The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)

He didn’t say out loud what the rest of his expression confirmed. The demons would know that their realms would be the fastest way for us to travel, too, so they’d be expecting us.

I wanted to go back to those frozen, pitch-black realms and fight more demons about as much as I wanted to brush my teeth with razors, but I got up at once. “Just give me a minute. I want to make sure I’ve got enough rocks for whatever happens.”

“There is another alternative,” Zach pointed out.

Adrian’s stare was like a laser. “Are you finally going to fight with us side by side?”

Zach’s dismissive gesture wasn’t quite a shrug. “You know that Archons cannot enter the dark worlds, and as I have often reminded you, I only intercede when I am ordered, which I have not been in this case.”

Adrian turned away, muttering, “Figures.”

I didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t stop the stab of hurt I felt. After everything that had happened, Zach still didn’t regard us as anything aside from obligatory tasks to be dealt with if the appropriate instructions came down? Not that I’d been so naive as to think the powerful Archon regarded us as friends, but I’d hoped... I’d hoped that he cared.

Jasmine came up to me, taking my hand. When I saw my hurt mirrored on her features, I forced my expression into a smile.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got this,” I told her, glad that my voice sounded light and confident. I’d had to give so many false reassurances over the past few months; I was finally getting good at them. To Zach, I simply said, “What alternative?”

In the time it took me to look from my sister to him, his features became impassive, though his dark stare reminded me that he’d heard all my thoughts. Still, for a split second, I saw something in his expression. It was gone so fast, I couldn’t tell if it had been pity or contempt, but whatever it was, he’d felt it strongly enough to crack his usual inscrutableness.

“These realms are not bound by the limitations of their dark counterparts,” he replied, nothing in his tone giving a hint to what he was feeling. “Each one of them contains a vortex that connects them together, so those with the ability to enter them can then be transported anywhere in the world where light realms exist. You need only to think of the destination you wish to go when you use the gateway, and it will take you there.”

“Wow,” I said, so impressed that I stopped trying to decipher Zach’s elusive emotion. “You’re saying that I can just think my way to where we need to go? Talk about an upgrade from using the demon realms to travel!”

“Anywhere other light realms exist, huh?” Adrian looked from me to Zach, but instead of being awed like I was, an expression of deliberate calculation took over his features. “And where might those be? France, I hope?”

Zach arched a brow. “You should know. These realms are in the same places where demon realms are. Every time they strike into your world, we strike back.”

Now I was really impressed, and in the midst of that, also a little ashamed. I’d just been thinking about how Zach didn’t care about us, and I regularly bemoaned how the rest of his kind as well as his boss didn’t do enough to help humanity. But hearing about this made me wonder if there was a lot more going on behind the scenes in this war. For all our sakes, I hoped so.

“I’ll get lots of rocks just in case, but other than that—” this time, my smile was real “—let’s take a trip to France.”

“Just me, Ivy and Brutus are going,” Adrian said when Jasmine left my side and started gathering up her things.

Costa looked as surprised as my sister did. “Why?” he asked. “Ivy didn’t have any trouble pulling all of us through.”

A muscle flexed in Adrian’s jaw. “If you’re my friend, Costa, don’t press this. Just stay here.”

“I’m asking,” Jasmine said, striding over to Adrian. “Why?”

I’d assumed it was to keep them safe since demons might be waiting for us there, which was why Adrian’s reply stunned me.

“Demetrius dropped a realm on us within a few hours of our arrival in Death Valley. Then he leaked one onto us only a few hours after we showed up at the campus.” Adrian’s voice, already sharp, became harder than diamonds. “Once is coincidence, but twice is a pattern, and both times, the two of you were conveniently out of harm’s way. That’s why neither of you is coming with us now because I don’t know which of you has been going behind our backs with Demetrius.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

AFTER A MOMENT of shocked silence, I found my voice. “That’s impossible. Neither of them would ever do that.” Then, louder, “Jasmine, Costa, tell him you’d never do that!”

“Of course I wouldn’t!” was my sister’s immediate response. “You know how horrible I felt about what I told the demons when they tortured Tommy. Do you think I’d ever do anything even resembling that again?”

The stare Costa leveled at Adrian was full of anger. “After all these years, I never thought I’d have to say that I wouldn’t betray you,” Costa bit out.

“See?” I said. “You’re wrong, Adrian!”

Adrian turned to Zach, who I just realized had remained ominously silent. “Well?” Adrian asked. “You know almost everything, so tell me, am I wrong?”

Zach let his gaze rest on each of us before replying, and though it only took moments, the tension grew and stretched, until my nerves felt as if they were about to snap.

“You are correct. One of you has been alerting Demetrius,” Zach replied.

An explosion seemed to go off in my mind, making Jasmine’s sputtered denials and Costa’s angry protestations fade into white noise. As if I’d never seen them before, I stared back and forth between the sister I loved and the friend I trusted. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but Archons never lied, and if I didn’t focus on how this bombshell ripped me apart emotionally, I’d recognize that each of them had motive.

Jasmine had made it no secret that she lumped Adrian together with demons, to the point where she partially blamed Adrian for her boyfriend’s death as well as her awful treatment in his former realm. What if that hatred had driven her to do something terrible, like trying to get him killed? It wouldn’t be hard for her to reach Demetrius. All she would’ve had to do was say his name in an unbroken mirror, and he would appear.