29. Leah #2
No point in torture then, thankfully. But that doesn’t mean I can’t at least scare him a little. This man tried to murder me, after all, so I reach out and press the knife against his neck just for good measure.
“You better not be lying, Hathwell Reed,” I say.
“Get off me!” he yelps, trying fruitlessly to pull his neck back out of reach. “I swear I’m not! But please, they’ll go after my family…”
Now that just pisses me off. I press the knife harder, drawing a small droplet of blood from his neck.
“You didn’t fucking care about going after my family, did you?” I snap.
Something in his eyes goes cold despite his fear. He doesn’t show even a drop of remorse. He says nothing.
“You were going to take some sweet young girl and gut her for your twisted magic,” I continue, letting my anger build. I think Syrus encourages it, slipping through my body and stoking the rage. Either way, the heat of it burns in my veins as Hathwell just stares at me, dead-eyed.
I adjust my hold on the knife, contemplating whether to ask the next question—the one I’ve been afraid of asking, especially in front of Syrus. But I have to know, no matter the answer.
“It was me you wanted from the start, wasn’t it?
” I say. “You trapped my father into offering you Evie, but when I came along—when you learned Ada wasn’t my mother—you were suddenly all for marrying me.
” The volume of my voice rises as my anxiety about what he might say takes hold. “Why? Why did you choose me?”
Syrus’s awareness sharpens when I ask the questions, but he doesn’t say anything. Hathwell, meanwhile, seems to consider how to answer.
“If I tell you, will you let me go?” he asks.
I blink, surprised. This he’s willing to share? Obviously, he doesn’t think whoever has kept him down here will count it as a betrayal.
“All right,” I lie. I actually haven’t decided his fate yet, but no need to tell him that.
Hathwell licks his lips, wincing when he catches the bruise on his mouth. “Why don’t you unchain me first?”
“Nice try,” I say, reminding him of the knife in my hand with a little pressure. “But you’re not in a position to negotiate. Now I know you’re willing to tell me something, you have to hand it over or I’ll start cutting.”
He glares at me, hatred burning in his eyes. “I wish I’d realized from the start that you’d turn out to be such a troublesome bitch,” he says.
“Start talking,” I snap.
He sighs, the hardness still lurking in his eyes as he obeys. “We learned that if we wanted to summon a high-ranking demon—someone powerful—ordinary blood wouldn’t do.”
My heart beats faster, wondering if he’s really about to say what I think he is yet feeling crazy for even entertaining it at the same time.
“We needed a nephilim,” he says.
I close my eyes. There’s a rush in my ears.
Syrus has gone very still, and I have no sense of what he’s thinking or feeling.
I suspected…something…I don’t know what.
But I’m not an idiot. I’ve been getting so strong lately, and Syrus seems constantly surprised by my being able to do things like push him out of my head.
It’s not normal for a human, not even one who’s bonded to a powerful demon.
It’s not just his strength making me strong—it’s mine too.
Because I’m not entirely human.
I have ephilium blood in my veins. I’m a hybrid, a crossbreed. It’s not an idea I could’ve ever articulated myself, not until Hathwell came out and said it. It still seems impossible.
“But my mother…” I say. “I remember her. She wasn’t…”
“She must’ve been nephilim herself—obviously not full winger,” Hathwell says bluntly. “The children of humans and ephilium tend to not show their winger traits if they’re not raised around other ephilium.”
“How did you know what I was?” I ask, my eyes snapping open. “How did you know when I didn’t know myself?”
When he hesitates, I scowl at him. “Tell me, or you can kiss your shot at freedom goodbye.”
“We found a spell to locate you,” he grunts. “At least, to locate the dwelling place of a nephilim. We pinpointed your father’s house, but we needed to be sure of the nephilim’s identity. We’d already wasted valuable time with one failed sacrifice.”
“Your first wife,” I say, a catch in my throat as the full horror of it sinks in.
“Yes,” Hathwell says, again not showing the slightest hint of remorse. His jaw tightens, as if he’s more annoyed than anything that I’ve interrupted him. “That was before we knew a normal blood sacrifice wouldn’t be enough.”
“Syrus,” I reach out in my mind, seeking…something. It hurts, how quiet he’s been.
“Yes, Leah,” he replies, and I feel the soft touch of his consciousness against mine.
“It’s all right. You’re going to be all right.
I’m here.” I exhale with relief. I was so worried he’d think I’d been lying to him this whole time, that I really was an ephilium agent in disguise.
But his simple assurance tells me nothing has changed between us.
“So how did you identify me?” I ask.
Hathwell’s jaw clenches again. “I made a mistake. I befriended your father at his club, confirming the identity of both his parents and his wife’s—all human, all accounted for.
” Hathwell makes a face. “He told me about his dead first wife…but he only mentioned one daughter. The nephilim had to be her.”
He hadn’t counted on Ada pushing me out of my family so much that my own father forgot to mention me.
“And so you got him into debt, so you could buy his daughter to be your sacrifice,” I say bitterly. He really did engineer it all.
“Yes,” Hathwell says, his eyes a little brighter when he continues. “It was easy. Your father is a fool who loves drink and cards, though neither love him.”
“I can’t disagree with you there,” I say.
“Of course, once I went to your home and realized my error, I had to recalculate, fast.”
“But I was so willing to help,” I say flatly, seeing how easily I played into Hathwell’s hands, saving him by offering to take Evie’s place.
“Was it you who went to the Three Bridges and asked around about me?” I say, trying to fit another piece into the puzzle.
“Not me personally, but a friend,” Hathwell says, his tone making it clear he won’t elaborate.
“After you accepted the proposal, I wanted to know why Nathaniel hadn’t mentioned you before, and to make sure we weren’t making another mistake.
We confirmed what you were when the medicine woman told us about the rash you get from demon blood. ”
Demon blood. The thing that burns ephilium like acid. Except that I’m only a quarter pale-blood at most, so it just irritates me. Everything I know about myself is shifting before my eyes, morphing into something new. Is that where all my allergies come from?
“Nothing important has changed,” Syrus murmurs into my mind. “You’re still you.”
It’s comforting, because he more than anyone understands waking up to find something fundamental about who you are is different.
But just as I’m going to thank him, Hathwell lunges.
I’ve been careless—distracted by the revelations—and it means when he yanks his arms up suddenly, it’s enough to knock my own arm away, and I drop the knife.
He throws the chains cuffed to his wrists around the back of my neck, with enough slack in them to wrap around the sides of my throat and pull tight.
“The cuffs,” he grunts, jerking my head down toward them, his wrists crisscrossed right in front of my face. “Undo them.”
Panic spikes in my chest, but then a soothing presence encloses it.
“Don’t let the fear overtake you, Leah. The knife is right there, just within reach. Look.”
I subtly slide my eyes to the left, seeing that Syrus is right. If I stretch out my fingertips, I could probably grab it. Hathwell yanks on his chains again, bruising my neck.
“I thought we had a deal,” I croak out at him.
“Don’t give me that,” Hathwell sneers. “You were just going to leave me here to die.”
Die like his first wife, some poor young girl he killed in this very chamber? Like he would’ve left me bleeding out on this altar?
I flex my fingers, my anger finding me again.
“Yes, embrace that anger. It’s yours, and you have a right to it.
You deserve to fight for yourself.” Syrus’s voice is calm and collected as he speaks to me, but I know he must be tense, waiting for me to do something.
“You deserve to take your freedom back from people who try to snatch it from you, Leah. It doesn’t make you a monster. ”
Hathwell is losing his patience, pulling the chains tighter.
“The cuffs, bitch!”
My rage breaks the surface at last, spilling into my mouth and muscles, bringing my frozen, frightened body to life.
“I wouldn’t leave you here to die, Hathwell,” I pant, thrusting my arm out to grab the knife. “I’m going to finish the job myself.”
Then I drive the blade up into his throat.
His grip instantly goes slack, and I shove his arms off me, crawling back across the floor to avoid the blood streaming from his neck.
I don’t feel glad or happy; I don’t take pleasure in it, but I do feel a small swell of triumph knowing Hathwell can’t hurt anyone else again.
He thought he was taking a lamb to the slaughter when he married me, but in reality, he was wedding a much more dangerous animal—one who will fight for herself and avenge those who couldn’t.
“Well done,” Syrus says. “That can’t have been easy, but you’re—”
He stops speaking and I go tense, sensing something’s wrong. His presence is suddenly wary and alert, hackles raised, listening.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” Syrus says slowly. “I can feel—wait, Leah, listen to me—”
A powerful pulling sensation grips my body, like being caught in a hurricane with a strong wind ripping everything away.
Except it’s Syrus the force wants, wrenching his presence from my mind.
I call his name, but it gets lost in the rush of him leaving my body, until only a gaping emptiness remains.