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Every step towards David’s room has my heart racing just a little bit faster. He is a Shadow, and that is more than enough to fear him, but it is the rumors surrounding him that play menacingly in my head. How he’s said to always have an illusion up. How he’s never where you actually see him. I have testedthis theory multiple times over the years, seeking out his flesh with my telekinesis, feeling his atoms with my power to make sure he is where he says he is, and he always has been.

Perhaps he knows my magic is his natural counter. Perhaps he thought it would be too suspicious to play games around me. Either way, only a fool goes into a fight expecting to win, so I need to make sure that when I attack him, he isn’t a fucking illusion.

And I need to get him talking so I can find out what happened to Katie Wilks. If she really got taken...or if thefucker killed her for her loyalty to me.

Stopping outside his room, I knock –aquick rap of expectation for him to let me in. Late night/early morning meetings in private rooms are not a rare occurrence in this house. Although normally Myers is with me, tonight he’ll be my scapegoat.

The door opens, and I push in, every step that of a confident Boss with no suspicious thoughts concerning his second. “Aleric took Katie,” I say as I turn around to face him as he shuts the door. Locking us in, unaware that he’s the prey in this little scenario, and my blood rushes hot at the thought of having him where I want him. Alone. With me. And no one to fucking help him as he screams.

“Who?” His eyes glaze over for just a second, and my body tingles with a spark of pride and pain.

“Katie Wilks, the regional manager of our hotels,” I snap, hiding my true feelings behind shallow annoyance. He never was one to take notice of those ‘beneath him.’ And Katie, the clever girl, played on that beautifully. Both times I said her name, he got a distant look in his eye, meaning she managed to hypnotize him – a subtle action he probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing.

But for her to have donethat, I realize with a tightness in my chest, he must have been the one to attack her. She wouldn’t have marked him otherwise.And if David went after her himself…she’s probably dead inside his shadows, ripped apart by the monsters who lurk within.

I turn so he doesn’t see the rage boiling beneath my skin, so I don’t just kill him where he stands for all the suffering he’s caused. Crossing the room, I deliberately show him my back.I feel safe here. I don’t suspect you.

I stopin front of hiswindow. Despite the stifling heat outside, it isn’t open – us witches preferring to keep our rooms a comfortable temperature with our magic. It beats any warm breeze.I casually close the dark-red curtainsbefore turning back to face him.

“Leon thinks I should kill her before she talks.”

He nods. “She does know a lot.”

My lips tighten as he basically confirms my suspicions about her death. He wouldn’t want me to find her if she were alive given she’d then be able to tell me all about him attacking her. But if she is dead and I try to search for her, the magic will drain me enough for him to kill.

But he also just gave me something more –he isn’t a fucking illusion. Katie can’t hypnotize what isn’t real.

Feeling the power coiling beneath my skin, I take a step towards him. “First Christian Gale. Then Katie Wilks. I thought they were loyal, and they showed me the truth behind their masks.” I shake my head in disgust. “You’re the only person I can trust.”

His chest puffs out.

“Even Myers,” I say slowly. “I don’t trust him after all that’s happened with Sau. You saw how he acted on our wedding day.”

How he leered at her. How he wanted her for his own.

A boy just coming into puberty, who was close to her in age,only a year and a half older. Aninnocent, childish crush now twisted to feed David’s ego in having played me for a fool.

I hide my smile beneath the mask I always wear as I imagine his snarky pride falling under the realization that Iknow.

He nodsgravely – just the right mixture of acceptance and grief in that actionto have fooled me into trusting him if I didn’t already know his sins. For a moment, I look at the man I believed him to be – my most trusted advisor, a doting great uncle who treated my kids as his own, a loyal second who kept a lot of the wolves in this Family off my back with his support, afriend.A fucking friend.

But he is none of those things.

He never was.

Or perhaps he was before something changed.

There is a part of me that wonders what that was. If I had accidentally, unknowingly caused so much hatred to blister inside of him.

But there is a bigger part of me that just doesn’t care. Understanding is only required if I plan to forgive him, and I sure as hel don’t.

Regardless if our friendship was ever real, he hurt what was mine. He ignored the contract between our Families concerning Sau’s innocence for his own selfish gain.

And hecontinuedto hurt her – selling her when she couldn’t give consent.

Robbing me of that moment she awoke, from being the first to see her pretty green eyes open.

Hetookfrom me.