Addict (Hunter #2)(108)

They’d come prepared. Winter had outsmarted all of us. He would get his civil war and Lucifer couldn’t really complain because he’d followed the letter of the demon/vampire contracts. If he did, Winter would serve up Gray as his get out of jail free card.

All because no one but demonkind could kill him.

“No.” The queen clutched the railing, having pulled away from her husband. “He can’t take Neil again. Oh, god. It’s happening all over again.”

Neil. Matthew’s lost love was Neil Roberts? Neil Roberts was married. He was happy.

The demon who had taken Neil Roberts was the same one who had betrayed the king and caused the death of my father.

“He killed my father.” The words came out of my mouth in a dull, almost dumb tone, as though I needed to say them for it to be real. “Matthew killed my father.”

“I believe I warned the queen about it at the time,” Jacob offered.

Gray shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”

“If your brother is Nemcox, then I assure you his betrayal led to the death of Lee Owens,” Dev swore. “He took Neil against his will and raped him on the Hell plane for years.”

“It is true.” Jacob put a hand on Gray’s shoulder.

The queen turned to Gray. She wasn’t a woman who was too proud to beg for a friend. “Please, Mr. Sloane. Please, if you have any power at all with him, don’t let him kill my husband. Please don’t let him take Neil again. He almost didn’t survive the first time.”

“But he’s my brother.” Gray had a blank look in his eyes.

He’d lost everyone. Again. His father had sent him in as a sacrificial lamb and now he’d learned the truth about the one person who seemed to put him first.

“Gray, you are not defined by your family.” I know I should have railed at him. His brother was the reason my father no longer walked the Earth plane, but Gray wasn’t Matthew or Nemcox or whoever he called himself. Choices. Jacob had told me we got to choose who we are. We choose every day, and I needed Gray to choose to be strong. I looked him straight in the eyes. “If your brother killed my father, I still care about you.”

I couldn’t tell him I loved him. Not with Marcus here. It was so f*cked up and jumbled in my head, but I needed him to know his brother’s crimes weren’t a stain on his soul.

His hands squeezed mine and he turned sad eyes to the queen. “My brother won’t listen to me. I’m so sorry.”

Down below, Nemcox was holding the sword in his hand and Winter was talking about the coming demon swarm. He went on and on about some kind of new f*cking demon day, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the * broke into song.

I was concentrating on something else while the demon monologued.

“Please tell me what to do,” I begged Gray.

The king was on his knees, waiting for the swing of a sword that would end his life and save his son’s.

Gray’s eyes rolled and became pure white orbs.

Jacob watched in obvious wonder. “The prophet is truly born. Do you know how long it’s been since I had kindred, child? It is a good day.”

“Celebrate by helping him figure out what I should do.” It was bitchy, but I was on a time line. Winter, it seemed, was finishing up his “I’m the shit” speech and they were going to get down to some serious king killing.

And only demonkind could kill an elemental.

Gray’s head rolled forward. “One changed can be change. Blood of the demon runs through the veins of the righteous. The war is on her. Instinct shall lead the Hunter and she alone will decide the battle.”

His eyes cleared and I stared at him.

Yeah, this was probably a really meaningful moment for him. His first true prophecy. He’d stared into the storm and come back with the answer. And he sounded like a flipping apocalyptic poet. “What the f*ck is that supposed to mean?”

He frowned. “I told you what to do.”

Jacob’s grin was about a mile wide. “It made perfect sense to him. It’s part of our nature. When it’s truly important, the answer comes to him in this fashion. Nothing comes easy, child. He told you what to do in the way of a prophet.” Jacob nodded Gray’s way. “I see many ways this could go, but only one stands out.”

“Because she will always choose to be brave,” Gray said.

I turned. It was on me. One changed can be change. I’d been changed. Only demonkind could kill an elemental.

Maybe not demonkind, but at least I had a hand. I would decide the battle.

Oh, I knew what my decision was.

“Dev, I can’t watch it. Please. Please.” The queen pleaded with her husband or whoever could help her.

I was betting when she’d woken up this morning, she hadn’t thought that she would be bargaining with God for her husband and her son.

“Your Highness, it’s going to be all right.” I was surprised at how calm I was now that I had some amount of certainty that I would control the outcome. Live or die, I kind of wanted the control.

It would be all right. Gray had seen it. All I had to do was be brave. Make the right choice. Not the safe one.

I was born to hunt demons, and Fate or our father or God or whatever you want to call that benevolent power in the universe that watched over us had sent me on that turn that ended with me not getting the wolf hand I’d been promised.