Page 100 of The Aether

“I feel them. It’s time for your escape, my friend.”

“Fuck you, Dethridge. I’m not leaving.”

“Alex—”

“No! You’ve saved my life, my nephew, his mate. Hell, you’ve saved just about everyone I know.”

“Alex—”

“I’m not—”

“Alex! Shut the fuck up and let me listen!”

“You only needed to ask,”Castor replied sourly.

Damian snorted before spinning in a slow circle. The threat was everywhere at once.

“Go.”

“No.”

“I’m about to level this room, Alex, and I can’t do it with you here. Please go.”

“What about you?”

He didn’t say he’d be buried alive. He didn’t need to.

“Fuck that, Damian. That’s going to be a big hell no!”

“If you ever did what you were told, I’d die of shock,” Damian muttered aloud.

“Meh.”

To the troop of twenty-two warriors, he said, “Reveal yourselves. Cloaking does you no good in my presence.”

“Jesus!” Alex pressed his back to Damian’s in a show of unity as the Authority’s enforcers came into sight. “All this for one man?”

“But he’s no average man,” Brooke replied as she stepped forward.

“Ms. Ellis.” Damian looked past her at the hardened expressions of her fellow soldiers. “I thought we established I’d be visiting the Authority in the morning.”

“It appears that’s not good enough for Butthanger.”

“Buttagier,” he corrected absently, noting the moniker had stuck. “He sent you after me, knowing you would all suffer for the attack? Was this sanctioned by the rest?”

By “rest,” he meant the Fates and Isis.

“I don’t know. I’m simply following orders, sir.”

“Hmm. Following those orders is a suicide mission, Brooke,” he said gently. “Is it your intent to die today?”

“Your powers were supposed to be neutralized,” she said. Her brows drew together as if she was confused as to why they hadn’t been.

“This feels like a setup,” Alex remarked. Damian glanced over his shoulder and almost laughed when Castor gave a come-at-me-bro grin to the nearest soldier.

“Do you take nothing seriously, my friend?”

“Why should I? It’s only life or death.”

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