Demon's Vengeance The Complete - Jocelynn Drake Page 0,11
a long shot. He was going to get everyone killed by auctioning off that information. We both know a war with the Towers can’t be won. Handing in Reave was the only way to save us all.”
“Then where does that leave you now? What do you have to do?”
The anger left me in a rush and I flopped back down on the couch. Leaning back, I propped one foot up on the edge of the scarred table. “That’s still a little vague.” I mumbled. “I’m regarded as a guardian, though I don’t have all the rights and privileges that go with such a title.”
Trixie edged back over to the sofa and sat on the corner. “What does a guardian do?”
The urge to hold her was overwhelming. I needed to hold her, but she was looking at me with such wariness that I was afraid to move, afraid to face the rejection that was waiting just around the corner. Closing my eyes, I forced my voice to become as calm and even as possible. “Guardians are the ones that you see when the Towers attack. They do the dirty work. They head up investigations and hunt down people of interest for the Towers. They’re like the FBI, CIA, and Special Forces, all rolled into one.”
“And you’re one of them?”
My eyes popped open at the incredulous sound in her voice. I smirked, feeling a little of my usual dry humor start to return. “I’m more of a distrusted junior member. They’re sending me out with another warlock to investigate strange things. I’m allowed to use magic in a limited capacity. The Towers are keeping me on a short leash for the time being.”
“But you’re considered . . . one of them?”
I swallowed a sigh and my smirk died on my lips. “Yeah. I’m a warlock again.”
Trixie looked down at her hands tightly clenched in her lap and rapidly blinked her eyes as if she were trying to hold back tears. I couldn’t blame her. Leaving the Towers meant that I had reached for something better and achieved it. Going back felt like a betrayal to all the people who still lived in fear. It was a betrayal to the four Tower runaways who were living in hiding and using me as a symbol of hope for a better life. Going back was failure.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t tell you sooner because I was still trying to adjust to the idea myself. I can’t change what I am. I was born to be a warlock and wield this power. What I can try to control are the people I hurt and who are hurt by the Towers.”
“What would have happened if you didn’t go back?”
“I would have been killed on the spot.”
The silence stretched between us. I stared at my untouched bottle of beer sweating on my coffee table, willing Trixie to say that she was glad that I hadn’t chosen death. I needed to hear that she could understand what I had done and that she was glad that I was still here with her. But she didn’t speak.
A huge number of her people had been hunted and slaughtered during the Great War. Their numbers had dwindled to a fraction of what they had been. It was all done by the Towers. And I was now a warlock. A killer without conscience. One of them.
I could easily remind her of everything I had done for her. Everything I had done to protect her and her people, but the memory of the Towers loomed between us.
The unexpected knock on the door was a welcome interruption breaking the silence. I jumped up, inwardly praying that it wasn’t Gideon on my doorstep with a new task that needed completing for the Towers. Now was definitely not a good time to go running off to my other life.
A woman with short brown hair and light brown eyes smiled nervously at me when I opened the door. “Gage Powell?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, leaning against the door. She didn’t look like she was selling anything and I couldn’t recall anyone moving into the building recently, so she wasn’t a new neighbor borrowing a cup of sugar. There was no magic energy signature around her, so she wasn’t from the Ivory Towers. She was a rare creature—a normal human being.
“My name is Serah Moynahan and I’m a special investigator with TAPSS.”
She flashed her badge at me in one of those leather wallets, but I didn’t care. Her