Opposition (Lux, #5)(16)

“I can walk. You don’t have to drag me.” I yanked and slipped free, knowing that she simply let me. “I can . . .” The framed photo of an attractive family on the stairwell caught my eye. The glass was broken and there was something dark and rusty smeared across it.

My stomach roiled.

“You can just stand there?” Her eyes narrowed on me. “If you don’t move, I will throw you down the stairs. It’ll hurt. You might break your neck. It’s three levels. Someone will heal you. Or maybe we’ll just leave you like that, alive but unable—”

“I get your point,” I snapped back at her, taking a deep breath so I didn’t attempt to push her down the stairs.

“Good,” she chirped, grinning.

For some reason, it was in that moment, as I tried to reconcile the girl who had stood in the kitchen with me a few days ago and made spaghetti with this nasty creature before me, that I remembered Archer. “What happened to . . . ?” I trailed off suddenly, and probably rightfully, wary of bringing up anything that led back to who remained at the cabin.

“Archer? He got away.” She started down the steps.

I stared at her back, my heart working overtime.

“I’m serious,” she called. “I will throw you down these damn steps.”

I took a second to entertain the idea of drop-kicking her in the back of the head. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I was convinced she had to have an alien insect attached to her somewhere that changed her personality, and her attitude wasn’t her fault.

Heading down the stairs, I willed my brain to start working correctly as I took in my surroundings. I was in a big house, the kind that opulence would be envious of. There were a lot of bedrooms and halls, and when we reached the second landing, I could see down into the foyer, lit by a crystal chandelier. Like, real crystals.

But down below, I could also see Luxen, all in human forms. None of them looked familiar to me. At least these Luxen had discovered the usefulness of clothing, but as I scanned them, I noticed there weren’t any sets of three other than the Blacks. Each one of them was different. My fingers were numb from how tightly I was clenching my hands. The Luxen looked at me the same way Dee had. A few pushed off the wall as we walked past, heads tilting in that weird way that reminded me of a snake. Another stood from a leather chaise longue; all of them appeared to be in their mid-twenties to their forties, though who knew what their real age was.

What I’d seen in the market hadn’t been anything like Daemon and Dee had explained to me. What the Luxen had done had been different.

A light-haired woman by the leather chair sneered and looked like she wanted to jump the heavy-looking oak table, straddle my shoulders, and rip off my head. As hard as it was, I forced my chin high, even though my heart was beating so fast I thought I’d be sick.

We walked through a long atrium, and from the darkness beyond the glass walls, I could tell that it was night outside. As we reached the middle, I felt it.

A tingle spread across the nape of my neck.

My heart stopped and then skipped a beat. Daemon was here, behind those double doors. I knew it, and warring hope and uncertainty fought inside me.

The doors opened before we reached them, revealing the kind of office I’d never seen in a home before, and my gaze was drawn to a desk in the middle of the room. A man sat behind it wearing a smile, but what was most shocking was the fact that I’d seen him before, seconds ago.

He was the man in the broken photo, but I knew he wasn’t human. His eyes glowed a bright, unnatural blue. He rose fluidly as we stepped into the office, the doors closing behind us, but my attention veered off immediately.

There were other Luxen in the room, two more males and a tall, beautiful redhead. I didn’t care about any of them. Standing next to the redhead, to the right of the man behind the desk, was Daemon.

My heart did something funky in my chest as a rush of shivers danced over my skin. Our eyes locked, and I felt dizzy once again. So much rose inside me as I stepped toward him, my tongue forming his name, but my voice was gone. Our gazes held for a second more and then he . . . he looked away, his profile stoic and blank. Heart thudding in my chest, I stared at him.

“Daemon?” I said, and when he didn’t answer, when he watched the man behind the desk like he . . . like he was bored with it all, I tried again. “Daemon?”

Like the night the Luxen came, there was no answer.





5


{ Katy }

I still stared at Daemon, completely aware that everyone else except him was watching me. Closely. But why wouldn’t he look at me? A razor-sharp panic clawed at my insides. No. This couldn’t be happening. No way.

My body was moving before I even knew what I was doing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee shake her head and one of the Luxen males step forward, but I was propelled by an inherent need to prove that my worst fears were not coming true.

After all, he’d healed me, but then I thought of what Dee had said, of how Dee had behaved with me. What if Daemon was like her? Turned into something so foreign and cold? He would’ve healed me just to make sure he was okay.

I still didn’t stop.

Please, I thought over and over again. Please. Please. Please.

On shaky legs, I crossed the long room, and even though Daemon hadn’t seemed to even acknowledge my existence, I walked right up to him, my hands trembling as I placed them on his chest.