Until her eyes turned bloodred and she nocked an arrow for his throat. Then, he realized that things between them weren’t quite the same.
“Simi … it’s not what you think.”
“I’m not Simi. I’m her daughter. And you’re the worthless bastard who killed her. Now I’m going to kill you!”
CHAPTER 9
That was not what Nick had expected the girl in front of him to say.
Ever.
Too shocked to move, he was an easy target for her.
Thankfully, Xev wasn’t the idiot he was. He grabbed him as she let loose another arrow for his head and jerked him out of the way of it, just in time.
When she went to release another, Xev used his powers to disarm her. He sent her bow flying, skittering across the burning pavement. “He’s not the Malachai who did this!”
“Yeah, right.” She manifested a sword to come after them.
Xev did the same. But he hesitated at using it on the demon. Instead, he protected himself from her attacks, but didn’t go on the offensive. “I don’t want to hurt you, especially if you’re a daughter of Simi’s. But I can’t allow you to harm him, either. He has to live.”
Her breathing ragged, she stepped back to angle her sword and circle them while debating whether or not to reengage Xev. Or maybe she was looking for a better way to attack him.
Wow, she looked just like her mother. Virtually identical. Nick couldn’t get over it. Same height. Same build. All she needed was a bottle of barbecue sauce, Goth clothes, Doc Martens, and a coffin purse, and she’d be the spitting image of the demon who’d kept him amused until his sides ached from laughter over her insightful truths and antics. Not to mention her never-ending quest to find an all-you-can-eat buffet that didn’t throw her out after half an hour of her powering through a month’s worth of their groceries.
How could he have ever harmed Simi? He loved her. She wasn’t just one of his best friends. Simi was family.
This didn’t make sense. He knew himself. Nick Gautier didn’t hurt the ones he loved. Ever. Malachai or no Malachai. It wasn’t in him to be like that.
Was it?
Could he really be that treacherous and not know it?
As he tried to understand, his head began to careen as a thousand images tore through him at once and drove him to his knees. How could life change anyone this much and turn them into a monster?
How?
And in that moment, he saw the pained expression on Kyrian’s face the night he’d asked him what it’d felt like the first time he’d gone into battle as an ancient warrior and taken someone’s life.
More than that, he saw and felt Kyrian the day he’d actually done it. It wasn’t just a vision. It played through him as if it were his own memory. As if he were there in Kyrian’s place. Feeling and seeing everything his boss had.
For some reason, he’d thought Kyrian was older when he’d gone off to war.
But his stalwart boss had only been nineteen or twenty at the Battle of Prymaria. More skinny than muscular.
Practically Nick’s age …
Back then, Kyrian hadn’t been the fierce, competent general Nick knew and respected. Like him, he’d been nothing more than a scared kid, trying to make sense of a world that really was random and nonsensical most of the time. One that seemed a whole lot crueler and more merciless than it needed to be. And that was the hardest part of puberty. Those daily, often brutal, slaps in the face that let him know adulthood was nothing like he’d thought it would be when he was little. That it didn’t work the way it was supposed to.
You didn’t get to eat dessert for dinner, even though you were now the one in charge of ordering your own food. Your money didn’t go to buy all the video games you wanted. Instead of answering to a teacher, you answered to a boss who made you ache for the days when your worst dread was the school bell. You still had to go to bed at a reasonable time and get up early, and do chores you hated, rather than hanging out with your friends. And bullies didn’t get the comeuppance they were supposed to, nor did they get left behind on the playground. Now they were your boss and if you punched them in the face like they deserved, you didn’t go to the office for suspension or alternative school, you went to jail.
The people willing to stand up for you became far fewer or were nonexistent. And more days than not, you were left feeling alone and abandoned. Unwanted and worthless.
But that being said, life still had a way of taking you by surprise. Just when you were willing to give up on it entirely and throw in the towel—just when you thought people weren’t worth the trouble, something or someone would come along and reorient your entire way of thinking.
Some tiny miracle would give you hope in the midst of the darkness and carry you through it, and you would see the beauty of the world anew.
Those were the moments that made life worth living. And they were what everyone clung to in those dark, desolate hours.