Cahal glanced at the three of us, his eyes piercing. “The most powerful of his four?” His voice could cut like a deadly blade, it was so sharp. “He’s an Elder?”
I was pretty sure the three of us didn’t breathe at all.
Elder Jacobs’s eyes danced between us. “I’m not sure what I’m missing here, but the important thing would be to find him. If he’s an Elder, he may already be here at King Cave, right?”
Elder Harcourt’s shaggy, golden eyebrows rose at Antonio’s regard, and he harmlessly placed his hands in his pockets.
After he had dropped that bomb on us.
Cahal asked crisply, “Antonio, what the fuck is going on? Your heart rate, and my son’s, are both going crazy, not to mention that Lily’s actually sped up.” He paused. “And now it’s faltering again.”
My breathing hitched, my eyes fluttering. He was right. Elder Harcourt’s pronouncement hadn’t helped my predicament any.
Antonio licked his lips, his golden gaze turning to me, and he whispered, “It’s the only way.”
“No,” Ezra demanded. “There has to be another option.”
Antonio blinked. “There’s not.” He disappeared.
Ezra’s breath caught, his heart rate galloping into a wild frenzy. “He wouldn’t.”
I stared where Antonio used to stand and breathed, “He did.”
Ezra’s gaze darted around the room, and I felt his power surge to epic levels, his eyes glowing bright. Command full force in his tone, he shouted, “Get the fuck out. Now!”
No one moved.
Ezra sucked in a harsh breath, eyebrows slamming together, and again his power surged, and he ordered, “Get the fuck out!”
No one moved.
Cahal’s own eyebrows were pinched together, but he stated evenly, “This suite is spelled for only my command.”
Ezra froze, breath hitching, his eyes on his dad. “Order them to leave.”
Cahal’s gaze was searching, confusion clear on his normally stoic face.
“You’d better not try any Vampire shit on me,” Elder Merrick growled quietly.
It was too late.
Antonio had reappeared with his hand firmly planted on Elder Venclaire’s shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The silence was damning, my future clearly in a noose.
Not a soul moved until Ezra blurred so fast that all I felt was the brush of wind against my side…then his fist was hammering into the side of Antonio’s face. He actually…floated. He followed the trajectory of Antonio’s body, catching him by the throat to hold him flush against the wall, his whole body quivering as he hissed in Antonio’s bloody face, “You bring him here to save her, only to give her a death sentence.”
Antonio didn’t fight back, merely stared him in the eyes as Ezra squeezed the living shit out of his throat, killing him, strangling him as he said he would.
Gulping air, I whispered, “Ezra.” If he murdered him he would have a death sentence, too. “No!” Not to mention, I didn’t want Antonio dead for saving my ass the only way he knew how.
Cahal recovered the fastest from Elder Venclaire’s — Daddy’s — arrival and Ezra’s attack on Antonio. He blurred to Ezra’s side, and I felt his power surge as Ezra’s had done moments ago. “Let him go.”
Ezra grunted, and it looked like he gripped Antonio’s throat harder, fighting his dad’s command.
Elder Venclaire was instantly on the other side of them. “Ezra, no harm will come to her. I swear this to you.” He put no command behind his words, even as Cahal grabbed Ezra’s wrist, trying to break his son’s hold physically.
Ezra’s head turned to him. “You know she’s your daughter? You’ll help her?”
Elder Venclaire glanced at me, his gaze worried. “I’ll help her.” Soft words. “And I’ve known she’s my daughter since I knew who her mother was.” A small smile lifted his lips, even as my breath hitched. “She may look much like Angela, but she looks plenty like me, too.” He placed a gentle hand on top of Cahal’s gripping one. “Ezra, let Elder Farrar go. I’ll hide her as I’ve planned to do, if needed, but it will be harder to hide both of you.”
“Release him!” Cahal shouted, shoving his face and command directly in Ezra’s face. “Now, goddamn it!”
Ezra blinked at his dad, and his floating stopped, his feet firmly planting on the floor. The movement not at all forced, he took his hand away from Antonio’s throat and stepped back, picking up my gun that had been tossed around the room in the whirlwind of the earlier spell, even as Cahal caught Antonio, who had begun to fall, coughing hard. Ezra didn’t seem to notice, though, throwing the safety off the gun and aiming it at Elder Jacobs and Elder Merrick as he moved toward the bed, Bindi having — smartly — hid behind them.
Intelligently, they stayed silent, even though their eyes were as wide as saucers, their gazes darting between the recovering Antonio, Elder Venclaire, and the gun aimed at them.