The Devil In Disguise (Bad Things #1)(30)

Rayce glanced over at the waves as they battered the shore. “If that happens, a war will come.”

“So it’s been predicted.” For thousands of years. That one day, he and his brother would battle. Only one would survive.

One brother was of the light.

One was of the dark.

Life. Death.

“I’ll always be on your side.” Rayce was looking at Luke as he made that pledge. “I hope you know that. You saved me from…shit, from myself. From that beast that I was meant to be.”

Because Rayce wasn’t like other wolf shifters. He couldn’t live in a pack. His beast…it was just a little bit…wrong.

Too strong.

Too powerful.

Too dangerous.

It craves blood and death. A true beast. Rayce had been running wild, on the brink of hurting far too many innocents when Luke had found him. Rayce had been the first paranormal to stay in the cells that Luke had made on his island. The first, but far from the last.

“I have your back,” Rayce added. “Know that.”

Luke inclined his head. “Getting sentimental on me, are you?”

Rayce didn’t smile. “I’m worried about you.”

That was new.

Rayce pointed toward the house. “I don’t trust her. She’s doing something to you.”

Luke rather thought that she was. “Mina isn’t to be hurt. Not by you. Not by those human fools. Not even by my brother.” He wanted that understood. Luke walked past his friend, his shoulder brushing against Rayce.

“But what about you?”

He didn’t understand. Luke hesitated.

“What if you’re the biggest threat to her?”

Anger spiked in Luke. “I don’t intend to hurt her.”

Rayce put up his hands. “Easy.” The wind was hitting harder and dark clouds had rushed toward the island, seemingly from nowhere. “Sometimes, we don’t mean to do things. You think I meant to attack those people before you found me? That I meant to scar that human? I didn’t. Sometimes, we all lose control. You’re different around her. If anyone can make you lose the control I’ve always seen you hold so tightly, it’s her.”

Luke just stared back at him.

“What if that happens? What if she…sees who you really are?”

“She won’t.” He was just keeping her for a little while. Keeping something that he wanted. Someone.

“What if you try to hurt her?” Rayce had tensed his body, as if expecting a battle. “What then?”

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, not ever. It won’t happen. “Then you stop me.” He drew in a long breath. “By any means necessary.”

Shock flashed on Rayce’s face. “No, you don’t mean—”

“She isn’t to be hurt.” He couldn’t stand that thought. “Not by anyone.” Then he turned and began walking toward the house.

Toward her.

“What about the listening devices?” Rayce called.

“Throw them into the f*cking ocean,” Luke said. Though he wished he could see the look on Garrick’s face when the guy tried to listen in to a feed…

Did you think you would come to my house and trick me? Oh, the hell, no.

His steps quickened as he neared his home. As he got closer to Mina. For the first time in longer than he could recall, Luke was actually eager to see someone. He knew Mina would be afraid, and he didn’t want that.

He wanted her to look at him and smile.

To feel safe.

Crazy, of course, because no one was ever truly safe when he was near. That was part of his curse.

You weren’t supposed to feel safe in the dark.

***

Rayce watched as Luke disappeared into the mansion. He felt something right then…something he hadn’t experienced in a long time, not since the morning he’d woken up to find blood all around him.

The morning he’d nearly killed a human.

Fear.

“He isn’t thinking clearly,” Julian said.

He didn’t look to the right. He’d known that Julian was there. When it came to lurking, the panther was an expert.

“I think she’s gotten to him,” Julian added as he came closer. “When she talked to me before, I just—I had no control. I couldn’t stop myself. I was like a puppet on her bloody string.”

That didn’t make Rayce feel any better. Like him, Julian was one of the dark paranormals who’d wound up on Luke’s island because he was too dangerous to be anywhere else. For a time, they’d both been in those cells. Both been more beast than man.

Julian liked to be the panther too much. And his humanity? Sometimes, it slipped away from him. But after the hell he’d been through, well, Rayce wasn’t surprised. Julian had learned—very early on in life—that both humans and paranormals weren’t to be trusted. “So she’s really a siren?”

Just when he’d thought he’d heard it all…

“So it would seem,” Julian told him. They were side by side now. “And Luke is so blind with lust for her that he’ll bring hell to us all.”

Quite possibly but… “I’ll still be on his side.” Fighting, burning. Whatever came their way.