Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,56

was difficult to avoid seeing how it’d appear to be a trick of my own to someone who hadn’t stood face to face with Tempest in the recent days.

“No,” I said, working to keep as much irritation as possible out of my voice. “Which is why I wouldn’t have attempted it as a deception. She really is alive and pulling the strings behind the Company of Light. I’d be happy to take a few of your minions to meet her to confirm, although I can’t promise she won’t chew them up and spit them out much worse off than they were when they arrived.”

“I see no reason why that should be necessary,” another of the Highest intoned. “Your intentions are transparent enough. You will resume following your original directive, and you will return to the mortal realm to see about carrying it out now. We have waited long enough.”

They might have waited decades to find “Ruby”, but they’d only asked me to take up the search a couple of weeks ago. I guessed I didn’t get any benefit of their patience.

I wasn’t the type to back down without some sort of fight. “If something isn’t done to stop Tempest, then there might not be anything left in the realms that’s worth saving from whatever you think this Ruby is going to do. Do you really want to leave me in the position to be able to say I told you so?”

The murmur that passed between them sounded unsettled, but not concerned enough. “If the sphinx truly poses such a threat, then attend to her as you see fit. We have seen no evidence of it.”

They hadn’t seen any evidence that Sorsha was a threat either, other than what they’d made up in their own heads about human-shadowkind hybrids. I bit my tongue against flinging that point at them, though. It wouldn’t be good for her or me to appear too invested in her.

The damned puffed-up giants. What could I say that would get through their incredibly dense skulls?

The simpering goblin was already darting to my side. “I can see the hellhound away from you so he won’t bother you any further, your greatnesses,” he said.

“Back off,” I snapped, far less worried about what he thought of me, and advanced a little closer to the Highest. “Do you want to be known as the ones who prevented a catastrophe of immense proportions or the ones who stood by and let it happen? I’m giving you the chance to be the former. And believe me, if Tempest rains down all her rage on the rest of us, I’m not going to stay quiet about your complacency.”

That was a threat in itself, and a gamble I nearly regretted. A wallop of chilling fury hit me, tossing me backward like a tidal wave, head over feet. I shook myself, regaining my bearings and confirming I’d kept possession of all my limbs, and the blustering fools shoved me again. The impression of a choke collar around my throat yanked painfully tight.

Several of their echoing voices rang out together. “Begone, hellhound, and we will hear no more of this ridiculousness from you.”

There was a thing or three I could have said about who was being ridiculous here, but I wasn’t saving anyone if I ended up in tiny pieces scattered across the entire shadow realm. I spoke through gritted teeth. “As you command, oh Highest ones.”

I loped off with only one thing I hadn’t possessed before this visit: the certainty that in this war, no matter what else came of it, my companions and I were utterly alone.

16

Sorsha

“I mean, it’s really no surprise, right?” I said when Omen had finished filling us in on his conversation with the Highest. “We already knew they’re obnoxious and overly obsessed with me.”

“Yes, silly of me to think they might be concerned by news about the re-emergence of a being they’d already decided was so dangerous they put her to death centuries ago.” Omen rolled his eyes toward the Everymobile’s ceiling, but despite the dryness of his tone, I could tell how frustrated he was with the ancient shadowkind that held him in their sway.

“We’ve taken on the Company of Light without any help from the Highest before,” Snap said, stroking my hair where he was sitting next to me on the sofa-bench. “They don’t seem to know much of anything anyway.”

At his other side, Ruse made a vaguely obscene gesture in the general direction of the shadowy overlords. “Hard