I lifted my gaze. “He . . . he was here?”
“Was.”
My heart turned over heavily, and then I moved. Forget Dee and her bitchiness or the fact that I apparently smelled. I needed to see Daemon. Flipping off the blanket, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. No shoes. No socks. What the? Didn’t matter. “Where is he now?”
“I really don’t know.” Sighing, she pulled back the curtain covering the one window and stared out. “But the last I saw, he was heading into one of the bedrooms.” The curtain slipped from her fingers, drifting back into place as she faced me with a chilling smile. “Not alone.”
I stilled.
“Sadi was following him. Something that she’s quickly made a habit of doing. She’s probably in the process of attempting to molest him.” She paused, tapping her finger on her chin. “Then again, I don’t think it’s really molesting when it’s wanted.”
Tiny balls of ice formed in my stomach. “Sadi?”
“That’s right. You don’t know her. I’m sure you will, though.”
I shook my head as my entire being rebelled against what she was insinuating. “No. No way.” I stood on shaky legs. “I don’t know what your problem is or what happened to you, but Daemon would never do anything like that. Ever.”
Dee’s gaze sharpened as she eyed me like I wasn’t worth the ground she stepped on. “Things aren’t the way they used to be, Katy. The sooner you get with the program the better, because right now, you’re his weak link. That’s all you are to him.” She took a measured step forward, and I held my ground. “The only reason you’re alive right now is because of him. And not because he loves you, because that boat sailed the big old ocean blue the moment we opened our eyes. Thank God.”
I flinched at her words, and the ice grew bigger, spreading into my veins.
“And it’s about time,” she continued, tilting her head to the side. “Ever since you came into his life—our lives—everything has been messed up. If I could take you out right now without killing him, I would. I’d relish it. So would he. You’re nothing to us anymore, or to him. Nothing more than a problem we need to figure out how to handle.”
I sucked in a breath that didn’t seem to do any good. A knot formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow, and I told myself that it didn’t matter what Dee was saying. Something was definitely wrong with her, because Daemon didn’t just love me; he was in love with me, and he’d do anything to be with me. Just as I would for him, and nothing could change that. The commitment we’d made to each other in Vegas may not have been technically the most legal of all things, but it had been real to me—to us. But her words . . . they still cut worse than any blade could ever inflict.
Dee’s lashes lowered as her features pinched tight. “So . . . ?”
I opened my mouth, but the ball of emotion cut me off for a moment, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarse. “What do you want me to say to that?”
She shrugged. “Nothing really, but I need to take you to see him.”
“Daemon?” I tensed.
“No.” She chuckled, the sound light and airy, and for a moment, it sounded like the Dee I knew. “Not him.”
When she didn’t elaborate and I didn’t move, she clucked her tongue in frustration and then popped forward. Grabbing my arm in a tight grasp, she all but dragged me out of the bedroom and into a wide hall.
“Come on,” she urged, impatient.
I struggled to keep up with her long-legged pace. Bare-foot and exhausted and beyond confused, I was feeling more human than hybrid, but when we got to the landing, she’d nearly pulled my arm out of my socket and had my shoulder aching something fierce.
“I can walk. You don’t have to drag me.” I yanked and slipped free, knowing that she simply let me. “I can . . .” The framed photo of an attractive family on the stairwell caught my eye. The glass was broken and there was something dark and rusty smeared across it.
My stomach roiled.
“You can just stand there?” Her eyes narrowed on me. “If you don’t move, I will throw you down the stairs. It’ll hurt. You might break your neck. It’s three levels. Someone will heal you. Or maybe we’ll just leave you like that, alive but unable—”
“I get your point,” I snapped back at her, taking a deep breath so I didn’t attempt to push her down the stairs.
“Good,” she chirped, grinning.
For some reason, it was in that moment, as I tried to reconcile the girl who had stood in the kitchen with me a few days ago and made spaghetti with this nasty creature before me, that I remembered Archer. “What happened to . . . ?” I trailed off suddenly, and probably rightfully, wary of bringing up anything that led back to who remained at the cabin.
“Archer? He got away.” She started down the steps.
I stared at her back, my heart working overtime.
“I’m serious,” she called. “I will throw you down these damn steps.”
I took a second to entertain the idea of drop-kicking her in the back of the head. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I was convinced she had to have an alien insect attached to her somewhere that changed her personality, and her attitude wasn’t her fault.
Heading down the stairs, I willed my brain to start working correctly as I took in my surroundings. I was in a big house, the kind that opulence would be envious of. There were a lot of bedrooms and halls, and when we reached the second landing, I could see down into the foyer, lit by a crystal chandelier. Like, real crystals.
But down below, I could also see Luxen, all in human forms. None of them looked familiar to me. At least these Luxen had discovered the usefulness of clothing, but as I scanned them, I noticed there weren’t any sets of three other than the Blacks. Each one of them was different. My fingers were numb from how tightly I was clenching my hands. The Luxen looked at me the same way Dee had. A few pushed off the wall as we walked past, heads tilting in that weird way that reminded me of a snake. Another stood from a leather chaise longue; all of them appeared to be in their mid-twenties to their forties, though who knew what their real age was.
What I’d seen in the market hadn’t been anything like Daemon and Dee had explained to me. What the Luxen had done had been different.
A light-haired woman by the leather chair sneered and looked like she wanted to jump the heavy-looking oak table, straddle my shoulders, and rip off my head. As hard as it was, I forced my chin high, even though my heart was beating so fast I thought I’d be sick.
We walked through a long atrium, and from the darkness beyond the glass walls, I could tell that it was night outside. As we reached the middle, I felt it.
A tingle spread across the nape of my neck.
My heart stopped and then skipped a beat. Daemon was here, behind those double doors. I knew it, and warring hope and uncertainty fought inside me.
The doors opened before we reached them, revealing the kind of office I’d never seen in a home before, and my gaze was drawn to a desk in the middle of the room. A man sat behind it wearing a smile, but what was most shocking was the fact that I’d seen him before, seconds ago.
He was the man in the broken photo, but I knew he wasn’t human. His eyes glowed a bright, unnatural blue. He rose fluidly as we stepped into the office, the doors closing behind us, but my attention veered off immediately.
There were other Luxen in the room, two more males and a tall, beautiful redhead. I didn’t care about any of them. Standing next to the redhead, to the right of the man behind the desk, was Daemon.
My heart did something funky in my chest as a rush of shivers danced over my skin. Our eyes locked, and I felt dizzy once again. So much rose inside me as I stepped toward him, my tongue forming his name, but my voice was gone. Our gazes held for a second more and then he . . . he looked away, his profile stoic and blank. Heart thudding in my chest, I stared at him.