The werewolf let out a foul curse. “Don’t you see? It’s a trap! The Mavromino’s behind this. By sending him here, it could jeopardize all our lives. Stop our parents from ever meeting … us from being born! He’s here to screw it all up. It would change everything. Alter history as we know it!”
Nick held his hands up. “No. That’s not why I’m here. I mean, yes, it is, but not to change your history. To protect your lives and mine. I came here to stop this”—he gestured at the debris—“from happening. I was told I did this. That I ended the world.”
“Who told you that?” Marissa scowled.
“Ambrose.”
Charity arched her brow. “But you’re Ambrose.”
“I know that.”
And then they stared at each other in mutual confusion. Until another thing hit Nick. “Wait a second … All of you know me. Yet you don’t seem to know my ?arru-Dara. Is it me, or is that weird?”
Arching a brow, Val scowled. “What are you sniffing?” He jerked his chin at Xev. “That’s not the ?arru-Dara.”
Nick exchanged a scoffing laugh with Xev.
“Yes, I am,” Xev said firmly. “I’ve been the ?arru-Dara since the very beginning. There’s never been another.”
Marissa shook her head. “You’re wrong. The demon Livia’s the ?arru-Dara.”
Nick sobered instantly at what that would have to mean. “Uh, no, she isn’t. I kicked her rotten butt out of our clubhouse the minute I took over.”
Xev held his hand up to stop them from commenting. “Wait. Who are the u?umgallu right now in this time period?”
Charity counted them off on her fingers. “Bane, Livia, Grim, Laguerre, Yrre, and Kessar.”
He cut a gimlet stare to Nick. “Don’t you get it, kid? For her to have my position, I’d have to be dead or seriously incapacitated and if they’d succeeded in eliminating me, then they would’ve opened the Kiazazu—the gates to Azmodea. Noir and Azura are out. This is the end.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, stretching the word out, “but we stopped them. I chose a different set of generals. You were there. You know I did.”
“Yes. But something else must have happened at a much later time.” Xev gestured at Charity. “You said that Ambrose isn’t your Malachai?”
“Correct. Cyp—” Her words were cut off by a blast that struck her in the chest and knocked her backward, away from Nick.
“No!” Nick shouted as she hit the ground, hard, and rolled to her side.
The others scrambled to return fire as more demons flew in to engage them for a fight.
Ignoring them, Nick ran to his daughter. He gently turned her over to find that she was covered in blood from the wound that had opened up most of her side.
Her breathing ragged, she stared up at him with tears glistening in her pale eyes as her lips trembled from the pain of the gaping injury the demon had left her with. “It’s the Cyprian Malachai,” she whispered.
Nick tightened his arms around her. “Stay with me, Charity. I’ll get you some help.”
No sooner had he spoken those words than he felt that horrible, familiar tugging sensation. He was under attack from another entity. An unseen force.
Nick stood to confront it.
But the moment he did, he was sucker-punched. Air violently left his lungs and everything went dark.
CHAPTER 11
Nick jolted as he slammed into the floor of Menyara’s shop, facedown. What the heck? How had he come back home? They hadn’t been ready yet. He had questions he still needed answered.
“No!” He pushed himself up and looked around for the others, hoping that maybe they might have come with him.
Kody rushed to his side. “Nick, what is it?”
Xev fell to the floor, a few feet away.
“Why did you bring us back?” he asked him.
Shaking his head as he pushed himself into a seated position, Xev appeared as bewildered as Nick felt. “I didn’t do this. I was in the middle of fighting and trying to help them.”
Frustrated and furious, Nick raked his hand through his hair as he tried to use powers he didn’t have to get back there. “What about Charity? Will she be okay?”
“I don’t know.” Xev rose and headed straight for Jaden. “What the hell is going on?” he snarled at him. “Did you do this to get back at us?”
“What?”
“Don’t you dare, ‘What, me?’ like you don’t know.”
If Jaden was feigning ignorance, the man or demon or whatever he was should win an Oscar for the performance. ’Cause he looked completely innocent and oblivious. “What did you see there? Did you find Ambrose?”
“No.” Xev gestured at Nick. “There’s another Malachai who reigns after Ambrose. He’s not the last one!”
Utter silence rang out in the room.
Caleb sat up slowly. “I beg your pardon? Are you on meth?”
Xev turned slowly toward his brother. “You heard correctly. It’s confirmed. I saw it myself. Nick saw it. Ambrose falls to another Malachai. And that Malachai is the one who opens the gate to Azmodea. Not Ambrose.” He faced Kody. “But it doesn’t mesh with your memories. At all.”