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The door behind us opened and I heard the queen cry out.

“Zoey, get back upstairs,” Donovan growled, his hands tightening on the railing.

“He has my son.” The queen’s face was streaked with tears, but there was more than fear. She was pissed.

I was, too.

“Don’t you think it’s time we talked, Your Highness? You seemed to have effectively taken my shifters away, but I promise you more will come. These will wake up and there won’t be anything you can do to stop them.” Winter stared up at us.

We were standing on the landing right outside the safety of Quinn’s office. If I thought a tranq dart would take the fucker out, I would have had a spectacular shot. As it was, I could jump on the asshole. I wasn’t sure what I would do then, but I could provide a hell of a diversion.

“Don’t, Kelsey,” Donovan said, a plea in his voice. I’d never heard the man sound so desperate. “If Winter turns on his power, Lee dies.”

“That’s right, Your Highness. Your boy here is very curious. I found him sneaking about in the kitchen. Apparently he was looking for something sweet. I can give him something cold,” Winter promised.

“We have contracts,” Marcus insisted. He shook his head as he glared down on the demon. “They state plainly that demonkind cannot interfere with Vampire or anyone belonging to Vampire.”

Winter hissed and used his free hand to pull a dart out of his arm. “Tell your snipers the next one to fire on me can bury this little fucker.”

“Dev, come down,” Donovan commanded. “No one fires another shot.”

“And those contracts are only for vampires and their companions,” Winter said with an elegant shrug. “This one is human. I would never attempt to harm a hair on the head of the queen, but this is a human child. He cannot belong to Vampire.”

“He’s my son,” Donovan protested. “Let him go and maybe, just maybe I’ll be kind when I kill you.”

“Such anger, Your Highness. One would think a man in your position would know not to get too attached to anyone. Humans are so very fragile.” Winter’s fingers seemed to snake around Lee’s neck as if to prove his point. The demon could snap it or hold it until Lee couldn’t take a breath, or he could simply freeze him where he stood and all of Lee’s potential futures would be lost to us.

“Be calm,
bella
.” Marcus’s hand slid over mine, his mouth tightening. “There is nothing you can do.”

“I have to do something.” I couldn’t leave Lee standing out there. He was wearing pajamas with some Disney character all over them. I couldn’t watch him turn to ice. I’d had that happen to me. It wasn’t happening to a kid.

Not a kid. I was distancing. It’s what I did. Lee. Sweet Lee. He was my friend and I felt a connection to him, and I wasn’t letting him die so some old as fuck demon could prove a point of law.

“Kelsey, if you go down there, you will die and so will the boy. Allow the king to handle this,” Marcus counseled. “You had a chance to gather information. It didn’t work out. Now it is for the king to deal with.”

“What do you want, Winter?” Donovan asked.

Lee’s eyes grew wide. “Papa?”

He’d seen Quinn making his way toward the stairs. The faery had his hands up and his eyes were on his son. “Stay calm, Lee. We’re going to get you out of this. You’re going to be all right. Do you understand?”

There were tears on Lee’s cheeks as he nodded. His mouth firmed and his shoulders straightened as though he was determined to be brave.

I was determined to kick a little ass. My she-wolf was twitching inside.

“Kelsey, calm down. You can’t kill Abbas Hiberna. He can only be killed by demonkind. If we had time, I could find a way around it, but we don’t and I won’t send you down there when there’s nothing you can do.” Marcus had a hand on my arm.

Quinn made his way up the stairs. “Daniel, don’t do anything crazy.”

Donovan put a hand on his partner’s head, drawing him close. “I’ll save our son, Devinshea, and you know what to do after that.” He turned my way, his face so grim, so devoid of hope. “Kelsey, I have no right to ask this of you, but will you see my family safely to Faery?”

“Sure, but I don’t think this is a time for a vacay, boss.”

“He isn’t talking about a vacation,
bella
,” Marcus said. “His family will be in danger after this. There will be a power vacuum in the Council. There will likely be civil war.”

“What are you talking about?” I looked to the king. “He can’t touch you.”

“Ah, the king is an intelligent man,” Winter proclaimed. “I cannot touch him myself. That would break our contracts, but we demons go very much by the letter and not the intent of the law.”

They do that because their intent is pretty much always evil. “And what is that going to get you, Winter?”

“It means he can’t harm me unless I ask him to. Unless I sign a contract. Lee’s life for mine,” Donovan explained with grim determination. “Do we have to go through the motions? Or is a verbal contract all right?”

Winter’s satisfaction was a palpable thing. He smiled his chilly smile and the world seemed infinitely colder. “I agree to this contract. In exchange for the human I have caught, I will accept the sacrifice of the king’s head.”

“Danny, no!” the queen shouted.

Quinn moved in and pulled the queen away. She fought him and I watched as the king gave her one long look.

“I love you, Z. You tell the kids how much I love them. Devinshea…” He stopped, staring at his partners, and I could feel his love.

Damn but I wanted someone to look at me like that. Those three were connected, committed, passionate.

They were also drama queens. I turned my attention to Gray. He kind of had an in now. As Donovan began his long, stirring march down the stairs, I leaned over to Gray. “How does this end?”

His brows nearly knitted together. “I don’t know.”

“You’re all prophety,” I complained. After what we’d been through, I wanted some answers. His brain could tap into the big life computer and run those numbers for us. “Give me a clue at least.”

“Dev, stop him,” the queen begged.

Quinn had lost his arrogant look. He held the queen in his arms. “I can’t. We have to save Lee.”

“I’ll save Lee,” I promised. I seemed to have gotten Quinn’s arrogance.

The queen’s eyes lit with hope. “You have a plan?”

“Not really. But I’m pretty good at winging it.”

Marcus turned his dark eyes my way. “I told you there is nothing to be done. I won’t have you sacrifice your life and the boy’s. Zoey, Abbas Hiberna has us in a Catch-22. As long as he has hands on your son, he can kill him. Unless Mr. Sloane has strength we don’t know about, we are at a loss because none but demonkind can kill an elemental. Do you truly wish for my charge to waste her life when there is no hope?”

The queen choked back a sob and wrapped her arms around her husband.

I wasn’t as ready to give up as Marcus was.

I’m here to tell you that I have seen some bad shit. Seriously bad shit. I’ve seen things that would make your toes curl, your stomach churn, your brain want to fry. And there is one and only one truth to every situation.

As long as you are alive, there is hope. Full stop. No arguments or questions. Sometimes hope is all we have but until the deed is done, it’s a gift given to each one of us.

“He must have taken down our wards,” Dev said, cradling his wife. “I had wards against violence placed here long ago.”

“Abbas Hiberna would leave nothing to chance,” Marcus stated grimly. “I would assume several of your security team were likely turned weeks ago. They infiltrated the club, and our own people are the ones we must fear.”

Donovan made it to the dance floor. It seemed wrong. It was a cheery thing with lights going off in crazy patterns. It was a place to party, but now it was the agreed on stage of an execution.

Winter and Donovan were saying something to one another. I couldn’t hear them. I turned back to Gray, who really needed to get his prophet on. I was a bit surprised to see Jacob standing beside him, watching the proceedings.

Hey, two prophets are better than one.

Marcus was consoling Quinn and the queen, but I wasn’t giving up yet. There was that crazy hope thing.

I turned to the prophet with the most experience. “Jacob, I need to know what to do.”

He sighed, a smile on his face. “Be yourself, Kelsey.”

I was ready to smack him. “Dude, it’s not a date. The King of all Vampire is about to lose his head and I’m the only one left conscious. We had to freaking tranquilize everyone else, so look through all those cool potential outcomes and get me a good one.”

“I’m not a slot machine, Kelsey,” Jacob complained.

“I can’t focus.” Gray’s fists were at his side, a sure sign of his frustration. “I’m trying, baby, but it’s too much.”

“You have to be calm.” Jacob stepped up to the railing. “Trust that things will play out as they should. You can’t have any control of the lines of fate if you’re too emotional. Take a deep breath and you’ll see what I’ve seen.”

Marcus took my hand. “Kelsey, I believe we need to prepare for the worst. Once the king is gone, you’ll have to get Lee and we’ll run. The nearest entrance to a
sithein
is outside of Austin.”

“We’re not going to a
sithein
.” I was sick of Debbie Downer. I loved Marcus. I really did, but all that negativity was getting to me.

“Prophet, it is so good of you to make an appearance,” Winter proclaimed.

When I looked down, there was a crowd of demons. They’d come from Hell to witness the death of the king. They were in all various forms. Some were red skinned, with scales showing and horns aplenty. Some were in their human forms, including one well-known politician, and didn’t that explain a whole lot. I counted two satans, with their cherubic cheeks and ever-present notebooks. Satans are the law clerks of the demonic world. They would ensure the king’s death was completely legal by the standards of all contracts.

Jacob nodded. “You know I bear witness to history’s interesting events.”

Donovan was looking at his son. He said nothing to the demons, simply spoke quietly to the boy in Winter’s hold. I had to wonder how he felt. He was the single most powerful man in the world and because of Winter’s hands, he was utterly helpless. Had Winter laid those hands on the king himself, Donovan would have frozen and then broken free and come out twice as pissed as he’d been before.

Lee was human. Lee would simply die.

It occurred to me that family was a true weakness. Unfortunately, it was also the only thing that made life worthwhile. These people we love, they can destroy us. But without them there is no person to destroy. I am the sum of the people who love me, who I love. The alpha and omega of my soul rests with who and how I’ve loved. Yes, it is weakness, but there is no strength that isn’t balanced by weakness.

I loved Gray and Marcus. I’d seen myself love someone else. I’d seen myself lose. I’d seen myself laid out and aching on the floor because I’d lost the men I loved.

So I would fight harder to keep them. I was done being a coward.

If Donovan was willing to risk his life for his kid, I was willing to put mine on the line to save him.

“Your Highness, I myself obviously can’t wield the sword, so I brought in an ally.” Winter nodded toward the crowd, and a man I’d never seen before stepped forward.

“I’ll want my reward.”

I might not have seen the body he was occupying, but I knew the voice. Matthew.

“Brother, don’t!” Gray called out.

Donovan snarled Matthew’s way, but stopped when Lee cried out.

“Not so quickly, Your Highness. I don’t think I would like you killing my chosen executioner. I think that might make my hands slip,” Winter promised.

“I’ll want my payment,” Matthew said.

“You can have the wolf. He’s being held right now for you.” Winter had both hands on Lee now as he watched Matthew take the silver sword one of the others handed him. His hand was gloved or it would have smoked at the faintest touch.

They’d come prepared. Winter had outsmarted all of us. He would get his civil war and Lucifer couldn’t really complain because he’d followed the letter of the demon/vampire contracts. If he did, Winter would serve up Gray as his get out of jail free card.

All because no one but demonkind could kill him.

“No.” The queen clutched the railing, having pulled away from her husband. “He can’t take Neil again. Oh, god. It’s happening all over again.”

Neil. Matthew’s lost love was Neil Roberts? Neil Roberts was married. He was happy.

The demon who had taken Neil Roberts was the same one who had betrayed the king and caused the death of my father.

“He killed my father.” The words came out of my mouth in a dull, almost dumb tone, as though I needed to say them for it to be real. “Matthew killed my father.”

“I believe I warned the queen about it at the time,” Jacob offered.

Gray shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”

“If your brother is Nemcox, then I assure you his betrayal led to the death of Lee Owens,” Dev swore. “He took Neil against his will and raped him on the Hell plane for years.”

“It is true.” Jacob put a hand on Gray’s shoulder.

The queen turned to Gray. She wasn’t a woman who was too proud to beg for a friend. “Please, Mr. Sloane. Please, if you have any power at all with him, don’t let him kill my husband. Please don’t let him take Neil again. He almost didn’t survive the first time.”

“But he’s my brother.” Gray had a blank look in his eyes.

He’d lost everyone. Again. His father had sent him in as a sacrificial lamb and now he’d learned the truth about the one person who seemed to put him first.

“Gray, you are not defined by your family.” I know I should have railed at him. His brother was the reason my father no longer walked the Earth plane, but Gray wasn’t Matthew or Nemcox or whoever he called himself. Choices. Jacob had told me we got to choose who we are. We choose every day, and I needed Gray to choose to be strong. I looked him straight in the eyes. “If your brother killed my father, I still care about you.”

I couldn’t tell him I loved him. Not with Marcus here. It was so fucked up and jumbled in my head, but I needed him to know his brother’s crimes weren’t a stain on his soul.