Page 50 of Sinner's End

“Thank you.” He bats his eyelashes at me.

I flop back onto the bed, shoving my pants back up and tucking my spent cock away. “The fuck is wrong with all of us?”

“So much,” Mana muses. His face darkens. “It seems our rogue angel has done his little trick again.”

I frown. “Done what?” I reach for Addi and find the bed empty. The vision of her was exactly that. “The fuck has he done?” I growl.

Bowen simpers at the floor. “Oh, God,” he groans, running his hands over my ankles in a twisted form of worship. “Make that sound again.”

I shake my head at the oversexed creature and kick him away. “Get off me. Where is she?” I direct that last at Mana.

He looks straight at me. “Sinner’s End. Beyond my reach, hellspawn.”

I snarl. “Looks like we have lots to talk about on the trip across town.”

****

It turns out Mana has a door to Addi’s damn house in his fucking study. Not his bedroom, because why would a demonneed to sleep? And he fucks wherever he pleases, clearly.

He gestures me through with one hand, his eyes fathomless, almost sad. “I couldn’t use it until she needed me,” he whispers, and I swear the asshole chokes up.

Unable to give a shit, I walk across the floor of her room, the fragments of her childhood still evident in the traces of pink in her lace curtains, her handmade quilt, the crystal ornaments on her dresser. Her bed is still unmade from the last time she slept here, the scorch mark on the floor.

Mana follows me, his step cautious, but I have no time to waste on his precious moments.

“You said she’s beyond your reach.” I pause at her bedroom door, ready to stretch the hellspawn muscles he keeps telling me I have. “Where exactly does that end?”

His mouth thins into a tight, colorless line. “At the end of the graveyard. Not the entrance beside the house, the rusty little fence of the original land gifted to the first owners of Sinner’s End.”

I nod and take a step across the threshold to her room while he stays exactly where he is. It feels significant, somehow. “Why?”

“Why, what?” Bowen appears at his side stifling a yawn I’m almost certain is fake as fuck.

“Why was the land given to the first owners?” I gesture to the ancient house that creaks around us, adding its husky voice to the conversation.

Mana offers me a slight smile while Bowen stills. “To ensure the covenant stays in place, of course.”

I mimic the fallen angel’s behavior. “What covenant?”

“To protect the juncture at Sinner’s End where the Void meets.” Mana sighs when I stare at him.

“English, please,” I snap.

His lips lift in a silent snarl. “The covenant protects theowners of the house from the pull of the Void. In return they protect the Void from the prying talons of human and other kind who might wander in with intent, harmful, ignorant, or otherwise.”

My chest tightens. “Are the sisters aware of this treaty?”

Mana shrugs. “Their parents were.”

“And if it’s broken?”

He smiles, a wicked thing that tightens my jeans with the sort of need I hate from the remnants of his sated pleasure I still wear by default, and a desperation to find Addi and take her the fuck out of here.

“If it’s broken all bets are off, hellspawn. I’ll claim every part of her and sacrifice her sister in her place as an offering to sate my master’s hunger.”

I stare at him, my mouth dry as my feet start to move.

“Run, run, spawny,” Bowen taunts, his voice echoing through the house, following me into the graveyards beyond the rickety walls of Addi’s accursed home. “Keep running. You won’t find her.”

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