Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Yes,” he replied, a flush beginning to stain his cheeks, which meant the pheromone was doing its job. “Dwain was kind enough to tell me who in the lair didn’t like you much. He stupidly thought I’d spare him. It was a pleasure to slit the whiny bastard’s throat. I would have killed your sister too, but I need her to tell others how Dwain kept her captive. I need everyone to believe that he was the only bad guy in this scenario.”
Well, that plan hadn’t worked out, because many knew that Demi’s memories were edited, but Raini chose not to enlighten him on that yet awhile.
“Since people are now under the impression that he’d do something so cruel as to keep his own anchor captive, they’ll find it easy to assume that he also hired the harbinger, so they won’t look at someone else for it.”
Raini felt her head jerk back. “You set him on my ass?”
“It seemed wise to ensure you were without power before I tried to kill you. I didn’t know back then that you possessed a substantial ability, but it always pays to be careful. I’d intended to pin your murder on Dwain, but the dagger failed to do its job. As did Gunther, even though he was in a haze.”
“It was you who dumped me in the mausoleum.” Motherfucker.
“I acted as soon as I heard that halo-bearers were at the club, knowing people would naturally assume it was one of them who took you. It would have been perfect if Gunther had succeeded in killing you. Maddox would have been in such a rage that he’d have killed Gunther, despite the demon not being in his right mind. People would have turned against Maddox for that. But you survived the attack, and you helped Gunther. Basically, Raini, you’ve been a pain in my ass.”
Well, she was all about tit for tat. “And you’ve used all that’s going on around you as a curtain to hide behind while you played your own sly games. All this because, what, you want to rule? Why not just go somewhere else and start your own lair?”
Euan dug his tongue into the edge of his incisor. “Did Maddox ever tell you that many of our lair died in a battle with another lair of descendants?” The question sounded so idle, yet there was a dark note to his voice. There was also a fine sheen of sweat on both his forehead and upper lip, proving that the pheromone was still at work.
“Yes.” Unwilling to take her eyes off Euan for long, she briefly dropped her gaze to Carmen. The sentinel still wasn’t moving. And there was fuck all Raini could do about it.
“Initially, that lair came to us in peace. The Prime, Louis, merely wanted the strongest demons from within our lair, and he offered to leave us alone if Maddox and his father, Joseph, agreed to join. The rest of us would have been spared. But Joseph and Maddox refused to go, and our own Prime refused to force them.” Euan’s face darkened, soured, twisted. “I lost so many people—my parents, my brother, the woman I intended to take as my mate—all because Joseph and Maddox wouldn’t simply leave. If they hadn’t been such selfish fuckers, the people I lost would be alive now.”
Raini gave a slow shake of the head. “It wouldn’t have happened that way, Euan. Louis wanted to take away the strongest descendants to make your lair easier to wipe out; he knew you’d be too powerful to defeat otherwise. It’s a trick that’s been used many times before. Louis would have returned to your lair another day and destroyed you all. If Maddox and his father had tried to seek vengeance, they’d have been killed, too.”
“You’re wrong. It was no trick. It was a genuine offer. All Joseph and Maddox had to do was transfer to another lair. It’s not difficult to switch. People do it all the time. But they wouldn’t, and now so many are dead. Maddox knew he had every chance of surviving. He knew it was possible he’d be made Prime if our own died. That’s why he refused to go. And he was made Prime, and now he also has a mate. Why should he get to have everything when, because of him, I was left with nothing?” he clipped with a snarl, his eyes cold and dark as flint.
“It was never really that you wanted to rule,” Raini realized. “You just wanted to see him fall.”
“And he will. He has no chance against an archangel. None. Maddox will die tonight. So will you. I will take everything from him that means anything to him, just as he did me.”
Bile burned the back of her throat. “Euan—”
“I will let him watch you die, just as I watched the woman I loved die. And then I will watch him die. But first … ” He fired two bullets.