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

For a second, nobody moved.

It made even more sense now. Dimitri’s wards wouldn’t have held me back. I was the only one with memories of what happened to the stones and how they were crushed. I’d wanted them destroyed.

“There has to be another explanation,” Dyonne protested. “You wouldn’t do this.”

I scrubbed my hand across my forehead, purposely avoiding Dimitri’s gaze. “I’d like there to be another answer. I really would. But I also have to think about protecting you and this house.” If I was a danger to the group, it would be foolhardy to pretend otherwise.

“There is another answer.” Dimitri moved behind me.

“That would be?” I felt an unspoken chill in our little circle.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, as if we’d taken a wrong turn off the highway.

Why did that not comfort me?

Hell’s bells, I’d have left the estate if I thought it would do any good. Somehow I knew whoever—or what ever—had a hold on me would not be swayed by a change in location. Nor would it be moved by Dyonne’s sheer unwillingness to accept the only rational explanation.

What had my adoptive dad always said? You must eliminate the illogical until only the logical remains, and that is your answer, however improbable. (Yes, he was a Sherlock Holmes freak.) In plain speak, it meant I had to look logic in the face and accept what it was telling me—no matter how impossible it seemed.

I took in the scene in front of me, from the sobbing Diana to the obstinate Dyonne. Talos glared at me. Interesting, since he should have been the least personally affected of all of us.

I turned back to Dimitri and was shocked at the intensity in his gaze.

“We will figure this out,” he said, as if he was stating a fact.

I wanted to wrap myself in his arms and let him tell me again it would be okay. I wanted to believe it more than anything.

Instead, I held my ground as best as I could. “Okay,” I said, sounding more certain than I felt, “what do we do next?”

Dimitri unlocked his part of the Skye stone and spent the better part of the day in a last-ditch attempt to weave what ever protective magic he could over the estate. I watched, feeling helpless, responsible and guilty at the same time. I should have been training to fight this. Only I knew it would be impossible today. The witches shooed me away. They wouldn’t even let me see the work they’d done on the cave of visions and only accepted Rachmort’s help with the wards. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I felt fewer explosions that day.

Diana and Dyonne spent their time out at the ruins with Talos, trying to piece the stones back together somehow. It didn’t work. By the time night fell, we were all exhausted.

We gathered at the bottom of the grand staircase as Dimitri walked Diana and Dyonne upstairs. The sisters would be sharing a room tonight, with Dimitri’s protective magic woven over them.

“I’ll go sit with them,” Amara said, following the sisters up the stairs, pausing to run a familiar hand over Dimitri’s shoulder.

I wanted to slap her away, but I had no right. If he’d only stuck with her, his life would be so much better right now.

“No. I’ll stand watch,” I said, ready to overtake Amara. Diana and Dyonne wouldn’t have been in this situation if it weren’t for me. I needed to talk with them alone.

“Don’t worry about it, Lizzie,” Dimitri said, his eyes on Amara as she sauntered up the stairs.

“You can trust me,” I said. It’s not like anything had happened when I was awake.

“It’s not that,” he said, turning to me, ignoring Talos’s smirk. “Amara is a griffin. She has ways of seeing magic that you don’t.”

My heart dropped into my shoes.

“Hey,” he said, touching my chin. “It’s not like that. I know you have talents. Many talents,” he added, with that slightly devious, heated look I’d grown to love. “We have to pick our battles, and right now Amara is the best person to help guard the Skye magic. Well, her and you,” he said, nodding to Talos.

“I don’t see what guarding them is going to do if they’ve lost their magic,” Talos grumbled.

Dimitri stiffened, and for a second I thought he was going to pin the other griffin to the wall. Instead, he answered in clipped tones. “You are sworn to protect this house. That includes the people in it. Now go.”

They went.

I followed them from a distance and watched them enter the sisters’ room. As the door clicked shut behind them, I felt a familiar loneliness. I’d always been somewhat of an outsider, even with the few friends I’d had back in Atlanta.

I could never bring myself to share enough, to let down my guard enough to be part of a group. And now, when I wanted so desperately to be a part of this family, I didn’t know how.

Inside, I could hear voices murmuring, comforting, as Dimitri wove his love and protection over Dyonne and Diana. They truly were a family.

I leaned my head against the cool stone outside the door. Perhaps I couldn’t help, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave, either. I slid down the wall until my bottom touched the cold tile floor.

My throat tightened as the emptiness threatened to overtake me. I didn’t fit in here, but I wanted it so much that I ached.

The door clicked open, and Amara slid out. Her eyes flitted over me before she turned her back and stalked toward her own room, her heels pounding like hammer blows.

A few moments later, Talos emerged. And just when I realized I’d better get my sorry self out of there, Dimitri followed.

My muscles froze and my blood stopped short in my veins. I must have looked like a complete fool. Panic spurred me to action as I scrambled to my feet. “I was just—”

What?

Lurking outside your door?

“I’m glad you’re here, Lizzie,” Dimitri said, attempting to help me up.

I was too fast for him. “Look, I need to apologize,” I began, trying to decide just exactly what I should list first. For compromising his sisters and their magic, for putting all of us in mortal danger, for following him here in the first place.

For demanding his love when I had no right to have him?

Dimitri let his head drop to his chest.

“Dimitri, I—”

He raised his head, his eyes a blaze of green. “Walk with me.”

My stomach clenched. “Okay.” Now was as good of time as any to break up with the love of my life. Might as well do it when I knew beyond a doubt what an outsider I was.

We walked out into the cool night air past the tarps, where a few lone biker witches harvested snakeskins and grilled lava rocks—although I had yet to figure out how you could tell if a rock was well-done or rare. Evidently, it mattered quite a bit.

Fireflies clustered at the edges of the trees and I heard the hum of a generator back behind the house.

I opened my mouth to talk, and Dimitri butted in. “If you’re about to apologize again, don’t.”

“For your information, I was going to comment on the batch of turtle knees you’re about to walk over.”

“Oh,” he said, adjusting his stride around the pretzel jar full of black goop.

It was a lie. I was going to apologize again. What good is an obsessive personality if I couldn’t beat myself up every once in a while?

“Listen, Lizzie. We learned something at the council.”

“That you should have married Amara?”

“What?” he asked, genuinely surprised. He shook it off. “No. We learned you’re the one who has to solve this.”

Why was I not surprised? “Story of my life.”

Things always fell to the demon slayer.

“Are they telling you that because you broke ties and are dating me?”