Chosen - Kiersten White Page 0,45
my heart can’t take any more.
Von Alston’s voice is strained. “I’ve been nothing but truthful with you this whole time. Without his mother, he’s starving to death. Take him, if you wish.”
“Nina.” Doug tugs on my shoulder until I release Von Alston. “Let’s talk.”
“No. I don’t want to talk. We need to finish up here. You owe me a prize,” I snarl, yanking Von Alston to his feet. “I take cash.”
“We should go.” Chao-Ahn eyes the dark grounds nervously.
“Can’t leave until Leo wakes up.” I know from deeply painful experience that Leo cannot be budged or carried. I stalk toward the house, my hand around Von Alston’s wrist. I’m probably squeezing too tight. I can’t care. Von Alston hurries to keep up and avoid the indignity of being dragged. “Might as well make our time here worthwhile.”
“I am a man of my word,” Von Alston huffs. “I suppose you did win, even if it was unconventional. The prize is fifty thousand pounds.”
“Bully for me.” Although it’s a massive windfall for the castle, I can’t begin to feel giddy over it. We’ve gotten to the porch, and I can see Leo now, bathed in the warm yellow light from the house. He looks … awful. His jawline, always strong, stands out in stark contrast now, his cheeks hollow and the circles under his eyes so dark they look more like bruises than anything else.
But he’s here. He’s alive. And I’m so angry my vision is pulsing at the edges.
“Should we take him inside?” Taylor asks, trembling like a purse dog.
“Literally impossible. Hopefully he wakes up fast.” I try not to look at Leo’s prone body as I step around him. It’s too close to my nightmares of when I had to leave him behind.
I follow Von Alston into a study where he retrieves a leather satchel. He opens it to show me neat stacks of pound notes. “If you get a chance before he dies, you should ask Leo to train you,” he says, his tone sneering and pedantic. “He’s a Watcher. Pity they’re all gone now. You could certainly use one.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’ve known rogue Slayers. No control, all violent instinct without any training. Like feral animals without Watchers to direct them.”
My hand finds the place on his neck already marked by my fingers. I push him against the dark-wood-paneled wall. “Do I seem like I don’t have control right now?”
His eyes are wide. He shakes his head.
“Good. Are you the nameless threat demons are terrified of?”
He tries to shake his head again, but my hand must have tightened. He can’t quite manage it.
“No,” he whispers. “Everyone knows my name. I’ve never made a secret of what I do.”
I have to admit he’s right. It wasn’t hard to find his name. I got it twice—from the mercenaries, and from a demon. Much as I want it to be Von Alston, Doug searched the mansion and found only one demon. Half demon. And he was here by choice, which I still can’t reconcile. Plus, Von Alston doesn’t strike me as the type to inspire zealots, much less tolerate them. He’s far too British.
I don’t loosen my grip, though. “If I ever hear your name again in connection with anything or anyone under my protection—and that means werewolves and demons and Slayers, all of them—it won’t end well for you. Are we clear?”
He nods. I mean to let him go. I really do. But my fingers stay where they are, and I lean closer, staring at his neck. Such a fragile thing, a spine, separating life and death. Every part of humans is so breakable.
A strained wheeze escapes him. I let go, backing away. Disgusted with him. Disgusted with myself. And more than a little scared of how I keep thinking of him as a human. As something separate from me.
“You know I’m not in the wrong,” he says. “They don’t belong here.” He adjusts his tie, smooths his waistcoat, then raises one eyebrow over his aquiline nose. I’d like to break that nose into aquilines. See how regal he looks then. “I do a tremendous service to my country. You have no place to judge me if I sometimes seek sport while rendering those services. I don’t expect you to pity me, but you’d be astonished at how dull being this wealthy can be. I want for nothing, I need nothing, I—”
His need for my fist in his face is answered with a resounding thud. He goes down,