Nothing but sky and stars. Cass would be hard over this view.
I pull out my palm stone, Avery side up, and adjust the image to see the rest of the living room around her. Just as planned, Ros showed up last night. We’d come up with a code word, so the twins would take off their necklaces, and his light would work on them. He’s not there now, but Cass and Hannah are—scrolls spread out over their feet and a torqued off look in Cass’s eyes.
If this were a charge, he could use their blood to locate them. No vials of my blood lying around though. So, they’ll have to figure out where the hell I am in a different way.
Come find me, brother.
After we eat, Nyx disappears into the tent with her change of clothes. I hang by the fire a little longer. The chill in the air bothers me more tonight. By the time I crawl in, she’s lying under the blankets. I sit down and lean forward to fish her bra out from under her jeans in the corner.
“Seriously?” she says. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m on your side here.”
“Cool. But I’d rather you be on your side, hands behind your back so I can tie your ass up and go to sleep.” I circle my finger in the air, and she huffs, but then she rolls away from me, her hands sliding behind her.
Her pouting lasts a few hours before her need for body heat wins out. She moves closer and sighs. Then a little closer. Another sigh, followed by another inch. Since we both know where this will end up, I pull her the rest of the way to me. With her back against my chest, her hands push into my stomach. Any lower, and we’d be in an entirely different situation.
At some point, she flips over and nuzzles into my chest, like last night. That’s how we wake up too. Her encircled in my arms. My leg hooked over hers. And the demon who told me not to touch her staring down at us.
“The fuck?” I shout, sitting up.
Nyx jerks awake, panicked until she sees Hex leering at us from the tent opening. The flap falls down as he walks away, and she buries her face in the pillow. She yells something about him, but the obscenities are lost in the feathers.
Hex has a bored look on his face when we crawl out. He hands her the coffee today, not chancing any interception. Then he waves his little palm to open the portal. This time, we both walk through of our own accord, taking Nyx’s change of clothes and the cooler with us.
And we’re back at the damn sweatshirt.
I start in the direction we went the first day, thinking about the water tower.
Nyx almost has to run to keep up with my fast stride. “Why are we bothering to walk if he’s just going to find us again?”
“The better question is, how is he finding us? A demon’s not going to hang around all day, watching us traipse around the desert.”
She looks up at me. “He’s tracking us somehow.”
I nod, trying to figure out how, but a few seconds later, her steps fall behind.
“Shit,” she says when I turn around. She’s taking the cuff out of her cartilage, and then she holds it out for me. “Could he be using this?”
I pick the earring out of her palm. “He gave this to you?”
She bites her lip, averting her gaze. And once I see the crystal embedded in the gold, I know why.
Sonofabitch.
“This is why my light wasn’t working on you,” I say through clenched teeth.
Nyx nods, but it wasn’t a question. Slap a spell on it, and the earring works exactly like Samy’s amulet, the gold diverting light into the crystal. My light never affected her because it never reached her brain. The bar, Kai’s kitchen, the hallway, at the racetrack. She bullshitted her way through it all.
Impressive if I wasn’t the one fucked in the end.
“Would Hex have—”
“The diversion spell would have overridden any other spell cast,” I tell her. “So, unless he got his paws on it between you lying at the racetrack and lying in my car…”
“No,” she says. “I haven’t taken it out since I met you at the bar.”
I nod and drop the earring back into her hand. “Well, he’s not using it to track us then. And you blew your secret for nothing.”
She has an apology in her eyes when I look up. Before she decides to voice it and I have to tell her to fuck off, I shrug off a chill working down my arm and unload the cooler. I’m already sick of carrying it.
“Demons have a trick where they can sense mortal heartbeats.” I give her a water, the sunblock, and her clothes. “With no one else around, he’s probably scanning the desert until he picks up ours.”
“So, what do we do?” she asks as I walk away, abandoning the cooler. And her—but only one will stay where I left it.
“We get somewhere with more than the two of us.” Because of her little boyfriend, but also I just need to be away from her. Every time I look at her, the absence of light throbs within me. No heat, light, or life, but a cold ache.
Nyx must sense she needs to give me space, or maybe she’s just as desperate to get away from me. Either way, we have little to do with each other until afternoon—when we run across the cooler we both knew would be waiting for us.
I take my shirt off before snagging a water. She grabs one, too, but doesn’t drink it right away. I tip my bottle back and watch her, holding the water in her arm and twisting at the sunscreen in her hands. By the time I spin the lid back on my bottle, she’s walking over with a determined look to her.
Not in the mood, I start to walk again.
“Do we have an actual plan?” she asks. “Because I’m done wandering in the desert like what’s his name.”
Moses, but I don’t supply the answer.
When it becomes clear I’m not coming back, she shouts, “When are you going to forgive me?”
She can’t be fucking serious with that question. But when I look, she’s standing there, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I say, facing her. “You plan on forgiving your boyfriend for killing your sister anytime soon? Because I’ll fit you in a century after that.”
She shakes her head, glaring. “Ex-boyfriend. And you won’t fucking be here in a century.”
I growl, my hands flexing on my first step toward her. “Because of you!”
Nyx’s eyes widen, lips parting with a quick breath. “Chaz…”
“No.” I stalk toward her, my chest heaving and the rest of me seething. “I’ve been nice, considering the part you played. You’re the reason we’re here. You and your fucking—”
“Chaz!” She stumbles backward, the bottles falling to the ground while she tries to get away from me. “Stop, stop, stop,” she begs. “Please!”
The shrieked plea brings me to a stop, real fear in her eyes. I might be twice her size and pissed off, but her response seems dramatic. She’s taking short breaths, staring at my hands. And that’s when I see the shadows escaping from my palms. Swirls of darkness are circling my wrists and going back into the skin, where more appear.