Page 30

Kit

I t might be Doyle’s face, but the expression was one I recognized—I’d seen it aimed at me too often in the years before I escaped. Fanis might not exist any longer, but Arsay had worn my grandmother’s body like a glove and too often, she had been the one I’d dealt with.

My skin crawled as I stared at her now. She might be wearing Doyle’s body, but I knew who I was dealing with.

“Get out of him,” I told her.

“Why?” She preened, a uniquely female coquettish mannerism as she swung around in a circle, swinging her hips and holding her arms out like she was displaying herself. “This body is young and strong …even if it’s not suitable, Father and I have had a great deal of fun with it.”

The insinuation couldn’t have been more clear and I clenched my hands into fists.

“You’ll regret that,” I promised her. “I’ll make certain of it.”

“Idiot child.” She sneered, the expression so out of place on my cousin’s face, it was like I was staring at the world through a funhouse mirror. “The only thing you are going to do is give over that body—and the sooner you do it, the better off everyone else will be.”

“I’ve got another suggestion.” The eldritch blades of Volund and Lemeraties swam into my mind’s eye, blurry at first and then sharpening to crystal clarity.

“ We shall end her, ” Volund told me, his ghostly voice a whisper directly into my mind.

“Yes.” But Lemeraties’s voice wasn’t spoken only to me—and as she moved to stand by me, Arsay’s gaze widened in shock. “We will end her, Kitasa.”

Arsay bared her teeth. “So that’s where you’ve been…you ran off to this little mongrel. I don’t know why I’m surprised, Lemeraties. You always were the sort to drag others into your battles.”

“This is my battle, Granny.” The violent clash of drums, a primeval music that must belong to Volund’s sword, began to pulse in the back of my mind. I’d never heard that music before. Only him …and his madness. But now he was in this fight with me and the music of his blade was there for me to behold.

It called to the most primitive parts of me—called to my need for family, for belonging, for safety—and I stared at Arsay and knew that song was mine .

I held out my hand and called the blade.

Volund’s sword formed in my hand, slowly, not in the normal way my weapons did, but the pommel and hilt, then the cross-guard and finally, the blade. The drumming in the back of my mind grew louder and louder, reaching a crescendo when the blade was fully formed.

Unaware of what was happening, Arsay curled her lip. “ Granny . Now you’re just trying to be insulting. Do you hope if you succeed, I’ll just kill you and you’ll avoid the fate I have planned for you?”

“Oh, no. That’s the last thing I have in mind.” Swinging my wrist, I learned the weight of the sword, the feel of it.

Arsay glanced at it. “None of your toys can hurt me , Kitasa. None of…”

She stopped and canted her head, eying the blade a second time, gaze lingering.

The change that came over her face was priceless .

“Where did you get that sword?”

“Let’s just say it called to me.” Bringing it up so the tip pointed at the sky, I pretended to study it. I was, in fact, studying both her and the tall male at her side who had to be the one Chang had described as Azazel. He was locked on Damon, hadn’t so much as glanced at me. That might be a good thing. The immense power I sensed inside him was unlike anything I’d felt outside of anybody other than Chang.

Even more than Damon.

Damon …

Fear wrapped a slimy grip around my insides.

“Focus, girl. One enemy at a time ,” Volund barked, the voice within my skull loud enough to rattle my brain.

Focus. Yeah. I’d focus, alright.

“Meti, darling,” Arsay called, the oddly feminine purr of her voice somehow still apparent despite coming from Doyle’s throat.

The young woman went rigid, her face locked with terror.

I moved forward and subtly shifted so she stood behind me. I barely remembered her. She’d been six or seven years younger than me, always loitering in the shadows of her bigger, charming brother. She couldn’t be any more than eighteen or nineteen now and after I’d killed Rathias, she’d been left alone with both Fenele and Reshi—two awful people I wouldn’t wish on anybody.

And Fanis—or whatever remained of her .

“Leave her alone,” I said coolly. “You’ve done enough damage to her.”

“Kit, darling.” Arsay blew me a kiss as she used the moniker Jude had so loved. “I haven’t even started on the real damage. Come here , Meti.”

When the girl tried to go around me, I caught her arm. “No.”

She trembled violently, her head tucked low. “I have to.”

“No. You don’t.”

Arsay studied the two of us with her lips pursed. “You can’t hope to defy me . Don’t you understand what I am?”

“A ghost.”

She jerked at that.

I grinned at her. “What else would you call it? That’s not your body. Does your body even still exist? You’re driving my cousin’s body around like a car, just like you drove my grandmother’s, and how many others? But none of them were yours —and you wanted me …but you couldn’t take me, could you?” As her eyes narrowed with rage, I pushed harder. “And the body isn’t even under your control, is it? Doyle!”

It was a stab in the dark, a desperate one.

But it paid off.

With a cry that ended in the snarling roar of a tiger, Doyle flung himself forward and ended on his hands and knees between us and Azazel. “Get out !”

A hysterical cackle peeled out of his throat a second later.

“Clever little bitch,” Arsay said as she tried to wrest control from Doyle again. His spine arched and he spasmed, jerking onto his back.

His head whipped back and forth, reminding me of horror flicks where the person was possessed—maybe this wasn’t so far off.

Frankie drifted by me, her fingers brushing against my hand.

“Keep her distracted, Kit .”

I flinched as the thoughts penetrated my shields—the exchange more akin to how Colleen would and I would exchange thoughts than true telepathy, but I picked up the message.

And then she was in front of me.

“Hello, Dad.” She came to a stop next to Doyle and nudged him with her foot. “Nice suit you picked up for my big sis here. But I don’t think he fits her.”

“Franchesa!” Azazel bounded forward but when he went to grab her arms, Frankie sidestepped and moved to the other side of Doyle.

Doyle rolled away from Azazel and vomited.

“Oh, leave it alone…Arsay will get the upper hand. It’s just delaying the inevitable,” Azazel said, waving a hand at Doyle and beckoning for Frankie to join him. “I’ve missed my baby…come here, let me look at you.”

“He’s having a seizure,” Frankie said, ignoring him.

Damon and I both rushed forward—I made it two steps before Azazel spun around and smiled at me.

The impact of his gaze hit like a sledgehammer and I froze.

“Aren’t you an interesting little bit of a thing?” The tall, massively built blond studied me with a gaze that had never been human. The shape of his eyes was too cut too long, too big, and despite the dazzling beauty of the blue—like the most perfect of sapphires—there was madness there. Madness and cruelty. Ice spilled down my spine as he took a step toward me.

Damon shoved between us.

“Stay the hell away from her,” he growled.

“Sidik.” Azazel reached out.

Damon batted his hand away.

Azazel chuckled and the sound was both beautiful and awful.

“You don’t think you can stop me, do you, boy ?”

“Apparently I worried the both of you enough that you tried to have me killed when I was little more than a baby—and again when I was just a kid. So…” Damon’s voice deepened as the beast inside pushed closer to the surface. “You tell me.”

Liquid black fury spilled into Azazel’s eyes, overtaking the lovely blue.

He shot out a hand toward Damon, his body swelling in size.

Damon’s skin split open and his half-form spilling out, part leopard, part man, all monster…and more massive than I’d ever seen him, his body glowing gold.

He dodged under Azazel’s strike and drove a clawed hand into the creature’s gut.

Azazel screamed .