Page 26 of Seducing Hope (The Hope Legacy)

I loosen my tie and remove my watch. “With what goal?”

“Maybe she’s a hunter?” Barney guesses. I let out a quiet, frustrated sigh. Enemy hunters, seeking our goal of the final pieces of the game, must be dealt with. The anger seeps through me as I think of the possibility that our files—myfiles—could have fallen into enemy hands. If Natia is on the enemy’s side, and a hunter at that… she will most definitely regret it.

“You don’t think she’s working independently?” Zac questions, halting outside of the glass wall.

Barney shrugs.

“Did you find anything more when you did another background check?” I ask him.

“Nothing about her parents. But there’s an unofficial police report in the file I gave you. Officially, her friend was kidnapped and murdered a few weeks before Natia moved back to Seattle. Unofficially, Natia was also kidnapped. I suspect supernatural involvement.”

It only adds to the enigma that is Natia Waterford.

“What do you want to do?” Zac asks.

Unofficial reports mean Natia’s into this deeper than I thought. Covering up supernatural activity involves special forces. Is she part of those forces? That would improve her situation considerably. Still, stealing my files leaves her motives unclear, and I don’t like unclear. “She’s an unknown… Until that changes, we keep her close. She mentioned she has plans tonight. Find out where she is, Barney.” Barney teleports out.

“Hmm…” Zac starts.

“What?”

He shakes his head and looks back at Krian in his unassuming, pathetic, wrinkly human form. “She’s dangerous—eliminating her would be best.”

I stiffen at the thought of him “eliminating” her. “You know as well as I that simply removing the problem doesn’t address the root cause.”

“She has the files.”

“And if we kill her, we won’t know why she stole them, who she is working for, and who she’s shared them with.”

Zac sighs, his need for violence refocused on the demon in front of us. He retrieves the lunar pythonares and studies her face. “She’s a beaut’.” The man has a weird fascination with anything snake related.

“You hold her, I’ll hold him.” I nod to Krian and enter the room. The chains around Krian’s ankles go tight against the floor, and the cuffs around his wrists magnetize to the metal table in front of him.

I sit in the chair opposite him and fix him with a cold stare. “Where is Khalkaroth?”

Krian’s eyes go wide as he glances between me and the snake coiling around Zac’s waist. “I don’t know. He left a few days ago, didn’t tell me where he was going!”

I glance at Zac, who nods as he strokes the hellish snake creature on its head.

“Did anyone else visit the apartment?”

He shakes his head. I flick my eyes to Zac, who’s frowning.

I sigh. Violence is a necessary evil—but I grow tired of it. “Krian, uncharacteristically, I am asking for this information rather than taking it. Do not mistake this for patience. Lie again, and we do this the hard way.” Without moving, I clamp invisible ice fingers around his throat, cutting off his air.

He squirms in his hard metal chair. Fear grips him, stripping away his human form. Twin black, curved horns extend about six inches from his forehead, and his pale skin morphs into a deep claret, his glassy blue eyes fading to reveal his true black ones. Every species of demon has a different true form. Krian is one of the most common and now resembles a classic human demon. I release his throat. He shakes his head again.

Zac steps forward and lays the lunar pythonares on the table in front of Krian; she hisses as her hot yellow skin touches the cool metal. Krian leans away, trying to avoid the stare of the hell snake. Zac snaps his fingers in front of the snake. “Stay.” Obediently, she coils her long, thick body on the table but never moves her unnatural gaze from Krian, who is too busy paying attention to the snake to notice the much bigger threat.

Zac’s eyes grow blank as he touches his fingers to Krian’s temples.

Krian jerks before he begins to scream in agony.

Blood trickles from his nose. The hell snake edges closer and flicks her black tongue with interest.

Zac releases Krian and nods to the snake. Immediately, her jaws snap open, revealing dangerous, gleaming fangs. Krian shudders and tries to back away, but his shackles keep him glued to the table, as the lunar pythonares slithers nearer. From its open jaws, another mouth protrudes and slowly drops open, stretching its maw impossibly wide, with hundreds of needle-sharp teeth.

She strikes Krian’s ear, taking it clean off and swallowing it whole. Zac removes a wet wipe (one of the best human inventions of the twenty-first century) from the side table and cleans a small blood splatter from his wrist.

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