Opposition (Lux, #5)(20)

Rolland eyed me intently, and then he pushed off the desk. Straightening, he clapped his hands. “Everyone. Listen up.”

I stiffened, knowing this could be real bad.

“You.” He motioned to another Luxen. “Get Quincy out of here. Let me know if he wakes up.”

Part of me hoped he did so I could beat the shit out of him again.

To Sadi, Rolland pinned her with a sharp look. “Take this young . . . lady over here and make sure she gets cleaned up and that’s she comfortable.”

Oh hell no. I opened my mouth, but Sadi snapped forward, her eyes glittering with malicious pleasure. “Of course,” she said, casting a half smile in my direction as she all but bounced past me. I stepped forward to intercept and make good use of the window.

“You,” Rolland directed at me, “will stay right here.” Then to Dee, he smiled. “It’s late. I find that being in this form makes me incredibly hungry. Would you get something for me to eat?”

Dee hesitated, but then nodded. Turning, she shot me a worried look as she hurried out of the room to do Rolland’s bidding.

There was a good chance I was going to punch someone else as I watched Sadi force her out of the room. The back of my neck tingled and my skin crawled as the door shut behind them, leaving me with Rolland and some dude whose name I refused to learn.

Rolland strolled around the desk and sat down. “Quincy was quite unhappy with you earlier. Said you . . . went after him because he was in the room with that . . . that girl.” Leaning back in the chair, he hooked one leg over the other. He gestured at the damaged wall. “Not that his anger seems to be a problem right now.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure he’s not the only one. And I don’t trust Sadi with her.”

His brows rose. “You don’t?”

“No.”

Folding his hands, he studied me. “I want you to answer a question for me, Daemon Black, and I want an honest answer.”

My jaw ached from how hard I was grinding my molars. I didn’t need to be in this room. I needed to be wherever Sadi was at the moment, but I nodded.

“Like I said, you’re a hard one to read. Not your brother or sister, but you’re different.”

“People do say I’m special.”

He laughed under his breath. “What does that girl mean to you, Daemon? And I do want an honest answer.”

My hands curled into fists. Time was ticking. “She belongs to me.”

“You’ve said that.”

I forced air into my lungs with a deep breath. “She’s mine and she’s a part of me. So, yeah, she means a lot, but what I feel for her doesn’t change anything here, with you.” I met his stare with my own unflinching one. “I support what you are doing.”

“Me?” He chuckled. “It’s not me you must support. I’m just a . . . busy bee, like you.”

Well then.

“Do you still love her?” he asked, flipping the subject. “Do you still want her?”

What he was asking was if I had any human emotions left over since their arrival, or was I just as tuned in to the hive as the rest of them. “I want her.”

“Physically?”

Jaw aching fiercely, I forced my chin up and down.

“Do you want more than that?”

I chose my words carefully. “What I want is a home where my family is safe, and only we can provide that. We come first.”

Rolland’s head tilted to the side, his gaze never leaving my face. “We do. And soon you will have that safe home for your family. It is already well under way.”

I wanted to ask exactly how it was well under way, because all I had seen from them so far was a lot of nasty killing.

Tension-filled silence stretched out between us, and then he flicked his hand at the door. “Go do what you need to do, but please do not throw Sadi at anything. She has her uses that I might want to partake in later.”

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I spun around and started for the door.

“Oh. And Daemon?”

Shit. I stopped, turning to him.

The damn smile was on his face, the same smile he’d worn when he addressed the public earlier in the day over the local news. When he’d told the city, or whatever was left of it, that everything would be fine, that mankind would prevail and a whole load more crap he’d actually made sound believable.

“Don’t make me regret not snuffing out your life in the clearing, because if you are a trataaie,” he said, slipping into our native tongue, “it will not be me you will fear, but the senitraaie. You will not only lose your family, but that little girl up there will suffer a very slow and very painful death, and her horror will be the last thing you see. Inteliaaie?”

Back stiff, I nodded again. “I am not a traitor and I only answer to our leader. I understand.”

“Good,” he said, raising his hand. A remote flew from the desk into it. “Remember. No throwing Sadi.”

Dismissed with the bite-in-the-ass kind of warning, I left the office and nearly plowed right into my sister as I exited the atrium.

She gripped my arm, her fingers digging into my skin. “What in the hell were you thinking?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting him a late-night snack?”

Her eyes flashed. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed in there protecting her.”