Page 160 of Ink Deep Devotion

My steps don’t falter, and I’m not at all surprised by the ambush. He’s perched against the car I parked three blocks away; the moonlight illuminates his silhouette, eyes closed like he’s sleeping while standing against the car. He can do odd shit like that. One time, in Initiation 101, we were put in solitary confinement. Calling it a room would be too fair; all we could do was stand. I was awake the entire time; my knees began to ache, but the walls were so tight I couldn’t even bend down to rub the pain away. When Leo emerged, he looked like he walked out of amasseuse’s room, fresh-faced and energized. He said he slept the time away, just standing like a statue. Meditating, he said.

“Maybe he did, but he did it with a gun instead,” Anders replies, coming forth from behind me like a shadow separating from my heels. I knew he was following me the minute I left Blaze’s place. I could see the shadow of his ax swinging in his hand as he strolled behind me.

“He’s alive.”

“Both of them?” Leo lazily cracks one eye open.

“Yeah.”

“You got soft.” Anders gently taps his ax between my shoulder blades. Then he climbs onto my SUV and sits on the roof like an owl on a dead, lonely branch, keeping watch over barren land.

Leo pushes off the car and stands toe to toe with me.“You don’t go dark. That’s bullshit.” He grunts, grabs my shoulders, and hugs me.

“I needed time alone,” I mutter in his ear.Do it, hug him back, say you’re sorry without speaking the words.Slowly, my arms embrace him.

“Anders does shit like that. Not you,” He hisses before he pushes me out of his grasp, the brisk air replacing the warmth of his hands.“Titan and Damian have been worried.”

What he can’t say is thathe’sbeen concerned.

“How are they?”

“Call them and find out,” Leo responds as he lies back and soaks in the moonlight like the warm rays of sunshine.

“Titan’s wife almost got herself killed.” Leo’s brow arches.

“Not surprising.” My joke falls flat. I should have called them, but a part of me is self-destructive.

“She decided to do Titan’s rite for him, for you all.” Leo pauses,“So you owe her because she passed saving Damian, Titan, and your ass from death.”

It’s official. Titan is one of the rulers of this twisted club, and that means Damian and I are his eyes and ears, as Anton suggested. Titan’s down a sense; my absence makes him weak, but Mila’s absence makes me insane.

I need to fix everything. I will.

“I’d rather owe the devil a favor than Nova King.” I grab the back of my neck.“So I take it you all are doing this? You’re okay with joining this fucked up society, no questions asked.”

“Titan has told us things; I’ve seen things.” Leo shakes his head,“You can’t imagine their power, Dash. We’d be fools to turn our backs on that.”

“You passed your rite?”

Leo’s eyes slide to Anders.

“What are you not telling me?” My nostrils flare wide enough to smell the faint scent of beer from the distillery two blocks over.

“Our rite was very different from the Kings. It wasyourgrandfather who was the traitor; your fathers had to pay for their crimes as well, but for us,” he shrugs,“Our main rite was passing Initiation 101. What test came after was child’s play, a simple target that we all had to take out.”

“Excuse me?” It makes my father’s and uncle’s sacrifice seem less monumental. A slap in the face.

“We got the easy way out,” Anders chuckles.“Or so we thought. Nothing is as it seems in our world, but,” he grabs a phone from his pocket and checks it.“We don’t have time for the whole story tonight.” He looks at Leo, then back at the screen.

Since when did they get along so well? Anders and Leo always fight and bicker unless we are on a mission, and it boils down to life or death.

Am I their mission?

“Don’t hate the game, hate the players. Your grandfather fucked up; your fathers gave their lives to correct that, Dash. You and Damian have a chance to help Titan. He needs your help. I need your help. We all do. We are a united machine; if one of us is broken, we all feel it. The Rites of Passage offers us seats to see how the world operates. We have the power to shape things, but we also have a massive amount of responsibility.”

He sounds like a cheerleader for a group we once vowed to destroy.“It’s the dose that kills, not the poison. Be careful how much power you swallow.” I warn him.

“Fire is a fickle thing.” He runs his hands through his hair as if to knock off his new crown the Rites gave him.“We despise it when it burns us, but bow down to the mere embers when it warms us. Power allows us to build cities and destroy them. We praise it and plot to deconstruct it. Crave it and loathe it. Without power, we have no drive. I know the strength power gives and its cost, Dash. So does The Rites of Passage. That’s why they have seven seats to rule over the power and knowledge. Seven of us to make sure one of us doesn’t gather up the information like acorns to be squirreled away and hidden during the long winter.”

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