The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(66)

He snorted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Doing your best?” he sneered. “You’re loving this. You’re happy.”

I popped the corner of the sheet onto the mattress with a violent snap. “God knows we can’t have that. There’s only one Katz twin allowed that emotion.”

“Hey, don’t put your fuck-ups on me,” he retorted.

“Then don’t put other people’s on me!”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Enjoy your room.” He stalked out.

“Oh, I will!” I threw my pillow against the far wall with a scream. I stomped across the room to retrieve it for scream two, glancing out the window. Ari and Kane were having some kind of intense conversation at the front of the house. At least Kane had put a shirt on. It rode up as he gestured with sharp, angry jabs.

Ari was really going for the gold in pissing people off because while Kane was still speaking, my brother slammed into the Prius and drove off. Kane punched one of the front porch pillars.

Feel your pain, dude. I could clock my passive-aggressive brother for walking out before we’d finished our fight. I threw everything out of my containers looking for my damn phone to call Ari’s cell and hash this out once and for all, before I remembered that Ms. Clara still had it. Great. No phone, and now my room looked like a hurricane had torn through it.

The frenzy left me exhausted. Heaving a sigh, I bent down to pick up the pillow, my head jerking up at a shout from outside.

Rohan sprinted up the driveway, favoring one ankle, his shirt torn. No, not just his shirt. His arm was a twisted mass of glistening, ripped open flesh that I could see from the third story.

The pillow tumbled out of my hand to the floor.

I threw the window open to find out what had happened.

The noise made Rohan look up at me. I don’t know if it was my twin sense or something about his stricken expression clear to me even three floors up as his eyes met mine but I knew.

Something horrible had happened to Ari.





18





I flew down the front stairs, fear fish-hooking into me. “What–”

Baruch and Drio, huddled around Rohan, looked up at the sound of my voice. The ensuing gap allowed me a close up look at the inside of Rohan’s right arm. I clapped a hand over my mouth, swallowing hard against the taste of bile. Someone was keening and I had the sneaking suspicion it was me.

Baruch ripped his shirt off, making a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding.

“Kane!” Rohan failed to look perturbed at the sight of his tendons spilling out of his skin but he was mightily annoyed at me swaying on my feet.

Kane leapt off the bottom front stair, his arms coming around me. “Inside.”

“Where’s Ari?”

Rohan’s expression softened. “Demons got him. Right outside the gate.”

Outside the wards. “Asmodeus?”

He shook his head. “They were trying to get past the wards. I think it was just bad timing on his part and opportunity on theirs.”

“They think they snatched a Rasha?” Kane asked.

Rohan’s shrug turned into more of a flinch as Baruch tightened the tourniquet.

“If even one of you had bothered to help me convince the Brotherhood to confirm Ari’s initiate status…” My voice shook. There was a good chance that he’d have been inducted by now. That he’d have magic at his disposal.

Rohan limped his way up the stairs, waving off Baruch’s offer of assistance.

“If the ritual didn’t work, he has no status,” Drio said.

“I hate you.”

“Va bene. One thing going right in my day.”

I lunged for Drio, but Kane strong-armed me inside the house and into a den.

I vibrated so hard that any more delays in getting me info and I might have combusted. It’s not that I was unsympathetic to Rohan’s giant gaping gash, it’s just that Rasha had extra-spiffy healing powers and he seemed calm enough as Baruch tossed the bloody wadded up shirt onto a table, replacing it with a fluffy towel that he must have picked up as they came inside.

“Where’s my brother?” I demanded, brushing off Kane’s attempt to seat me.

“I don’t know,” Rohan said. “And I didn’t follow because I was busy killing the massive fucker that’d been left on clean up.” It was obvious Rohan had to work to keep his voice steady.

Drio entered with a sewing kit and a bottle of vodka.

My butt crashed down onto the chair. Except it wasn’t the chair, it was the coffee table, and my tailbone caught the corner. “Fuck!” The bite of pain in my lower back helped keep me from plummeting into full-on hysteria.

Drio had passed the bottle to Rohan, who’d taken a swig, but one look at me and Rohan handed me the booze.

I took a swig or three as well before Drio took it away.

With a deep inhale, Rohan nodded at Baruch, who removed the towel. It had soaked up so much blood that it made a wet splat when he dropped it on the table next to the bloody shirt.

That was Drio’s cue to pour the alcohol over the gash.

Rohan convulsed, the breath audibly leaving his lungs.

Baruch pinched the flesh to keep the two edges more or less together as Drio opened the lid on the sewing kit. He threaded the needle.