Page 80 of Sweet Violence
Was Joseph breathing? Was his heart still beating? Or was the pain I felt that of my mate dying?
"But we want a favour from you first," Drill Bastard said with obvious relish on his green face.
I took a slow breath and another step, pinning my stare on the people who flinched back. Some I didn't know the names of, some I did. Those who tried to befriend me and then beat my mate would suffer worse deaths than the rest. I'd make them scream.
"A favour," I repeated, my expression flattening. "Why am I not surprised?" I tilted my head, predatory, at the green motherfucker. "Go on, then. Tell me what this favour is."
"Join us. Enter a blood bond to kill the devil, and we'll give you your mate."
I smiled, slow and sharp, and gestured behind myself, melting the hinges on the second door. Without my smile slipping, without looking away from Drill Bastard's mean, green face, I shot my hand forward and sent the door flying across the room, trailing crackling flames. It slammed into five cult fuckers with a meaty thud, making them yell satisfyingly and tumble onto their asses.
"Ah-ah," I chided as they tried to crawl back up.
I sucked in a vile-tasting breath and allowed the furious, destructive instinct in me to have its way, twitching my fingers. The door erupted into full, electric blue flames, and melted the demons pinned under it. Even their bones melted.
"Wow, Av," X murmured beside me, impressed.
"Is that answer enough?" I asked the cult fuckers.
I shuddered as the power of their deaths poured into me, hitting the magic already inside me and making my hair begin to float off my shoulders.
"X, kill the green fucker," I murmured, snapping my attention to Reaven, Melle, and Neville, who stood around my mate. I wasn't sure where Lou had gone, that deceptive bitch.
"I wouldn't do that, Aveline," Drill Bastard taunted, and I froze in the act of drawing more power up.
Aveline.
Slowly, dragging my gaze from Joseph's bruised, swollen face, I met Drill Bastard's smug stare.
"Oh, yeah, we knowallabout you. I knew the second you walked in the door." His smile was a horrible thing, all pointed teeth. "You're Eidolon's daughter."
28
Welp, the Freya The Demon jig was up.
But it had been up since the minute I walked in the training hall. Why wait to expose me?
"What's your game?" I asked Drill Bastard, my voice like broken rocks scraping up my throat. I shook with the effort of holding back, desperate to unleash my power on the ones holding my mate.
X's hand came to rest on my lower back, rage pouring from him to match mine. Silently asking if my order still stood. I swallowed and cast a look at him, hoping he could read thenot yetin my eyes.
"Mygameis wanting the current devil gone and a better one on the throne." The mean green fucker shrugged his massive arms. "It’s not that complicated."
I didn't ask why he hated Dev so much because I honestly did not give a fuck about his tragic backstory.
"So, basic villain shit?" I asked, storming forward and not slowing until I was in front of Joseph.
"Fuck," X swore softly at the close-up view of the damage that had been done to his brother. Yeah,fuckwas accurate.
"You can try to take him," Drill Bastard taunted. "But you won't get far. Oh, perfect timing," he said, his tone changing.
I lifted my head, a glare hot in my eyes when they landed on Izan storming through the wrecked door and pausing to assess the situation.
My breathing came harder, faster.
"Well, this is a mess," he sighed, eyes fixed on the piles of ash that had been Team Murder Dev, and then on Joseph. "That," he said slowly, "was a mistake."
"No shit," I growled, and gave X a split-second look.
