat of the blast, but there was nothing. A deep rumble followed and the sidewalk shook. Tasha stumbled backward, catching herself against the flaking side of a building. The shaking didn’t last long. Probably a micro-quake. The closest street lamp had gone dark, however.
She edged back toward the center of the sidewalk. Calling as softly as she could without actually yelling, she said, “Lilith?”
Silence.
Something bad had happened and those…those things were involved. She didn’t know how she knew, except that she did. It was an unshakeable, bone-deep kind of truth that connected to the core of her self. That woman did not run away like a chicken and leave someone behind. So what if those things had scared the living crap out of her?