Maybe I’d spoken too soon.
Alastair roared his terrible roar. Gnashed his terrible teeth. He was a Wild Thing of the worst kind. “You don’t know what you’ve done.” His eyes started to glow a deep, dark purple that was almost black.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is you want with my girlfriend before I kill you?” Chase, he was always the voice of reason. Tell me or die!
Alastair let out a haunting laugh that rang through the still night. From the cockiness in his face, the demon was going to underestimate us.
“No douchebags to do your dirty work?” Chase seethed.
“I thought this was what you wanted, son. Just you and me.” He crooked his long finger, jagged with a bluish nail, at Chase.
“It will be my pleasure to kick your ass, pops.”
My body was still throbbing from the hit I took as Alastair planted his little horror show in my head. “Your mother will die for your treachery, little Angel. Her blood will be on your hands,” he hissed.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than my hands were dripping with blood—my mom’s blood. I gasped. Snapping my head to the altar, I saw it, too, was covered in blood. She was covered in blood, her face a deadly ivory.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this wasn’t real. It was an illusion, but in the moment I was having a very difficult time remembering. My breathing became labored, and I couldn’t scrub the dripping blood from my hands. Nothing I did worked.
Not until I heard Chase whisper my name.
“Angel Eyes.”
Slamming my eyes shut, I closed off the image. A delusion, I reminded myself again and again until I believed it. Only then did I open my eyes. My mom wasn’t dead—yet. Clenching my fists at my side, I met Alastair’s shifty gaze head on. “Knock off the shitty tricks and tell me what it is you want with me.”
He eyed me for a minute or two, and I didn’t think he was going to oblige. “Very well.” His voice echoed off the trees in a deep, godly grit. “You are the gateway that will allow us to stay on Earth, granting us the necessary anchor to live and thrive in mortals. You are the keystone.”
Keystone?
He was officially batshit crazy.
My brain was reeling.
If what he said was true, that I was some kind of key that allowed Hell to live on Earth, then we would all be in the worst crap-blizzard. Unleashing Hell was bad, but knowing that it was me and my freakish mutation that allowed it was sickening. It couldn’t happen. Spring Valley was no longer going to be a blip on the map if we did not stop Chase’s Daddy Dearest.
Shit. And I thought I had daddy issues.
I think I will take my father over Chase’s eight days of the week.
“You are insane if you think for a second that I would help you. I am not going to be a puppet in your world domination show,” I yelled.
Alastair shook his head. “Not ‘if’ but ‘when’.”
Beside me everyone was tense, waiting for the signal.
“Can I sink my arrow into him now?” Emma asked dryly.
“I’m going to—”
“Blah. Blah. Blah. I know,” Alastair said, cutting off what I was sure was going to be a very lively threat from Chase, definitely some severing of sensitive body parts. Alastair appeared bored. “You’re going to kill me. Save it.”
I wanted to do more than kill him. I wanted to make him suffer.
Jaw flexed, Chase put himself between Alastair and me. “This has been a long time coming, wouldn’t you say, pops?”
He never wasted a moment to shield me from harm. It was sort of hot.
Smiling coldly, Alastair goaded, “What are you waiting for?”
Apparently Chase had given a signal, because he whizzed by me, barreling straight for the powerful demon. Alastair flicked his wrist in the air, expecting to put a halt to my boyfriend’s actions. I bit my lip and waited, praying that there was truth to our bond being able to break the one his sire had on him.
When Chase kept on going and planted his fist right into the demon’s nose, I let out a whoosh. All his anger, every bit of his pent-up hatred toward this being was packed behind that one powerful punch. A big fat “Screw you. Alastair.” My relief didn’t last more than a few split seconds.
Uh-oh. The mighty warrior from Hell was pissed off.
Alastair let out a grunt of pain as he staggered. Chase sprung forward, and Alastair dodged his first swing, followed by his second. Chase growled.
Nutter-butter.
“How long do we let him have a go?” Travis asked, watching his cousin battle it out. He was itching to let the roaring demon inside him fly.
Just then Alastair landed a blow that sent Chase spiraling through the air. He slid across the floor, spitting up snow, and stopped near our feet. With one long, deep snarl Chase was crouched.