Page 68 of Halfblood Deceived

“It’s a shame we couldn’t take down the one who screamed like a coward,” Andreas said. “I’ve seen him kill. He’s a vicious bastard.”

Aella swallowed hard. “His name is Eli, and he is… perverse.”

Instead of scolding, she received agreeing noises.

“All the others died?” Aella asked, thinking about Ben, Esther, and Ez.

“Yes,” Kamilla said with utter calm, manicured nails tapping against the table. “We finished destroying the mansion and anyone inside with a bomb.”

Aella gulped. Ben was dead. She didn’t know how to feel.

Then she remembered how he’d held little Aiko as if she were an animal, not even flinching at the idea of Micah killing her.

Maybe it was sinful. Maybe it would doom Aella to a lake of fire for eternity, but she was glad Ben would never make a little girl watch her mother being butchered again.

“What about human authorities? Won’t they investigate?” Aella asked.

“Unlikely,” Zeydan answered. “The gargoyles have contacts among the police. They want this covered up as much as we do. And even if the humans tried to come after us, they wouldn’t find a paper or electronic trail.”

Evan tapped his head with two fingers. “I’m a hacker. I wipe all traces of us wherever we go.”

“Uncle Evan is a nerd,” Luce said.

Evan grinned. “And you are my nerd apprentice, little gremlin.”

Luce returned his grin.

Aella was struck again by how every adult in the room had no qualms about a child knowing the truth about the world they lived in. Aella remembered the times she’d gotten caught listening in on the priests and gargoyles when she was a child. She suppressed a shiver at the sense-memory of the many slaps she’d received. Of the long days she’d spent locked up in her room without food or water as she paid her penance for the sin of gossip.

Her throat was dry, and she downed almost all her still-warm tea in a few gulps.

“Do you know where their church and private residence are located?” Zeydan asked Aella. His tone was calm, but his jade eyes transmitted unquenched bloodlust.

Aella gulped. “I—” If the rumors were true, vampires could sense lies, so that was out of the question, but she couldn’t tell him where the church was.

If there were any surviving gargoyles in the church, they were likely cold-blooded killers. Aella knew this. She was also aware the priests and nuns were accomplices, but she just couldn’t do it.

“For the one-hundredth time, Zeydan, you are not going back to that city,” Kerian said, his expression and voice wholly serious. “It would be a suicide mission.”

“Not if I go with him,” Andreas argued with a small, challenging smile that he aimed at Aella.

“He wouldn’t be alone,” Lex said.

Evan shrugged. “He certainly wouldn’t.”

Gabby glared at her husband. “Unless you want me to go with you, you’re not jeopardizing your life in a petty revenge mission before you meet your daughter, Alexander.”

“Avenging Tatsuki, Anna, and Aiko is not petty revenge,” Zeydan said through gritted teeth. “But you’re right, I’d be going alone. I have much less to lose than the rest of you.”

Aella’s too-full stomach twisted.

“Much less to lose?” Kamilla asked with a raised brow. “You have your family to lose.” The ‘you idiot’ was silent, but very much implied.

“They are safe now,” Zeydan put in with unnerving calm.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Kamilla said.

Zeydan’s pupils turned slightly vertical with contained rage even as he winced.

---