A Crown Of Smoke And Ash - Sloane Murphy Page 0,46

from what just happened.

“We’ll deal with it,” Levi bites back.

“We should probably focus on the clean up outside first,” Kain interjects.

“I’ve got that covered,” Fallon says with a small smile.

“Are you okay, Fal?” I ask, she looks shaken, but her eyes are hard. Like there’s no way she’s going to let them win.

“I’m fine, he didn’t hurt me, just made me feel like an idiot for not being able to get free.”

“He was a Hunter, he knew how to incapacitate you,” Creek tells her softly. “Come on, I’ll help you with the cleanup.”

He ushers her outside, and leaves me with the three raging immortals.

Awesome.

Roman paces, Levi broods, and Kain is utterly still. It’s unnerving, but I take a deep breath and push it out slowly, forcing my own thoughts and feelings about it all down to help them.

“They came here for me, but they gave away far more than they got. I’m calling that a win,” I say, and look to each of them, Roman’s pacing stops while he pays attention to what I’m saying. “Easton said some bullshit before he used me to slit his own throat, but we know their numbers are down now, we know they have Hunters working alongside them, we have a hybrid. They showed their hand early, and we can use that.”

“But we still don’t know how the hybrids are created, who is behind everything, or what it is that they want from you, mon amour.” I swallow the part Easton said about these guys hiding things from me, the ramblings of a man trying to get beneath my skin.

“Maybe not, but we know more now than we did this morning. Plus, we now have more to go to the Elders with. We know that their own people are working against them.”

“Unless the Elders planned this,” Roman grumbles. “I wouldn’t put it past some of them. It’s a power grab however you look at it, and this council of Elders is the most power hungry we’ve ever seen. Even in the beginning, the Elders were only there as a support system, a way to contain chaos. These days, they seem to revel in the chaos of their own creation.”

“There is no point in speculating. We need facts, we have some, we know what makes up a hybrid, so how about we go learn some more, directly from the source,” Levi says, with a glint in his eyes. “Breaking into my home was a grave mistake on their part.”

Creek and Fallon re-enter the sitting room from the glass doors at the back, covered in ash. “Cleanup is done.” Fallon smiles as she says it, and Creek rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but you’re going to need a new chunk of lawn where she quite literally scorched the earth,” Creek tells Levi who waves it off, before he and Roman stalk off towards the entrance to the basement. I move to follow but Kain stops me.

“I think, mon amour, you do not need to see that, see them like that. For your sake and theirs. Let them do this for you.” I shake my head at his words.

“We’re all in this together right? I’m not going to ask them to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Especially since this all seems to be circling back to me.”

“What did that Hunter tell you?” he asks me skeptically, as if he knows I’ve not told them everything.

“You all heard that they were here for me. This all seemed to start after my Angel mark was discovered. Ben, who was able to peek into my memories was killed. My dad was attacked. All paths seem to lead back to me. So I’m going down there. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Where you go, I go, mon amour,” he says, and squeezes my hand.

“That goes for you guys too,” I say to Creek and Fallon.

“I’m probably going to sit this out,” Fallon says, looking like she might be sick at the thought of it.

“I’ll stay with Fallon, make sure we don’t have any other breaches hiding anywhere.” Creek says, and I smile at him softly.

“What on earth happened here?” I turn to see Everly stood in the hall, shopping bags dangling from her hands, taking in the breakages.

“I’ll explain everything,” Creek reassures me, and ushers Everly to the kitchen along with Fallon.

“Time to go see what we can find out I guess.”

Chapter Eleven

After the excitement of yesterday, I almost forgot that I’d agreed to meet Colt today. To