toward him. Her feet shuffled across the carpet to his desk without her permission.
“Making the weapon poof out of nowhere,” she reminded him. “It’s the tattoos, right? They’re more than just ink.”
Ignoring her question—he was good at that—he turned the laptop so it faced her. “Here she is.” Kayley’s picture filled the screen.
Heart pounding, Morrigan reached out but curled her fingers inward before she made contact. Her nails dug into her damp palms. Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she stared.
Kayley was no longer a smiling teenager with auburn hair and blue eyes. Morrigan’s picture of her was frozen in time, a decade old.
Tears filled Morrigan’s eyes, but she blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. In her dreams, she sometimes heard Kayley’s heartbreaking pleas for forgiveness as Lucifer dragged Morrigan away.
Hesitantly, she touched her fingers to the screen. Kayley was smiling in the picture. Her hair was no longer auburn, but fiery red, obviously dyed. It was pulled back in the photo, showing off the multiple piercings in her ears and her stunning facial structure. The baby fat had disappeared. She’d always been beautiful. Now she was stunning.
Tattoos ran down her neck, disappearing into a tight V-neck shirt. There was a slyness, a calculation in her green gaze that hadn’t been there before. Maybe Morrigan just hadn’t seen it. Or maybe she was allowing Maccus to influence her.
He turned the laptop and went back to typing. Morrigan walked around the desk, hungry to know more. Now that the connection had been made, she couldn’t help herself.
“She’s in New York,” he told her. “Coincidence?”
A wave of exhaustion hit her. So many opposing emotions swept through her, making her lightheaded—hope and fear clashed with happiness and crushing sadness. Anger battled with joy.
She was so tired of it all—the fighting, the worrying, the soul-sucking loneliness. The hard truth was she would never be free of the contract she’d signed, would die before she could complete it.
There was no going back. No regaining the life she’d once had, the innocence she’d lost.
“There’s no such thing.” She was older and wiser now. There were always other forces at work, manipulating the world for their own ends and entertainment.
“Why is she in the city?” She had no idea what her sister did for a living, how she supported herself, what interested her.
“She has a showing at a local gallery.”
A sense of pride filled her along with a sense of rightness. Kayley had followed her dream. “She did it. She became an artist. Do they show any of her work?”
When the new page popped up, she leaned forward in anticipation.
“This can’t be right.” The paintings on the screen were dark, filled with demons and darkness, torture and pain. What was even more disturbing was her sense that the artist was drawn to it, seeking it, inviting it. “Her work is bright and hopeful, filled with color and light.”
“The work she showed you was filled with light, but you didn’t really know her, did you? Only the image she projected.”
Fury bubbled up from the depths of her soul. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep it contained, fearing if she released it, she’d explode and never be able to reassemble the pieces of herself.
The urge to hit something or someone welled up inside her. Anything to release the pressure building in her chest. But the only outlet was Maccus, and picking a fight with him wouldn’t help.
Was he right?
The evidence was in front of her eyes.
“Maybe Lucifer is influencing her.” Easy enough for him to do, but why would he bother? The agreement stated he’d leave Kayley alone. But there were always ways for the devil to push his agenda.
“Maybe.” He didn’t agree with her, but she didn’t care. He didn’t know Kayley, didn’t understand the bond between them. If her sister was in trouble, and it seemed she was, Morrigan would do her best to save her again. That’s what family did.
She pushed him aside and went through several pages on the website,