her thoughts still tangled up in the painful memory of her mother. “What about me?”
“How long you been hiding from demons in the Great White North?”
She jerked from the question. How did he know she was a witch?
As if reading her mind, he answered, “I saw your necklace … and the way you act … It wasn’t hard to put together. Not if you know witches are out there.”
Darby stammered as he put the car in drive and headed into town. She wondered how he even knew witches existed. Most people didn’t know. As far as she knew, even lycans and NODEAL hunters knew little of them. At least not about true witches: white witches and demon witches. Her kind kept a low profile, obviously preferring to stay off the radar. The world didn’t know about them.
But he did. He knew her secret. She bit her lip, wondering how many other surprises he had in store for her.
FOURTEEN
They drove directly to Darby’s apartment. She followed Niklas up the stairs and inside as he carried Aimee and placed her on the bed. She got to work cleaning Aimee’s wound and bandaging it up. She changed her into the smallest T-shirt she owned, guessing they wouldn’t be able to claim her luggage from the bus station.
“We’re going to have to get her some new clothes.”
He nodded. “I’m going to get the rest of my things from my room. I need to gather some other supplies, too, so I’ll see what I can find for her. I’ll be back in a few hours. We don’t want Cyprian to get too much of a head start.”
She walked him to the door, rubbing her hands up and down her arms and telling herself that she just hadn’t warmed up yet. Even though—for once—her apartment was cozy and warm. The cold clung. A bone-deep cold that she doubted she’d ever be free from—especially after tonight. Tonight she’d shed her last scrap of hope that she could ever be safe. Ever be free of all the ugly things that walked this earth alongside the good and innocent.
She was done hiding. It was time to fight.
“How do you know where to go … where Cyprian will go next?”
At the door, he paused and turned to face her. “It’s time we’re up front about a few things that we’ve been skirting around.”
She nodded, but her throat felt suddenly tight, her skin itchy beneath his regard. “You know what I am.” They’d covered that already.
“Yeah.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How do you know about witches?” They hadn’t covered that and it was still nagging her how he knew about her kind.
“My mother.”
She angled her head. “She told you?”
“No.” He looked away from her then, stared somewhere over her shoulder as if he saw something there, something being played out just for his eyes alone. “She was one. Like you—a witch.”
Her heart leapt, unaccountably excited to discover they had this connection. “Your mother was a white witch?”
“At first. A white witch. And then she sold her soul.”
Darby pulled back as if physically struck. It was her worst nightmare. Her mother had killed herself rather than enslave herself to a demon. As much as she struggled with her mother’s suicide, it would have been so much worse to lose her to a demon. “Your mother contracted with a demon?”
He looked back at her then, faced her with his indigo eyes flat and void of emotion—as if this information affected him not at all. “She gave up her soul and turned herself over to a demon.”
“Why would she do such a thing?”
“She did it for me. In exchange for my soul.”
Darby looked him up and down, as if he wore his soul on the outside and she could see it before her. “What do you mean? How was your soul in danger?”
“I was infected by a lycan. When I was sixteen Cyprian and his pack attacked me and some friends. I escaped, but it was too late. I was infected just like that girl in there and on my way to becoming a … monster—I think that’s what you called it.”
She nodded, remembering that she’d said that. And he’d flinched. Why? He stood before her, obviously not one of them. His mother’s sacrifice had worked and saved him. So then, why—
“My mother did the only thing she could think of. She exchanged her soul for mine.”
“So a demon lifted your curse and took her instead.” Darby inhaled, unable to imagine how