Chapter Seventeen
Elias
“Tell me what happened with David?” I didn’t even realize she was missing until Xander went down. I wanted to go after her, but I was busy with the two hellhounds. Jasper and Hadrian were notorious for their brutality. Of course they’d partnered with my brother.
“You first,” she said.
“Alright.” I could tell she wasn’t going to budge on this one. “I really was trying to protect you.”
“I never asked for your protection,” she said. “I asked you to do the right thing and get me off the suspect list. If you’d just been honest, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“No, you’d be dead,” I said.
“Explain.”
“David’s after the stone but he’s not the one who killed Lola. However, I know him. He’d have gone after anyone who ever had a relationship with Lola in the hopes of flushing out information. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have missed that loose floorboard.”
“Okay, so the killer wasn’t as good at his job as your brother, but why is he here in the first place? Why would a demon even care about some stone that impacts shifters?” she asked.
I ran my hand through my hair. “They’ve been orchestrating chaos for years. Pulling the strings of world leaders, manipulating business people, dividing.”
“Humans?” Her brow furrowed.
“Yes,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because they want your world,” I said.
“So why not just come through a portal with the demon hoard and kill us all?” She said the words as if it didn’t even sound the slightest bit strange. For some reason, that made me like her more.
She wasn’t afraid of the idea of demons pouring into her realm, she just wanted to know where to point her knife. I could almost feel her already thinking of strategies and ways to fight. She was so different from every other female I’d ever met. She was focused, determined, and fearless.
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “The demons are powerful, sure. But they have to get here first. The portals have been disabled on their end and they’re guarded and locked down with serious magic.”
“So how does fucking with politics help them?” she asked.
“They’ve been trying to force a war,” I said. “And they were failing. Humans didn’t rise up like they wanted.”
“So they need something more drastic.” She dropped her arms to her side and took a few steps toward a nearby tree before turning and walking to me. “They couldn’t get the humans to go to war so they’re trying to start a supernatural war.”
“That’s my guess,” I said. “I can’t see why else David would care about the moonstone. But if he can get it in the hands of the wrong people, it could initiate a war.”
“Can’t you just destroy it? It is demon magic and you are a demon,” she said.
“I am, but I don’t know the ritual or spell needed. If I had some directions, maybe I could,” he said. “For now, we have to keep it away from David.”
“So what do we do?” she asked. “You have a plan to stop him, right?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it,” I admitted. “But we can’t worry about that right now. First, we have to find Lola’s killer.”
“David is going to come after me again,” she said.
I tensed. This was what I really wanted to know. What had my brother said to her? “Tell me what happened.”
“He thinks I’m part demon or something so he said he won’t hurt me, but he wants the stone. I’m pretty sure he’s tracking us…”
She was talking about David, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was too focused on the first bombshell she dropped.She’s part demon?