Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(28)

Kale moved to intervene, but Shya flung out his free hand, nailing Kale with a hot blast of demon power. He never took his red gaze from me as he glowered into my face.

“Don’t provoke me, Alexa. I have very little left to lose at this point. I don’t doubt that your demon will surface soon enough and still attempt to protect you. But demons can’t interfere in another’s deal.” Shya pressed close, pinning me with his body, making me feel the overwhelming pressure and heat of the power he could so easily scorch my insides with. “And Willow can’t protect everything you love.”

I understood his meaning, loud and clear. He didn’t have to hurt me. He could make me suffer by hurting others. My mind went immediately to Kylarai and the baby she was carrying.

“I get it, Shya. You’re the bigger bad. Fine. You’ll get your dreamwalker. Now get the f*ck out of my face.” My voice was hoarse due to his hand crushing my windpipe.

My power ran at a much higher frequency than it had as a mortal. Holding it back began to hurt. Using it felt so much better. It burst out like a caged beast finding a weakness in the bars that held it. It hit Shya dead center, and I braced for the moment it would throw him off me. That never happened.

Anticipating the hit this time, he took it into him, absorbing the blow. His eyes flashed an angry, deep red. “Well I’ll be damned. That actually hurt. A lot. Good for you, Hound. You might actually be a force to be reckoned with.”

“Thanks for noticing, demon,” I spat, giving him a shove. “But I already was. I stopped you, didn’t I?”

“With the help of Falon’s sword. Don’t make the mistake of getting too cocky for your own good.” Baring his perfect teeth in an ugly grimace, Shya grabbed me by both arms and threw me. I let out a yelp as I sailed through the air, arms flailing. My back cracked against the side of the island counter in the kitchen. I hit the floor, landing in a puddle of blood.

It took several tries before I could suck enough air into my lungs to force words out. Being a vampire didn’t eliminate pain, though I was appreciative of the speedy healing. “Motherf*cker.”

I met Kale’s gaze across the distance where he stood with a ball of silver fire blazing in his palm. With a slight shake of my head, I pushed to my feet. We couldn’t take on Shya and win. Our only choice was to let it go. Vengeance against Shya would come, but it would have to be some other way.

“You should leave now.” Shya tugged at the cuffs of his suit, as if throwing me around had rumpled it again.

“Me?” I gaped at him. “You’re the uninvited party. You can’t kick me out of my own murder scene.”

Shya surveyed the room with a strange little half smile that reflected some inner thought he wasn’t about to share. “Had you planned on staying until the FPA shows up? I assume Briggs will resume tracking you once your vampire is done with him.”

I clutched the edge of the island counter behind me. A piece of the faux stone broke off beneath the pressure of my grip. “Wait, what?”

“Arys is playing with Agent Briggs tonight. At this very moment he’s luring a team of Briggs’s men into a massacre in the River Valley. I’m sure it will be spectacular.”

I tried to feel something like shock or surprise. But it was Arys, and I felt no surprise at all that he would do something so dire. He was taking on Briggs as a ploy to throw the Feds off my trail. He was doing it to protect me.

Turning away from the sight of Shya’s eagerly expectant stare, Kale’s neutral calm, and the mess of blood and bodies, I leaned on the island and drummed my fingers atop the bottle-littered surface. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and to blink back the blood tears that filled my eyes.

The yearning that seized me was sudden and unbearable, bordering on painful. It was an emotional pain though, rooted in the very essence of who I was. I choked back the ragged groan that stuck in my throat. My energy would betray me if I didn’t numb out the agony of longing for Arys.

“So why do you want me to leave?” I spun back to face Shya, careful to avoid eye contact with Kale. “What are you up to?”

“You don’t really want to know.” Shya’s expression was purposefully vacant. He was toying with me.

The way he was looking at the carnage gave me an uneasy feeling. I sighed and checked to make sure I had everything that I’d come in with. “You’re right. I don’t. But tell me anyway.”

Shya appeared to consider. Then with a short nod and a raised brow, he said, “Lucky for you, I have many uses for the death energy lingering in this house. I’m going to reap all that I can as soon as you go on your merry way. I may even clean up your mess. Or I may just leave it for Briggs. I haven’t decided yet.”

It was strangely fascinating to me that both Shya and Briggs worked to conceal supernatural activity from human eyes. A demon and a man shouldn’t have the same agenda. Although I suspected that their motivations were different.

Briefly I considered arguing. It wasn’t worth it. Shya was exhausting merely because he always had a retort or a countermove. And he never ran out of things to say.

Stifling an exasperated sigh, I made my way toward the door. This night had gone from a little mad to downright batshit crazy. I was so done with it.

Kale went ahead of me to scope out the exterior. If Briggs was dealing with Arys then he was not going to be a problem for us tonight. I trusted Shya would not allow the police to discover such a scene. It was important to him to keep the creatures of the night a myth, a Hollywood trope dredged up from old folklore. Either way, I was beyond caring. Human authorities were the least of my current worries.