Page 61 of Forbidden

Sloan’s ice blue eyes narrowed. “You don’t seriously expect me to believe that you’ve been hiding for weeks byyourself?”

“Where else would I have been? I don’t know anyone outside of the guild.”

He arched one bushy brow. “Hawk and Morgan?”

Ira shrugged. “I’m familiar with the names. Can’t remember the last time I saw them, though.”

Sloan scoffed, shifting from foot to foot. “Allow me to cut to the chase, Mr. Faer. I believe you abandoned the guild to help the traitors and their demons. I don’t know where you’ve been or why exactly you disappeared, but you were clearly not being held away against your will. Helping the demons at In Extremis tonight is an act of betrayal worthy of banishment. However, a prophet has never been banished from the guild before. You receive visions from the Lord. Those won’t stop just because you leave, and your visions, like all the other prophets’ visions, are a valuable contribution to our cause.”

Ira took a slow breath to calm his nerves. “You can’t force me to stay here and tell you my visions. They may be given to me by God, but nowhere is it written in the Bible that a prophet must turn over his visions to any authority outside of his own.”

Rousseau gaped at him. “The entitlement,” she breathed. “Do you, Ira Faer, truly think you are more knowledgeable than the entire division of prophets? Than the council? Than the hundreds of years of trial and error within our ancient guild that resulted in the rules we have in place today? They’re as much for your protection as our own, you see.Without them, every prophet would be running headlong into danger to ‘do what they thought was right.’” She flicked a judgmental hand toward him.

“Maybe we should,” Ira responded bluntly, enjoying the way they both drew back in shock.

“What?” Rousseau said.

“Maybe the reason people are leaving the guild is because the current system is flawed.”

Sloan shook his head decisively. “No. The systems we have in place now, just as Diviner Rousseau said, have been tweaked and corrected overcenturiesof trial and error. They’re the best they can be.”

Ira sighed. They wouldn’t listen. He could argue his case for hours and they’d never even consider any stance besides their own. They couldn’t fathom being anything other than right.

He folded his arms, resigning himself to whatever came next. He hadn’t seen this part. All he could do was hope Wolf was okay and trust that the visions hehadseen were right, which meant he and Wolf would be together again eventually. “You’re right, I left the guild. I decided I didn’t want to do the work anymore, and I knew prophets weren’t allowed to quit. That vision of me intervening at the demon club made me realize that I don’t agree with the direction the guild is going. I want to quit.”

“This isn’t ajob,” Rousseau said. “It’s a calling.”

“Well, I don’t want it anymore.” That wasn’t entirely true, because he’d be happy to tell his visions to Alex and Luke and whoever else could use them to help people, but it was true as far as the guild was concerned. “I want to leave. I want to build a life of my own, doing the things I choose to do, with the people I choose to do them with. That’s all.”

Sloan shook his head, looking at Ira like he was something distasteful on the bottom of his shoe. “Let’s go, Christina. It looks like we’ve got some decisions to make.”

Rousseau sighed. She cast Ira one last disappointed look and turned away, her heels clacking on the stone as she and Sloan left.

Ira sagged. What were they going to do with him?

Chapter 16

It was a fucking bloodbath.Black and red blood coated the dance floor in sticky, viscous pools. The human customers had all run from the club, so luckily there were no civilian casualties to make things messier than they already were. Paladin and halfling bodies littered the floor. Storm was alive, if injured—worse than he already was. Talon was spitting mad, repeatedly checking over Alex, who assured him exasperatedly that he wasfine. Malachi was doing the same to Luke, sitting with him at the bar and talking softly, touching him all over as though reassuring himself that Luke was still whole. They had put out the literal fires, and Xyra was on the phone with someone to handle the metaphorical ones. Lilith hadn’t been to the club tonight, but she was going to lose her shit when she found out what happened. Wolf could barely spare any concern for her impending reaction, though.

All he could think about was Ira.

“We have to get him back,” Wolf said, pacing frantically.

“We will,” Luke said. “But none of us can go across the wall. Alex and I have been banished, and none of you can cross the threshold at all.”

“Then what am I supposed todo? They took him. Theytookhim.” He snarled, kicking over a nearby chair, and the clatter of it across the floor seemed deafening in the otherwise quiet, cavernous room. He’d never felt this kind of panic before, this kind of clawing desperation to get his eyes and hands on his human.

“I could go,” Alex offered.

“No the fuck you could not,” Talon said immediately.

“I can get in quietly. You could help me scale the wall somewhere?—”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Talon interrupted.

“Talon, we have to help,” he entreated.

“In a way that doesn’t involve you walking into the lion’s den, yes.”

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