18
We grabbed our coats and left. Both of us were still quite buzzed, but between our encounter with Sly and the blistering wind freezing our faces, we had hoped by the time we walked back to the car that one of us would have sobered up enough to drive.
“Well, shit. I really fucked up this date didn’t I?” I sighed, lowering my head. “I’m sorry, Ren. I didn’t know he’d be there, but don’t let his antics get under your skin. He’s just being an ass.”
Ren rubbed his hands over his leather jacket, the fabric not thick enough to keep out the frightful Massachusetts winter.
“Can we officially never go to a club again?” He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.
“We’re oh for two when it comes to clubs.
I don’t want to know what’ll happen a third time. ”
“I guess I can agree to that.” I nudged him with an elbow before my teasing turned serious. “Thank you, Ren, for sticking up for me.”
“I may have been half out of it, but I heard what you said to Sly that night you two broke up, when you took me back to your apartment to treat me after I was attacked. You stood up for me and it was because of me you two broke up.” Ren’s eyes locked onto mine, fierce and unwavering.
“If you’re feeling guilty, don’t. He was more than just an asshole who treated me like trash.
He used me and cheated on me. If anything, you did me a favor.
And for what it’s worth, I’m much happier now.
” I reached up to kiss him on the cheek, my warm lips pressing against his cold skin.
“But … you saw the ring on his hand, didn’t you?
The Syndicate is up to something. Sly definitely isn’t a rift warden.
They must have given it to him knowing he’d try to use it against us.
We have to watch out for him … and maybe others.
If they’re giving out those rings to random people … ”
My thought trailed off when movement at the corner of the street caught my eye. A group of kids had spray cans in their hands, spraying the edge of a building with graffiti.
“Hey, assholes, that’s someone’s business you’re defacing …” I yelled, magic crackling at my fingertips. The vandals took one look at me, dropped their spray cans, and bolted.
I stepped closer to inspect their handiwork. At first glance, it looked like little more than a chaotic mess of bright colors and abstract shapes. The longer I stared, however, the more a figure emerged from the paint. Red skin. Dark red eyes. Auburn hair.
My gaze narrowed. The strange part, or perhaps not-so-strange part, was that the demon didn't have horns.
I glanced at Ren, then back at the mural. “Ren … is it just me, or does this painting kind of look like you?”
“You know, with all the phantom attacks going on around Salem, you two really shouldn’t be walking around alone so late at night.” I jumped in my skin, turning around to see Sly standing in the shadow of a streetlamp, his two companions on either side of him.
“And why is that?” I dared to ask.
He spun the black ring on his index finger as he replied, “Because half the Syndicate wants you dead, the other half wants to dissect you, and the rift wardens would love an excuse to arrest your demon boyfriend. Good thing I got here first.”
Sly’s hand shot forward, the black ring on his finger vibrating with magic. Silver chains writhed like living tendrils through the air. I dodged them, magic burning in my palm as I leapt toward Sly and crushed my hand around his neck.
“You should have left us the fuck alone!” Magic poured out of my fingertips, the darkness of death mingling with the sentient power inside me.
Sly choked, poison infiltrating his veins as he struggled to breathe.
I couldn’t stop, the anger taking over me and driving my actions.
He was choking, struggling to breathe, his face turning blue.
“Theo!” Ren cried out, but the dryad had already acted.
Before Ren could reach me, leafy-green magic shot through the air and exploded across the pavement in a tangle of twisting vines.
They burst from cracks in the sidewalk, snaking around Ren’s ankles and calves.
It was enough to distract me and give Sly the upper hand.
“I can’t predict his magic.” The mysterious man had slipped off his glasses, and his pale eyes flared an unnatural vibrant green. “It’s best to cut it off.”
I hadn’t registered what that meant until silver chains shot out of Sly’s raised hand. In an instant, my bloodlust to kill Sly vanished along with access to my magic. My knees hit the cold sidewalk as I collapsed, bound and unable to move my limbs.
“Look … over there!” someone nearby cried out. The street wasn’t very busy, but a crowd of people exiting the club had gathered around us. “What’s going on? Should we do something?”
One look at the demon in chains and the silver bindings wrapped around the other victim was all it took. They decided we were the problem, not the victims.
“Eric, what are you reading?” Sly asked as he regained his composure. “What the hell was that?”
Eric’s magic slid over me like a second skin, invasive and intimate. Not painful, but deeply wrong. The sensation wormed its way beneath my defenses, probing at the edges of my magic as if searching for something hidden inside.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But you probably don’t want to mess with it.”
Back in control, Sly started once again teasing to get a rise out of us.
He wanted us to put on a show in front of these spectators, but for what reason, I had no idea.
The Syndicate might have given him that ring, but surely they hadn’t given him, a lowly arrogant prick without magic, orders to attack us. Whatever this was, it was personal.
“To be honest, Theo, your magic always made me cringe.” Sly’s shadow loomed over me on the pavement.
“In the end, I stuck around as long as I did because you were a convenient fuck and buying those high quality magic spells of yours would have cost a fortune otherwise. But now that that’s behind us, there’s no need for me to put up with your crap anymore.
Because now that I have power, I can finally do something about it. ”
The silver chains squeezed tighter, my magic desperately trying to reach the surface. With the alcohol still coursing through my veins, my thoughts were hazy and my movements unsteady.
“That ring!” My words slurred as I wriggled on the ground, trying to free myself from the chains. “Sly, you have to get rid of it. That ring—”
“Is exactly what I need to protect myself from dangerous magic like yours. You just tried to kill me! He said the last part loud enough so that the onlookers would know exactly what I had done, and even bared his bruised neck to prove it.
“It’s not what you think, Sly!” The links hummed as they squeezed around my chest and crushed my ribs. “That magic … it’s poison!”
“For you, maybe. I’m just fine.” Sly clenched his fists together, my joints nearly separating from their sockets. Tiny veins of silver traveled up my arms. “What do you say we play a game for our audience. Truth or dare?”
“What the fuck are you trying to prove?” Ren grunted.
Sly knew demons were a proud race. Most refused to rely on others for help or acknowledge that they were inferior to someone else.
Ren, however … Ren was different. Ren already thought of himself as inferior to others.
In fact, I was willing to bet that deep down, Ren probably agreed with Sly, that he was a magical freak that deserved to be humiliated.
“I’ll pick for you, demon. Let’s start with truth. You’re hiding something from Theo, aren’t you? Tell us what it is.”
“Oh, interesting.” Eric scanned Ren’s magic with his eyes. What was he seeing? Could he tell Ren was protecting my soul? That we shared the same magic? He wasn’t giving any answers.
“What makes you think he’s even hiding something from me?
” I glared at Sly, but when I looked over at Sly, he shied away from my gaze once again.
He had already shared his past with my family months ago.
Earlier, he even told me about his acquaintance who knew Caspian.
Was there more he left out of the story?
Sly’s grin sharpened, his eyes darting between me and Ren. “For a couple that's supposedly inseparable, you two seem pretty good at tearing each other apart. What do you say, audience, should we try a little encouragement?”
The crowd, half drunk and unaware of the cruelty that was happening right in front of them, urged Sly to do his worst. I wasn’t sure if he truly believed Ren was hiding some dangerous secret from me, or if he was just trying to get a rise out of him for the spectators.
“Elena?” he commanded.
The dryad’s magic flashed a grassy green, and those vines slithered on the ground toward me once again. The thorns squeezed through my pants, green goo oozing out of them and penetrating my skin.
“Oh no, I seem to have forgotten that Theo can’t currently access his magic,” Sly’s theatrical voice carried all the way across the street. “He has maybe fifteen minutes before that poison kills him. Now tell me, demon, what are you hiding?”
“Don’t you fucking dare touch him!” Ren spat in his face, and with that defiance, Sly turned his attention to me.
I tried to dissolve the chains with no luck, the magic sending a pulse of electrifying pain down my arms. So I called upon my living magic, speaking to it as calmly as I could, wishing to work together to break the chains holding me hostage.
I was greeted with an empty response and silver clouding my veins.
“I never had magic of my own.” Sly spoke.
The chains grew brighter as their power intensified.
My magic felt like it was boiling inside me.
“But this magic? Oh, this magic feels … intoxicating. To touch it, to control it … it’s like holding the world in your hands and watching it squirm beneath you. ”
Gasps erupted from the crowd, along with a few drunken cheers. Still, no one stepped forward to help us.
My jaw tightened, my body twitching under the chains as Sly’s magic pried and probed at me while the poison mixed with the alcohol, slowing my heart and mind.
“You’re a sick bastard.” Ren’s breaths came in sharp gasps, the same poison thorns dragging him down as well.
“Go on, demon,” he said with a smirk. “Or maybe your pride matters more than he does.” His smile widened.
“After all, every second you hesitate, his magic slips further out of his control. And with those chains around him combined with the poison thorns …” He shrugged.
“Well, even someone with control over death can’t evade that. ”
“Ren, don’t—” I pleaded.
“What the fuck do you want me to say?” Ren’s fierce tone had lost its edge. “That I’ve killed people? Stolen their magic?”
By now, there were probably about thirty people surrounding us … and they had all just heard Ren, a good-for-nothing demon, confess to murder.
“Ren …” I could feel Caspian’s magic inside me churning in my stomach, disgusted at its treatment as it tried to reach the surface and battle against Sly’s possession.
I was panicking, my thoughts unclear, and with each worrying pulse of my magic, the chains took another slice of control, the silver growing brighter.
Ren’s eyes met mine. There was pain etched across his face, but it wasn’t physical.
The emotional turmoil that raged inside him was raw and burning, a storm he refused to let show outwardly.
I could feel it as if it were my own heartbeat, full of anger, fear, frustration, and determination all tangled together.
My body hummed in response, heat coiling through my blood and throbbing inside my chest. Every nerve was alive, every sensation amplified. My magic stirred, twisting through the warmth and power that flowed out of me and toward Ren.
I suddenly realized what he was doing; borrowing my magic to protect me, and I welcomed it. Sly may have thought Ren was a useless demon, but he didn’t know the first thing about his powers. The chains may have cut off access to my magic, but it did nothing to stop Ren from taking it for himself.
The thread between us had become something tangible, pulsing and alive. My magic surged with my emotions: the rage and anger to get revenge on my ex, the instinct to protect Ren, the desperation to keep him safe, and the quiet, impossible trust that he would not let me down.
“Do you hear that everyone?” Sly threw up his arms as he addressed the crowd. “This demon just confessed to murder!”
Sly never saw it coming. My fear, my anger, and my magic all aligned with Ren, waiting to be unleashed by the demon beside me.
With a crack loud enough to make me flinch, magic burst out of Ren and his thorny prison crumbled into shards of rotted wood.
Ren lunged forward, magic guiding his movements as his fist flared outward in a controlled, retaliatory strike to Sly’s jaw that sent him staggering back.
“Elena!” Sly cried out as the dryad thought twice about unleashing another attack, instead cocooning Sly in a cushion of cotton flowers to soften his impact against the brick wall behind him. Sly’s confident smirk faltered, replaced with a flash of raw, personal fury.
“I warned you to leave Theo out of this.” Ren flexed his fingers as he gripped Sly’s jacket. I should have stopped him, but a disturbingly satisfied part of me wanted to watch Sly suffer. However, when I saw some onlookers filming with their phones, I knew I had to put a stop to it.
“Ren,” I said sharply. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“As if I’d regret ending this man’s life.” But he released Sly, giving him a strong shove as he did. He already confessed to murder, and how these people had evidence of him obliterating Sly. If the Syndicate found out about this, they’d have a field day turning the city against Ren.
“Hey, hey you there! What’s going on?” Amid the chaos, a nearby police officer must have heard our scuffle and came to investigate. Not a rift warden, but probably still cozy with the Syndicate.
“This isn’t over.” Knowing that even with the Syndicate on his side, Sly wasn’t the one pulling the strings here. If he was abusing his new magic, the Syndicate wouldn’t hesitate to punish him.
“Let’s get out of here.” Eric helped Sly to his feet. Elena was by his side, ready to support him if he needed it. Sly wiped the blood trickling down the corner of his lip. The three of them fled the scene, slipping into the crowd of onlookers as they did.
“Ren, we need to go too.” The car wasn’t too far away, right around the corner, but Ren caught me around my waist and pulled me back.
“We won’t make it.” He held me tighter against him. “I have a better idea.”
His magic enveloped us, a haze of white smoke obscuring my vision. The world seemed to tilt on its side as the brightness was shut out and welcomed by pitch black. A dizzy moment later, we landed back at the house, stumbling over each other and crashing onto the living room sofa.