The Devil In Disguise (Bad Things #1)(44)

Leo looked at him and his brother’s eyes—as dark as Luke’s own—gleamed. “You crossed the line. You broke the truce.”

“We have no truce. We have you and we have me, and we have us both supposedly staying the hell out of each other’s business!” Rage burned in him and smoke began to seep from his pores. Always a very, very bad sign.

But Leo ignored that obvious warning. “You attacked humans. I saw you. I was watching from above—”

“The way you always are,” Luke growled. He was so tired of Leo’s pompous bullshit.

“You hurt them. You were trying to terrify that human woman.”

Luke smiled at him. “Trust me. She deserved that terror, and everything else I was going to give her.”

Leo stepped closer to him. “You were threatening to let your darkness reign.”

Luke looked down at his hands. Claws had torn from his fingertips. Long, black. Sharper than knives. “You shouldn’t have interfered.” Leo had taken him from Mina. If anything happened to her…

“Would you have let your darkness out?” Leo demanded. “Knowing what it would do the world? Would you have really done it?”

Luke turned away from his brother. He had already wasted enough time with him. Mina was waiting. Mina needed him. He felt his own wings pushing from his back, growing and cutting right through his shirt. His wings weren’t soft. They were as sharp as the claws he now sported. He climbed onto the narrow ledge and looked at the city below.

“Luke!” His brother shouted his name.

Luke turned back.

Leo hadn’t moved. He stood there, glaring. Better watch it brother. All that rage…it will lead you straight to hell.

“You’re trying to take someone who belongs to me,” Leo gritted, his words brittle. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but it ends now.”

“Those humans?” Luke knew his wings were stretching behind him. They were on a high-rise, far away from the prying eyes below. But even if someone had seen him right then, he didn’t care. He was growing sick of the shadows. “The ones who’ve been using my paranormals? Torturing them? You’re siding with them?”

Confusion flashed on Leo’s face. “What?”

“Those treacherous humans—they were the ones you were so angry with me for…hurting. As if they weren’t due some pain.” He could give them plenty. He turned away once more, ready to leap off that roof—

“I mean Mina. I’m talking about Mina James. She’s mine.”

His control had been cracking. Little, tiny spider web-like cracks. But at Leo’s words, something happened to Luke. He felt it, deep inside. Like a splintering. No, like an earthquake.

In a breath, he was in front of Leo. His claws were at his brother’s throat. “Say that shit to me again.”

Leo had gone statue-still.

“That’s what I thought,” Luke snarled. He’d always wondered…in the end, which of them would be stronger? Which would be left standing? He was ready to find out. “Mina is mine.”

He saw the understanding in his brother’s eyes. The shock. “You…you had sex with her?”

He let his claws draw blood from Leo. “Mina is mine,” he said again. Because there wasn’t more to say. He didn’t know what Leo thought he was doing, but—

“She isn’t dark,” Leo rasped, his lips barely moving. “You must have seen that. But…you ignored it? You’re trying to…to change her? You can’t. You can’t take one of the light and make her your mate.”

Mate. He tested the word in his mind. Mina. Mate. Why, yes, he rather liked that idea—

But in the next instant, Leo was shoving at him. Slashing at him because his twin had his own claws. His own wings. His own fire. Leo’s claws swiped across Luke’s stomach, and blood soaked his shirt-front.

“Her very name means love!” Now Leo was shouting. “You knew what she truly was—you didn’t care! You’re trying to taint her! To turn her—she is one of mine!”

“My Mina is a siren.” He barely felt the slashes on his skin. “Sirens are dark creatures. They are—”

Leo let out a roar. He rushed at Luke, but Luke caught him, holding tight. They stared, eye-to-eye, fury burning from them both. “She’s no siren,” Leo denied. “And you know that. What kind of game are you playing with her? You recognize your own kind. You recognize the dark.” He shoved Luke back. “You can lie to the rest of the world, but not to me.”

They’d always seen through each other’s lies.

“You knew from the beginning that she wasn’t yours, but you tried to keep her at your side, didn’t you? Always the selfish bastard.”

Luke laughed. “You have no idea what I am.” His wings beat behind him. “Or what I am capable of doing.” He glared at his brother, the man who shared his face. The man who might wind up being his destruction. “Try to come between me and Mina, and you will find out.”

Before Leo could speak again, Luke’s wings flew out. They slammed into Leo’s chest, cutting him deep and sending the guy spinning back across the roof. Luke didn’t look at him again. He’d wasted too much time. He leapt into the air and let the full force of the shift sweep over him. It had been so long since he’d given into the call of his beast and his humanity—what small bit he fought to keep—vanished in that change. His beast was powerful. Deadly. Fire blasted into the night as he flew.