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She stiffened at my words.

“Lana, what is this about?”

Her lower lip trembled, then all at once, her expression crumpled. She buried her face in her hands. “I betrayed them,” she moaned. “When I couldn’t kill you, I betrayed them. Now they see me as a betrayer.”

Ah.

“So make it right. Step aside so they can kill me.”

“I can’t,” she grumbled into her palms. “When you saved my life, you bound our fates... I’m now honor-bound to protect you.”

I frowned. “So whatever, just break it.”

“Break myoath?” She stared at me in disbelief. “I’m an Infernarus. I can’t.”

“Hmm.” I nodded grimly, not liking where this was going.

“And an Infernarus who’s honor-bound to protect a human—andyou, of all humans—I’m already dead to them, and I’m only going to keep betraying them to save you, because I have no choice. That’s why they don’t care if they kill me along with you. In fact, now they’retryingto.”

“You do realize I’m trying to annihilate your species?” I said.

“Yes, and I hate you for it. And I wish you would die. And youwillanswer for your crimes. But not with death.”

“Ah, so you’re going to bring me back to Abyssos with you, and there they will torture and imprison me, but as long as I don’t die, you’ve fulfilled your oath and protected your kind.”

She pressed her lips together.

I’d just guessed her plan.

“It doesn’t matter to you that I would kill you in a heartbeat?”

“Unlike you, Asher, I am honorable. And you wouldn’t. Youdidn’t.”

I would, but I didn’t press the point.

Suddenly, I felt bad for her.

She was hated by all humans, and now she was being hunted by demons... and here she was, sworn to protect the very man who’d gotten her into this shit in the first place, whoalsowanted to kill her. We made an unlikely team. But a team nonetheless.

Anyone who was universally hated by demons, I would stand by.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I glanced over to see her still scratching at the veins on her wrist, a motion she had done so much she had left red welts.

A nervous habit of hers.

“Stop that,” I said, pulling her hand away.

She flinched, only then realizing what she’d been doing, and tugged her sleeves back down.

“You demons have some twisted notions about honor,” I muttered.

She pulled her legs up onto the seat and hugged her knees. “Why do you think we had such a brutal civil war? The delicate web of loyalties and blood oaths became so twisted it finally collapsed under its own weight. Infernari were sworn to protect enemies, they had no choice but to betray their own families, their own mothers and fathers, their children. Brothers slayed brothers to repay debts. Mates were bound by oath to slaughter each other, and many chose instead to die in each other’s arms. The war shattered our kind, it broke us, and we’ve been ghosts ever sense.” She pressed her face to the window. “And now I am sworn to protect Jame Asher, the one who will slay my gods and carve out my own heart... so my treachery is the most terrible of all.”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, working my jaw back and forth as I sucked in a strained breath through my nostrils. Next to me, Lana radiated sadness. Her body seemed to deflate while her hair wept a melancholy green. Such a pitiful, dejected creature.

Sworn to protect me.