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“Now.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to—”

“Now.”

Evan gasped as his feet shuffled without warning, trying to follow Xen’s command on their own. What was terrifying was Evan’s upper body, the part of him still under his control, refused to move as he grabbed onto the nearest stump of the front porch, clinging on for dear life.

If not for his horror of having his body split at the waist, Evan might have thought the scene hilarious.

Fuck this blood bond.

“Stop it,” his eyes flashed to Xen. “Right now.”

Xen remained unimpressed by Evan’s struggles as the two halves of his body tried to move in opposite directions. “Come with me.”

“You damnedunholy rat!” Evan jabbed an angry finger in Xen’s face, the other arm wrapped around the concrete stump in a death grip. “I have responsibilities! I can’t leave those kids alone and go about meandering with you.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t really care about them.”

“I do!” Evan hissed. “There’s my sister in there!”

His best friend had already disappeared, and there were two young men inside. What if something happened to them? They’dblame this town for it, then Celie for bringing them here. They’d outcast her in school, then she would go into depression and cut Evan off from her life—

“If I may,” A gentle hand landed on Evan’s shoulder, momentarily disrupting his explosive thoughts. “I could watch over your guests while you’re gone.”

Delos’s voice was soft yet confident and somehow reassuring all together.

“Why would you?” Evan blurted, still not fully convinced he bore goodwill. Come to think of it, Delos was ridiculously friendly to Evan ever since the first time they met. What was his motive? What washe?

Surely not a human.

Seeing the wheels turning rapidly in Evan’s head, Delos chuckled, “Please, trust me with this. You have my word, as long as I’m here, no harm shall come to any living being inside this house.”

That was a very wise and really comforting way of phrasing that sentence. By “any living being” he was implying that not only would he protect the humans, but also the two precious pets Evan cherished like his own kids.

Evan’s tense shoulder slightly lowered. “Well… thank you.”

Xen redirected his cold stare towards the front gate with an unreadable expression. “Let’s go.”

Evan shot a glare at his back. “Hold your fucking horses. I need to talk to my sister before leaving.”

As he let go of the stump, his feet still tried to move toward Xen, and he collided into the wall that was his back with anoof. Evan stumbled back, groaning as he rubbed his nose.

“Make it quick,” Xen tore his dark eyes away, and the invisible pull against Evan’s feet disappeared.

Delos was stifling a smile as Evan turned around and fixed his hair before marching inside the house. After a moment, Delosand Xen followed behind him, with the latter maintaining more than necessary distance between them.

The group inside were laughing at something Elysia said as she stood in the center of the living room, arms wide spread. Rue was rubbing against her legs, and Misty was curled in Rumi’s lap with a scrunched face, annoyed that her peace was being disturbed by a group of teenagers.

As soon as Evan walked in, Celie’s eyes snapped to him. But when the other two figures followed, all laughter died down. The following silence was so tense Evan almost coughed out blood.

Other than Celie, the rest had witnessed the ethereal beauty that was Delos, but who the hell wasthat?

Tall as a tree and built like a Greek sculpture, the top of his dark head brushed the door frame as he walked in, his blood-red suit clinging to his body like a second skin. And those endless pools of dark eyes seemed to suck all light that grazed their surface.

Xen slipped his hands into his pockets, staring at the floor with a look frigid enough to freeze hell over. Which, somehow, only made him more appealing, in a mysterious kind of way.

Elysia—the shortest of all—craned her neck to look up at him, Celie seemed mildly intrigued, Wren took one glance, then went back to typing on his phone, and Nick was thoroughly dumbstruck, his glasses tipping to a side.