Fury of the Demon

“Kara,” Mzatal said, and I returned my focus to him. “Call Vsuhl.” His words came sharply, bitten out to slice the air, and I didn’t know if it was because he had everything focused on Paul or if he’d closed off even basic warmth from me.

Yet I did as he asked. Perhaps he needed my help to save Paul? The blade coalesced in my hand, edge catching the glare of the remaining floodlights and the fires. None of Pyrenth’s blood on it. A self-cleaning blade, I thought with an edge of hysteria. How fucking handy was that?

Mzatal jerked his hand out toward me. “Give it to me.”

I didn’t move. Behind me I heard a weird cough-gasp that I knew was Szerain fighting his way up through Ryan. Mzatal demanded Vsuhl back with no regard for what I’d gone through, no regard for what he’d so recently wrought through his own blade, through Khatur, no regard for . . . anything?

“No.” I said it softly, but I knew he heard me.

Mzatal gathered up Paul in his arms, teeth gritted against the headache that I could see still plagued him. “Kara, no time for this,” he said, flat and harsh. “Give me the blade.”

The silence in our co

I wanted to feel some sort of reaction to my denial of him, but there was nothing. No flicker, no clench of the jaw or distress in his features. Mzatal’s gaze merely flicked past me to Szerain, and I felt the exiled lord’s desire for Vsuhl like that of a starving wolf for a doe. “Then send it away,” Mzatal said, tone curt and blunt as he brought his gaze back to me. He placed his foot gently on Idris. “Kara,” he said, yet there was nothing there but the word. None of him came with it. “Kara,” he repeated, more softly.

I banished Vsuhl without protest. I wanted to understand what happened. I wanted to scream WHY. But I didn’t. There wasn’t time for me. “Go,” I told him, the silence between us a heart-wrenching void. “You need to go and save Paul.” Bryce took a step toward Mzatal. He intended to go with Paul, I knew.

Mzatal’s expression, already stony, went to the lord-unreadable mask. His eyes came to me, then rested on Bryce. In another heartbeat he was gone with Paul and Idris.

Bryce gaped at the empty patch of sodden ash. “No. No! He left without me!”

I wanted to collapse and hug myself and cry, but I didn’t have the fucking luxury to do so. “Ryan,” I said with as much resolve and conviction as I could muster. “I need you to go to So

He nodded. “Can do. After that I have to find Zack.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I assured him. Focus on the job now. I could do that. “I’ll find Zack. I promise.”

Ryan hesitated then gave another nod and loped off toward the hole in the fence.

“Bryce, I need you with me,” I said.

He still stared in shock at where they’d been. “What the fuck?”

“Bryce,” I snapped out like a whip. “I need you with me.”

His shoulders jerked back as he focused. “Right,” he said, still shaky. “Right,” he repeated, more firmly this time. Paul was gone and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. I knew more about that feeling than I wanted to.

He bent and picked up Paul’s fried tablet with its bits of charred flesh as though it was nothing more than a piece of litter. Looking my way, he opened his mouth to speak then shut it, gaze going behind me.

I turned to see Kadir approaching, limping heavily from the massive burn that charred his thigh. Deep burns also distorted the left side of his face and torso. His eyes stayed riveted on me as he led a gasping and stumbling Farouche by a noose of potency around the man’s neck. I watched their approach warily. As much as it rocked my world to see Farouche in such a position, I wasn’t in the mood for Kadir’s weird-and-creepy shit right now.

He stopped two paces away from me, drew Farouche up to stand beside him before releasing the potency noose. Farouche drew in a ragged breath, a combination of fury and fear burning in his eyes. Yet he lifted his chin and put on a fierce smile in an attempt to regain some composure.

I offered Farouche a deliberately bland look before I shifted my attention to Kadir, doing my best to give the impression I was dismissing the man as uninteresting and unimportant.

Expression tight with what had to be unbearable agony, Kadir regarded me. “Kara Gillian,” he rasped. “in the agreements and protocols of this world, is this one,” he gestured toward Farouche, “considered deserving of punishment?”

I knew exactly why Kadir would ask me this, especially after finding out about the men who’d been sent because they “deserved punishment.” I’d been warned by more than one lord about how dangerous Kadir was, and how he liked to . . . hunt. Hell, even Rhyzkahl had warned me about him.

But Kadir had simply asked me a question. And so, I simply answered.

“Deserving of punishment?” I nodded. “Yes. Without question.”

Farouche’s smile shifted to a smirk. “You’re judge, jury, and executioner now, Ms. Gillian?” he drawled. “I believe this is better decided in a proper court of law.”

I readied a retort, but before I could speak, Kadir turned to him, aura shifting to cold as fuck.

“No, James Macklin Farouche,” he said in a voice that set my own bowels clenching even though it wasn’t directed at me. “I am judge. Jury. Executioner.” He punctuated each word with potency. “Kara Gillian confirms what I had already drawn from here.” He traced a burned finger slowly down the man’s temple.

Sweat beaded on Farouche’s upper lip as he paled. “I’m a businessman,” he said, no longer smirking. “That’s all. Sometimes business gets a little ugly.”

“He wouldn’t get the justice he deserves here in this world,” I said somewhat dully, part of me hating that I was sending Farouche to what was surely a fate worse than death, with another part of me knowing how fucking evil the man was and how many lives he’d utterly destroyed. If anyone deserved a fate worse than death, it was this bastard. “He’d easily be able to influence the jury and witnesses,” I continued, sick despite it all. “I doubt he’d spend a single day in prison.”

Kadir snaked the loop of potency around Farouche’s neck again. “The businessman will spend time with me.”

“No,” Bryce said, interrupting Farouche’s gabbled protest. He dropped Paul’s fried tablet. “He’s mine.”

Farouche’s head snapped around as Bryce stepped forward, and relief filled his eyes. I didn’t have to read minds to know the thoughts going through his head: A little of the old fear-whammy and Bryce would be his dog again. Oh, dude, I thought with a whisper of bitter amusement. You have no idea.

I took a slight step back to defer to Bryce as Kadir turned a penetrating gaze on him. A chilling smile curved Kadir’s lips as he no doubt read Bryce’s claim and his intention. Kadir glanced to Farouche, gave the potency leash a brief tug. “Are you indeed his?”

Ignoring the leash as best he could, Farouche smiled, smugly confident. “Yes. Justice demands that Thatcher have custody of me. We have a long history.”

Bryce’s expression didn’t so much as flicker from the impassive mask as he regarded his former boss. “Yes, we have a long history.” He met Kadir’s eyes. “He’s mine,” he repeated.

I took another step back. Kadir narrowed his gaze at Bryce. “I understand he is yours,” he said through clenched teeth. “I acknowledge he is yours.” He reached to grip Farouche’s wrist in a tight grasp, and by the pain that flashed over the man’s face I knew it was just on the verge of bone-breaking. “But in this moment he is mine for facilitating this.” He gestured toward the unstable node, and I suddenly understood Kadir’s anger. He was OMG crazy and dangerous and unpredictable, but at the same time an order-and-rules freak—which was probably how he managed to function at all. The screwed up node was not only likely rule-breaking of the highest order but was also messy and threatened to fuck up the order of things in both worlds. His first action upon arrival had been to stabilize the node portal, and was probably the only reason he broke the rules and came through at all.