Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(86)

“Down, dog,” she snarled, firing the gun.

But Sloan moved like light, like smoke, like nothing, and by the time the shot rang out, he was behind her, an arm around her shoulders as he pulled her back against him.

His breath was ice against her neck. “I’ve waited for this.”

“Keep waiting,” she growled, slamming her elbow back and up into the side of his head. Sloan was fast but Kate had learned to fight dirty. He fell back a single step, but it was enough for her to get free and put two paces, three, between them.

Sloan laughed: a horrible sound, too high. “You are even more stubborn than I remember.”

The other Malchai shifted and stirred, bloodlust heavy in the air, but Sloan had obviously told them this was his kill. How long would they listen? Her father had tried to keep the Malchai on a leash—it hadn’t gone well.

Kate drew a knife as Sloan came at her again.

She slashed, expecting him to retreat, or at least to dodge. He didn’t. Instead the Malchai shifted the slightest step left and let the knife plunge right into his arm as he continued forward, closing the distance between them. Black blood welled up, staining the sleeve of Sloan’s suit, but neither surprise nor pain registered on his face. Kate didn’t even have time to draw the blade back, to retreat. He was inside her guard.

His hand closed around her neck, his shoe caught her heel, and for a terrible second, when she hit the pavement, they were back in the gravel outside the house in the Waste, Sloan pressing her body down into broken rock, fingers tight around her throat.

She forced her mind back to the present.

Sloan was on top of her, the hilt of the knife pinned between them so she couldn’t free the blade. The gun was still in her other hand but when she tried to bring it up, his fingers closed around it, forcing her wrist against the pavement.

He bore down on her. He didn’t smell like death. He never had. No, he smelled like violence. Like leather and blood and pain.

His sharpened teeth flashed as he sank them into her arm, and a scream tore from Kate’s throat.

The darkness began to fold around her mind, the monster rising, but Sloan drew back sharply. His mouth was painted with her blood, but he wasn’t smiling.

His hand raked through her hair, forcing her head back, not to bare her throat, she realized, but to see her eyes.

A snarl of anger escaped his lips. “What have you done?” he demanded, right before a pair of high beams sliced through the dark. Sloan was halfway to his feet when a gunshot tore the air, and a shatter shell hit him in the chest.

The jeep screeched to a halt, Harris and his gun still hanging out the window.

Sloan staggered backward, and the other monsters surged through the dark in a frenzy of nails and teeth.

August was already out of the jeep, drawing a knife, as Harris lunged into the fray. Ani detonated a series of light grenades, a blinding strobe effect that left the Malchai dazed and gave Jackson and Henry time to get to Kate, who was already up. Blood dripped from her fingers but she had a gore-slicked knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

Sloan, too, was on his feet—the shell had hit him in the chest, tearing through suit and skin, but it clearly hadn’t reached his heart. His red eyes found August, and August lunged toward him, only to be cut off by two other Malchai. He didn’t stop—he slit one’s throat and drove the blade up under the other’s ribs, Leo’s voice weaving through his head.

This is your purpose. And doesn’t it feel good?

He twisted, searching for Sloan, as Harris let out a strangled cry. A Malchai had its fangs in his shoulder, but then Ani was there, driving a knife through its neck. It went down, and Harris yowled, and stomped on the Malchai’s chest until it cracked, splintered, gave.

“I think it’s dead,” called Jackson, wiping a streak of gore from his cheek. “They’re all dead.”

August turned, searching.

Kate clutched her arm as Ani put pressure on Harris’s shoulder, and August realized with a sick dread that none of the bodies on the ground belonged to Sloan.

The Malchai was gone.

And so was Henry Flynn.





“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

Emily Flynn was not a shouter. The few times August had seen her angry—truly angry—her voice lost all its volume, all its warmth. She went cold and quiet. The rest of the FTF Council wasn’t nearly as composed, their questions ricocheting through the command center.

Ilsa stood in the doorway, a faraway look in her eyes, and August wished she still had her voice, even though he knew that if she tried to speak right now, what came out would be only wondering, wandering, lost.

Soro had their voice, but they stood silently against the wall, their expression level in every way but one. Their eyes.

Soro’s eyes, the color of stone, asked a silent question.

Was she worth it?

Emily held up a hand, calling for silence as she leaned across the table and met August’s gaze. “Explain it to me.”

He opened his mouth, but it was Kate who spoke. She pulled free of the medic bandaging her arm. “It’s my fault.”

“I believe you,” said Em. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“He insisted,” said August.

I’m going with you.

Marcon shook his head. “Why would he do that?”