Demon's Vengeance The Complete - Jocelynn Drake Page 0,50
to spread it to the world so that a war would start. But a frontal assault on the Towers would lead only to catastrophic death. The witches and the warlocks couldn’t be beaten like that.
“So we continue to take away all hope?” I said miserably. Some of the frustration I had lost in my fight with Gideon was starting to seep back into my voice, leaving me clenching my teeth.
“No.” Gideon paused, waiting until I looked up at him before he continued. “We let them have the hope that if they avoid us, they will live. We let them have the hope that they can live most of their lives without ever encountering a witch or a warlock. They have to understand attacking a warlock will end in death because that’s how most of the Towers see it.”
I shook my head, knowing that he was right, but it didn’t help solve my bigger problem: convincing Trixie that I could keep her safe. “Nothing changes that way.”
“I don’t think the outside world has a chance at stopping the Towers. The change has to come from within.”
“That’s not fast enough!” I snapped as I jumped to my feet. Pacing away from him, I clenched both my hands in my hair. There had to be another answer, something that we were overlooking that would flip the switch, topple the Towers, and let me live a normal life with a girl I loved and a good job. But even as I thought that, I knew there wasn’t a quick fix and what fix there was required years and a lot of death.
“What’s happened?”
I flinched at his question and swallowed my first impulse to tell him my latest bit of news. “You mean other than the fact that the world is being worn away by the Ivory Towers? Or that people are scared and desperate? Or beside the fact that there’s a monster out there killing vampires and reanimating their corpses to use as guard dogs?”
A mocking smirk lifted one corner of Gideon’s mouth and I could see some of the playful youthfulness that Gideon kept locked down at all times. “Yeah, I mean other than all that.”
“Trixie is pregnant,” I whispered, closing my eyes as the words left my lips. “She’s leaving me because I’m a danger to my own child.”
Pain crushed my heart and lungs, making it impossible to breathe. It was crippling. My brain just went around in useless circles trying to find ways that would make her and the baby safe. Were there places we could escape to? Spells that would hide her and the child for the rest of their lives? Anything so that I didn’t have to watch her walk away.
Minutes ticked by and I slowly became aware of the wind as it flew across the field. The tall grasses bent and swayed like golden waves in the sun. I breathed deeply and slowly. In and out. The pain tumbled away, steadily becoming more manageable.
“I understand,” Gideon said.
Not I’m sorry or Congratulations. No false wishes or hopes.
I understand.
If there was anyone in this world, Gideon was possibly the only person who could understand. We both wanted a different world, and this man had taken several big chances in trying to attain that goal. Gideon had broken one of the Towers’ most basic rules. He fell in love and got married. He’d even taken it a step further and dared to have a child. Every day he had to be haunted with the terror that if his wife or daughter were discovered, they’d be executed, but only after extensive torture.
The idea that Gideon understood my dilemma helped more than I would have expected. I wasn’t alone.
“Let’s get back to Charlotte and finish up,” I said, glancing over at him. “I’ve got better things to do with my day than to freeze my ass off in the middle of Nebraska.”
“Idaho,” Gideon corrected, coming to stand next to me.
“Whatever.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, but the world instantly didn’t blink away as it had before. The warlock stood beside me, staring forward at the sun rising above, in a sky laced with thin white clouds. There was an unexpected look of peace on his face.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you for having your little chat with Mother Nature this past fall,” he said out of the blue. “It seems it had farther-reaching implications than anyone could have foreseen.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, a cold chill already crawling up my spine.