Page 85 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“Are you encouraging her?” he said, confronting the massive monster.

“I don’t get out enough anymore,” the spider complained, lifting both hands.

“Because you’re famous!” Royce complained.

“Well, then, let me go use some of my fame helping to rout a small army. They’re humans. How hard can it be? I will go get my bag—stay here,” he said.

“And, uh,” Sirena said, emerging from behind Royce’s shadow with her own phone. “I called Mom. She said I could go.”

Royce rolled his eyes. “The fuck she did,” he said, taking Sirena’s phone away from her, presumably dialing her mother up.

We all heard the ringing inside the arriving elevator, whose doors parted to reveal a beautiful blonde woman, wearing tight jeans, comfortable looking heels, a blue dress shirt and a set of pearls. She looked like a slightly taller and older version of the other girl.

“I said you could goifI could come with you,” she corrected her daughter, before looking at Royce. “One week. She’s on land one week, and already you’ve got her wanting to gallivant off, making a poor use of her powers.” Then she strode over and reached out for my chin, staring deep into my eyes. “Then again, we sirens areknown for our willingness to retaliate against violence to women. And you are carrying his child. I could hardly abandon a mother in need.”

“I’m sorry, what?” My jaw dropped, and I couldn’t believe what she was telling me.

“You’re pregnant. I’m sorry if you didn’t know.”

I cupped a hand over my belly. “I did not.”

But...I bet Sylas did. Which was why he’d made his decision, without telling me.

“Nevertheless, since I am here now,” she went on, “I’m Omara, and I suppose we’ll be helping you. Sirena needs experience in the wild, since she wants to take over her father’s company someday,” she said, giving Royce a look.

And the look he gave her in return was complicated. They clearly had affection for each other, and a deep, deep history—he finally acquiesced. “The family that slays together stays together,” he said. “As long as all members of that family are wearing bulletproof vests.”

64

SYLAS

The Not-So-Distant Past

Braden went upstairswhile I considered what my fate would be. If I used my stone to facilitate their powers, absorbing everything bad that was going to happen to them, I would be able to keep Mina—and our child—safe from me.

Forever.

And when Braden returned, it was with Trent in tow.

I sensed the other man’s apprehension. “He just wants to kill us both at the same time, you idiot.”

“No. Only one of you,” I said, appearing solid enough to sit on the altar-tongue, casually holding my hourglass on my lap. “I don’t actually care who it is. I just assume that the weaker one of you will die—and the other will get to be the one who replaces all of this,” I said, gesturing downward, “with an actually functional system. All I needis Mina’s safety, and fresh blood.” I ticked my two requirements off on my fingertips—and Trent reached into his pocket.

He produced a switchblade and jabbed it into Braden’s throat, before the other man could turn to give him a look of surprise. Braden sputtered, his hands flailing over Trent’s, trying to remove the weapon.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I counseled. “Unless you’d like to bleed a whole lot faster.”

Braden gave me a haunted look, and I gestured Trent to bring him over. “I want his blood in the grooves,” I said, just to make the man work for it, and Trent warily lugged his friend forward, planting his neck in the right spot, before reclaiming his weapon.

“So you’re the ruthless one?” I said.

“I am,” he answered, cleaning his knife’s blade on his jeans before folding it shut again.

“What a pity. I was hoping mostyouwould die,” I told him. “So listen to me when I tell you this. If anyone in your organization so much as injures a hair on Mina Moore’s head, I will consider our pact null and void, and I will come out and kill all of you all, on my way to kill her.”

“Hmm. It seems like I have the upper hand.”

“Only for as long as you don’t fuck up. So—don’t. If you like living, and providing for the rest of your fraternity, that is. And you never sacrifice another girl again. In fact, if I were you,” I said, leaning back to pull the pit’s door open with the chain, “I would forget that this place even exists. I would write it out of your histories, and fill the rest of this cavern up with dirt.”

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