“I swear, demon. Let go of me.”
“And what if I say no?”
“Maybe I’ll get Bishop’s dagger and shove it through your chest. Put you out of your misery.”
Roth laughed darkly. “That a promise or a threat, angel?”
“Your choice.”
Enough of this. I pushed the curtain aside and looked in at them. Roth had Cassandra pressed against the wall, his hand on her shoulder. Her eyes glowed blue in the darkness as she looked at me.
“Good.” She shoved away from the demon. “This is over.”
He grabbed her wrist to stop her. “It’s not over till I say it is.”
“Let go of her!” Everything about this demon set my teeth on edge. I didn’t know why Cassandra didn’t kick his butt like she’d done the other night. I knew she could flatten him without barely lifting a finger.
Roth gave me a dark look. “Mind your own business.”
“I’m making this my business.”
He actually laughed at this. “Isn’t that sweet. The gray cares about you, angel.” He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Are you two besties now?”
I didn’t bother trying to reach for my new knife. Bishop was right; it was too hard to access under these jeans. Instead, I touched Roth’s bare arm and bust through his mental barrier as easy as cracking an egg. He must have been distracted tonight. I only channeled a low-level zap into him, but it was enough to make him unhand Cassandra and stagger back a few feet until he hit the wall hard. He let out a satisfying grunt of pain.
My gaze shot to Cassandra. “You okay?”
She stared at me. “How did you do that?”
Oops. I really didn’t like the look on her pretty face. Instead of being upset over her confrontation with the jerk of a demon, she regarded me with confusion...a look that began to shift to growing clarity. As if things were slowly clicking into place for her.
More dangerous clues to what I really was.
“Forget it.” I swallowed hard, averting my gaze. “I have to find Bishop.”
Without waiting another second, I pushed through the curtain and scanned the dark club. Memories of what I’d seen in his mind—when he’d killed Kraven—rushed back over me with the force of a tidal wave.
It was a long time ago, I reminded myself. Whatever made him do that, he wasn’t the same person as he is now.
It had scared me to feel the cold inside of him, his apathy for the pain he’d caused someone he loved. For a moment, I’d reeled from that horrible truth, wanting to hide my head like an ostrich and forget I’d seen anything. But I couldn’t. And I knew I had to learn more to make sense of it all.
That was what realists like me did with things they couldn’t wrap their heads around. They gathered information and hoped it would all fit into tidy stacks, leading to firm and resolute answers. But this didn’t. And I didn’t think it ever would.
I knew Bishop hadn’t forgotten. And I knew it ate away at him every time he saw Kraven now. With so much bad blood between them, I didn’t know how they were able to work together at all.
Who was this horrible Kara person and what had she done to Bishop to change him so much?
I made it to the middle of the dance floor, searching for any sign of either the angel or the demon, when the sound of a blood-curdling scream cut past the loud music. I wrenched my head in the direction of the ear-splitting sound, but everyone around me began moving, rushing, pushing against each other to get to the stairs.
I grabbed a stranger’s arm. “What happened?”
The man’s eyes were wild with fear. “Somebody just got murdered.”
He slipped away before I could get anything else from him.
Horror clawed at me, and I started to fight against the crowd to get back to the dance floor. “Bishop! Where are you?”
I saw the victim first. He lay in the middle of the now-cleared dance floor, on his back, his eyes glazed. A sparkling fall of lights from the ceiling brushed his pale skin. And the all-too-familiar black lines branched around his mouth.
“Oh, no,” I whispered, clamping a hand over my mouth.
A gray’s victim lay dead, having been drained of his soul. And it had happened right in the middle of a crowd.
I took another step closer, but a strong hand closed on my arm, stopping me from taking another step. I spun to look, ready to fight—but it was Bishop.
“Don’t get any closer,” he warned. “You don’t want to be involved in this.”
“I already am involved.” I pulled away from him, stepping back a few feet so I could try to clear my head. Even now, even with this horrible sight in front of me, being close to Bishop was dangerous—as we’d proven without a doubt earlier.
I could still feel the brief kiss we’d shared, just before the memory meld had saved him from my rising hunger.
“I need to get you out of here.” His expression was grim. “Are you coming or do you have a bizarre urge to talk to the police when they arrive?”
Smart-ass. “Fine. I’m coming.” I couldn’t turn my attention back to the dead man who’d come here tonight to dance and drink and have fun, only to meet someone who kissed him—that exhilarating magical dark kiss that stole his soul and his life.
Kraven met us at the stairway, downing the rest of his drink in one gulp before discarding his glass. “Long time no see, sweetness. Did you have fun tonight?”