Angie Fox - ADS 03 - A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

“Sling? You can’t pull back a sling into Dimitri’s house!”

“Sure we can. I’ve already got two going in the back.”

Exactly how much of his family’s villa did she intend to destroy?

“This is simply the base structural support,” Creely said, motioning with her hammer. “The strongest joints are on the support beams near the door. We’ll be on the roof with the actual slings.”

Peachy.

“Is this necessary?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Always,” she said, pulling nails out of her pocket and planting them on the side of her mouth.

I turned back from the witch pounding on Dimitri’s house and almost fell off the side of the porch in shock. Two figures strolled up the lane.

Dimitri and Amara.

It wasn’t that I didn’t expect to see him come home. I did. But I sure has heck hadn’t pictured them walking with their heads leaning together, discussing something of intense interest to them both.

Griffin business, no doubt.

Well what did I expect? He’d just spent several days with his own kind—a griffin clan like the one he’d been hoping to build. And now he couldn’t. I was no griffin.

Amara laughed at something he said, her voice ringing over even the incessant racket of the Red Skulls until she saw me and the joy on her face died.

At least one person looked glad to see me. “Lizzie!” Dimitri rushed for me, taking the front porch steps two at a time. He wrapped me in a bear hug. “I missed you.” He nuzzled my neck. “I wished I could have called, but the Dominos clan is old-fashioned.”

“No phones,” Amara said over his shoulder. She just had to be a part of our homecoming. Then again, maybe she played a bigger role in his life than I’d ever realized, a shadow behind everything he did and said.

“Did it go well?” I asked, leaning into him, relishing the pleasure of having him close.

Dimitri hesitated. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“No,” Dimitri said.

“Yes,” Amara corrected.

“Which is it?” I asked.

“We didn’t need their help anyway.”

“Yes, we did,” Grandma said, walking up, hands on her hips. “What’d you do? Did you piss ’em off?”

As if she were the one to talk.

Dimitri sighed. “The Dominos clan feels it’s too risky to send their people over here, not until we know what we’re dealing with. It doesn’t make sense that our Skye magic is fading. We don’t understand who is attacking.” For a moment, he looked lost. “I didn’t even tell them about the green sky.”

“Or the protective magic we lost?” I asked.

He hadn’t. I read it on his face.

Amara’s gaze slid over Dimitri. “They were much more willing to help when Dimitri was going to be a future member of the family, so to speak. There doesn’t seem to be much point anymore,” she said, her comment directed at me.

Oh great. So let’s see. I’d taken his pure griffin heritage, his ability to lead a normal, non–demon slayer life, and now he couldn’t protect his home because of me.

Of course one of Creely’s biker witches picked that moment to start tossing boards off the roof.

“Duck!” I hollered, making a mad dash off the porch as Dimitri attempted to shield Amara with his body.

I stood in the front yard, shocked.

Yes, I could take care of myself.

Perhaps she leaned into him first.

Maybe he knew she was a helpless jerk.

But he still stood there with his arms around her—protecting her .

Something in me snapped. “This is wrong. All of it.” The witches on the roof and all over the lawn and Rachmort saving ants, while Pirate hid a dragon in the house. And when it came down to it, he went with her. He protected her .

I needed him. Hell, I loved him. But it was obvious he didn’t even know what he wanted—or needed—anymore.

I wasn’t going to ruin his life, at least not if I had anything to say about it. Tears stung the back of my eyes.

As much as it crushed me, I was going to have to walk away and let him be a griffin. It was either that or I was going to destroy him.

“I can’t do this.” I tried to say it out loud. I tried to be bold, but it came out on a whisper.

“Lizzie.” Dimitri walked over and cradled me to him, the same way he’d done with Amara. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it.”

“No.” I didn’t want to discuss it, not when my emotions were this raw. “Later,” I said, knowing he deserved an explanation and a private breakup.

It was going to be awful living here with him until his sisters were strong enough to defend the house and until we recovered that stolen piece of me, but this wasn’t about comfort. This was about doing the right thing.

“I just need you to leave me alone right now,” I said, ducking out of his embrace and heading for the house. “Please,” I said at the door when he tried to follow me.

I didn’t look back, except for one time. From the window at the beginning of the hallway, I saw Amara slip a hand over his shoulder.

That night, I ignored his knocks on the door. It wasn’t easy, considering the ruckus Pirate and Flappy made each time Dimitri came by. The darned dragon took up most of my room. If he cooed at me one more time, I was going to scream. But between my close encounter at the Callidora today and then almost getting my head chopped off, my emotional cup runneth over.

I lay in bed, Pirate snuggled against my chest. The fur from the back of his neck prickled my cheek as I cried silent tears. It was better this way. Better to feel hollow inside than risk anyone I loved. Just because Dimitri was willing to sacrifice everything didn’t mean I had to let him.

He deserved a better life than this.

When I had no more tears left, I dreamed of a pair of radiant Skye stones. They shimmered with a light all their own, glistening like unearthly jewels. I touched them, reveling in the spark of power that flowed into me. They were unique, priceless, and they had to be destroyed.

I tried to fight off the wave of malice as I gathered up the stones. The hate was so raw I could taste it like metal in my mouth.

Diana and Dyonne must be eliminated. The Helios house would not stand.

I felt trapped in a body that wasn’t my own as I carried the stones deeper into my dark fortress and laid them on a wooden table with moon symbols carved into the surface. Then my hands closed around a sledgehammer and in one blow, I crushed the first stone. Shards of rock flew. I smashed the second stone.

I gathered the pieces and beat them until they were dust on the floor.

I awoke to the unsettling feeling of a hot and squishy dragon nostril under my hand. “Pirate,” I mumbled, cracking my eye to find Flappy curled up in the crook of my body and Pirate nowhere to be seen.

Of course Pirate never went missing for long.

“Here I am!” He popped up at the end of the bed. “Flappy needed more covers. He gets cold at night.”

“Probably cold-blooded,” I said, rolling away from the dragon and rubbing the grit out of my eyes.

Pirate pawed the bedsheets. “That’s not nice. What has Flappy ever done to you?”

“Hush,” I said, not because I wasn’t up to teaching my dog about the reality of owning a large lizard-type creature, but because I heard something ominous downstairs. A woman’s voice spoke in strained tones, although I couldn’t make out what she said.

Dawn had broken, so I doubted it was the biker witches. They’d been up late with the wards.

The agitated voice was met with deeper male protests. It sounded like bad news.