Chapter Nine
The portal swirled to life at Whichello’s touch, a vortex of darkness that made Isaac’s stomach lurch just looking at it. Whichello went through first, then Isaac stepped into the void, which felt like falling and flying simultaneously.
When they emerged in the woods close to Danny’s, Whichello steadied Isaac with a hand on his elbow. “I’ll stay back until you’re inside. You’ve got two minutes, then I’m coming in regardless.”
“Two minutes,” Isaac repeated, though the words felt hollow. Two minutes could be forever when someone had a knife to your best friend’s throat.
Or to yours.
He started walking, his feet carrying him forward on autopilot while his brain screamed that he should turn around and let Whichello handle this.
But Danny’s face kept surfacing in his thoughts, the real Danny who Isaac had sat with through panic attacks and bad days and every moment his best friend had felt like giving up.
Isaac approached the house, each step across the cracked sidewalk feeling as if he was walking toward his own execution.
The porch light flickered, casting shadows that jumped and twisted against the vinyl siding.
This was such a monumentally stupid idea.
If he survived this, he was going to need therapy.
And possibly a shovel to bury whatever was left of his common sense.
Whichello and Marcus waited two blocks back, far enough that Dimitri wouldn’t sense them immediately but close enough to reach Isaac if things went sideways. When things went sideways. Isaac wasn’t naive enough to think this would go any other way.
He reached for the doorknob before he could talk himself out of it. The metal felt cold under his palm, and when he turned it, the mechanism clicked in a way that reminded him too much of the passage door in his bedroom. That same soft sound that preceded a mindfuck Isaac wasn’t ready for.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside. The house sat silent around him, too quiet for a place that should have people in it. No television noise. No conversation. Just the hum of the refrigerator from somewhere deeper inside the house and the sound of his own loud breathing.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Isaac spun around, hand already reaching for the knob, but Dimitri stood there blocking his path.
Two other demons flanked him, faces Isaac didn’t recognize.
Both were built like they spent their free time throwing cars for entertainment.
One had scars running down the left side of his face in patterns that looked too precise to be accidental.
The other had eyes that reflected light like an animal’s, yellow and predatory.
“You actually came.” Dimitri’s mouth curved into something that might have been a smile if it had contained any warmth whatsoever. “Alone, even. You’re either incredibly brave or catastrophically stupid.”
“Where’s Danny?” Isaac kept his voice level despite the way his pulse thundered in his ears. His eyes swept the living room, taking in the overturned coffee table and the lamp lying broken on the floor. Signs of a struggle or staged to look like one. “You said if I came, you wouldn’t hurt them.”
Dimitri tilted his head, that false smile widening. “Did I? I don’t recall making that exact promise. I said to come here alone, and you’d find out what happened to your friends.”
The demon to Dimitri’s left laughed, a sound like rocks grinding together. Isaac’s stomach dropped somewhere around his knees. Something about this was off. Way off.
“So where is he?” Isaac took a step sideways, trying to get a better angle on the room, on any possible exit that wasn’t blocked by three demons who looked eager to rip him apart. “Where are Danny and Ash?”
“How should I know?” Dimitri shrugged, the gesture casual and dismissive. “Probably at Frothy Pine, I think it’s called. With the terrible music and the bartender who can’t make change without using a calculator.”
The words took a moment to register. Then they hit, and Isaac realized the truth of the situation. “You don’t have them.”
“Never said I did.” Dimitri took a step forward, and Isaac automatically stepped back, his shoulder blades hitting the wall beside the door.
“Just said you should come to this house alone. And look at that, you followed instructions perfectly. No backup. No Whichello saving the day. Just you, walking right into exactly what I wanted.”
“You used Danny’s phone.” Isaac’s hands fisted, rage mixing with the terror. “You made me think he was in danger.”
“Borrowed his phone,” Dimitri corrected, pulling the device from his pocket and waving it like a trophy. “Found it in the bedroom, actually. He left it on the nightstand. Unfortunate for him, but convenient for me.”
Isaac lunged for the door, fingers closing around the knob and twisting hard. It didn’t move. Locked, or jammed, or held shut by shitty luck. He pulled harder, throwing his weight against it, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Problem?” Dimitri’s voice came from too close behind him, and Isaac spun around, pressing his back against the wood.
The smart thing would be to panic. To scream and fight and make as much noise as possible in the hopes that Whichello would hear and come running.
But something cold settled in Isaac’s gut, pushing down the terror until it became background noise.
He’d survived his father’s abuse. Survived being sold at an auction.
Survived a castle that tried to eat him. He could survive this.
“You went through a lot of trouble.” Isaac kept his tone even, blocking out everything else. “Stealing a phone, setting up this whole scenario, getting your friends here to help. Must’ve been a pain in the ass.”
“You have no idea.” Dimitri leaned against the wall opposite Isaac, mirroring his posture in a way that felt like mockery. “Ever since Whichello so rudely interrupted us in your tower room, I’ve been thinking about how to finish what we started.”
The memory tried to surface, hands pinning his wrists and lips on his throat, but Isaac shoved it down. Not helpful right now. He needed to think, needed to stall long enough for Whichello to realize something was wrong and come looking.
Had it been two minutes yet? It had to have been, so where was his mate?
“So what’s the plan?” Isaac pushed off from the door, taking a step toward the center of the room. “You kill me? Assault me again? Use me to get back at Whichello?”
“All of the above, probably.” Dimitri’s smile never wavered. “Though not necessarily in that order. I haven’t decided yet. Part of the fun is improvising.”
Isaac took another step, angling toward the hallway that led deeper into the house. Maybe there was a back door. A window. Any exit that wasn’t blocked by three demons who looked increasingly eager to start whatever Dimitri had planned.
Dimitri moved with him, matching each step like a shadow. The two other demons shifted position, cutting off the angles Isaac was trying to create. They moved in sync, like they’d practiced this. Probably had. Sick bastards.
“You know he’s going to kill you for this.” Isaac kept moving, kept talking, kept Dimitri’s attention on him instead of on listening for Whichello’s approach. “Slowly. Painfully. He’ll make it last for days.”
“Will he?” Dimitri took another step, and they were closer now, close enough that Isaac could see the gold flecks in his pale eyes. “Or will he be too busy mourning his dead boyfriend to bother with revenge?”
The casual mention of Isaac’s death should’ve terrified him.
Probably would have, if his brain hadn’t already moved past terror into the cold clarity that came from knowing he was completely out of options.
Running wouldn’t work. Screaming wouldn’t help.
All he had was his mouth and his ability to make people angry enough to get sloppy.
“You’re scared of him.” Isaac stopped moving, planting his feet and meeting Dimitri’s gaze without flinching. “That’s what this is really about. You’re terrified of what he’ll do to you, so you’re trying to hurt him first. Through me.”
Something flickered across Dimitri’s face, there and gone too fast to name. “I’m not scared of anyone.”
“Liar.” Isaac took a step forward this time, closing the distance himself. “You’re scared because you know you can’t beat him in a fair fight. So you’re going after the one thing he cares about. That’s not strategy. That’s cowardice.”
Dimitri’s hand shot out, fingers closing around Isaac’s throat and slamming him backward into the wall.
Air left Isaac’s lungs in a rush, black spots dancing across his vision.
The grip wasn’t tight enough to cut off his breathing completely, but it was a clear warning of how easily Dimitri could if he wanted to.
“Careful, little panda.” Dimitri’s face was inches from Isaac’s now, breath ghosting over his skin in a way that made Isaac want to crawl out of his body. “You’re in no position to insult me.”
Terror flooded back in, drowning out the cold clarity that had kept Isaac functional. His hands came up automatically, grabbing Dimitri’s wrist and trying to pull the hand away from his throat. The demon didn’t budge, muscles like iron under Isaac’s fingers.
But Isaac was small. And small meant fast, meant flexible, meant knowing how to fight dirty because fair fights were for people who had the size advantage.
He brought his knee up hard, aiming for Dimitri’s groin. The demon twisted sideways and the blow struck his hip instead, but it was enough to make him loosen his grip. Isaac ducked under his arm then rolled across the floor.
He came up near the overturned coffee table, grabbing the first thing his hand found. A heavy ceramic Harry Pottter mug, the kind with a thick handle and enough weight to do damage. Not much of a weapon but better than nothing.