Despite the look of primal wrath in his eyes, irritation spurred her on. “I don’t like being bossed around. You need to stop giving me commands. I’m not your soldier. And why couldn’t you just tell people that Ambrose wanted me alive? Surely the Vampire Lord has some clout.”
Caine took a deep breath, and his eyes returned to their normal gray. “It’s not that simple. Ambrose doesn’t want Bileth to know what he’s planning.”
“What’s he planning?”
“You don’t need to know that. Not as long as you still plan on exorcising the spirit.”
Exasperated, she glanced around at the empty lot. “Can you at least tell me what we’re doing in a parking lot?”
“Come with me.” He stopped himself, taking a deep breath. “Please come with me, Rosalind.” Turning abruptly, he marched up the thickly overgrown, rocky hill.
She followed, slipping on the steep, rocky slope as she scrambled to catch up. “Is there some sort of botanical emergency that needs addressing?”
“You should rethink your plan. About purging the mage’s soul.”
“And this rethinking needs to happen in the woods?”
Maples loomed high above them, blocking out most of the moonlight. They crunched over fallen leaves and twigs.
Caine led them up a steep hill into a grove of maple and poplar trees overlooking the parking lot. “In 1692, this is where the Brotherhood hanged nineteen people who had nothing to do with magic.”
Another history lesson. “I’m not saying the Brotherhood are perfect. So they get it wrong sometimes, and they need to modernize. But they’re trying to protect humanity, and no one else is fighting the predatory demons like Bileth.”
“The Brotherhood aren’t perfect, and neither is the magical world. We’ve got that in common. The difference is that the Brotherhood is gaining an unprecedented amount of power. People are terrified of magic, and that means the Hunters no longer have any restraints. No more trials. No more mercy. They’re starting to execute mages, and people they mistakenly think are mages. They want to watch the world burn. They want to watch you burn. And you want to run back to them. Do you have a death wish, Rosalind?”
Executions. Burnings. That stuff wasn’t true, was it? “First of all, I’m human. They won’t hurt me. Second of all, they don’t burn anyone.”
“Running back to the Brotherhood would be suicide.”
Tears pricked her eyes. What good was her life if she had no home, no family? She didn’t even know who she could trust anymore. “I don’t see myself having a lot of options.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“You have a gift. You’re meant to fight. Just like I am. And call me crazy, but I think you should fight the people who want to burn you to death. Your plan to throw yourself on their mercy is utterly stupid.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s your mage-recruitment pitch? Calling me stupid?”
“I said your plan is stupid. Not you.”
“You haven’t explained why we need to be knee-deep in shrubbery for this conversation.”
He stepped closer, fingers grazing her hand. His touch sparked her with a warm, electrical charge. Must be an incubus thing.
“Take off the ring.” He winced as though in pain. “It is your choice to take off the ring, but I would strongly suggest that you do it. You need to see the magic that lurks under the surface—what the Brotherhood is so terrified of. Then tell me if it scares you, too. Because I’ve seen you fight. You’re a warrior. Like me.”
At the thought of taking off the ring, raw panic burned through her nerves. “What is it with you people and wanting me to lose my mind?”
“Like you said, you don’t have a ton of options. The people you plan on running to for protection want to kill you. Now the demon world wants to kill you, too, and they will hunt you unless you convert. It’s your one chance at saving yourself.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“I’ve saved your life more than once now. And I’ll be here now, when you take off the ring. If the spirit tries to hurt you, I’ll put the ring back on. Just like I did in Lilinor.”
The wind rustled the elm leaves, whipping her hair around her head. She couldn’t bear the thought of that wild rage and agony. “I’m not doing it.”
“Running away from your true nature won’t keep you alive. You can’t be scared of it.”
“It’s not my true nature. It’s an invasive nature, just like Bileth’s aura in my skull. And I don’t want the magic to corrupt and deform my body.”
Caine furrowed his brow. “I thought we’d established that my godlike beauty dispelled that myth.”
“That’s just because you’re an incubus.”
“No, it’s because magic doesn’t deform the human body. When will you understand that the Purgators are wrong about nearly everything?”
“I felt this thing corrupting me. I felt the evil when Ambrose yanked off the ring.”