Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,79

more impressions.

“It’s too present,” I said with a jab of regret. The blare of emotions the man was experiencing right now drowned out any subtler information. “He’s angry and frustrated—and a little scared. But that’s when he thinks of the sphinx discovering we’ve found him, not so much of what we’ll do.”

Omen growled under his breath. “We haven’t got any leverage. There’s clearly nothing he cares about in this place other than his own life, and you can be sure he knows Tempest would slaughter him in epically painful fashion if he betrayed her, so us threatening to kill him won’t do much.”

Sorsha’s mouth twisted. “He’s got to know something useful if he’s been working so much for Tempest. Whatever he uncovered here might be what’s allowing her to finally unleash the sickness the Company created.”

Omen’s gaze veered to me and then away again. He hesitated, which was so unlike our leader that I turned to study him.

“There is one way,” he started, measuring out his words.

All at once, our captive jerked forward. With our attention on the hellhound shifter, Thorn’s grasp on our captive must have loosened just slightly. The man’s knees banged the underside of the table, and he swung up a small gun that must have been fixed there.

The warrior slammed him toward the ground. The gun went off with a boom that shattered the quiet of the night and clipped the ragged edge of the wall behind Sorsha.

He’d almost killed her. That bullet would have hit her in the forehead if it’d flown a few inches to the right. Without thinking, without feeling other than the swell of vengeful horror, I threw myself between my beloved and her attacker.

As I loomed over the slumped man, my rage simmered down to a duller anger within moments. He couldn’t stage any further attack while he was pinned firmly under Thorn’s bulk.

Omen kicked the gun off into the night, none too gently. He glared down at the man. “No, you don’t value your life all that much, do you?”

Even with the initial jolt of my protective instincts fading, a ball of hunger remained at the base of my throat, gnawing rather than merely nibbling now. My jaw itched to let loose the needle-like teeth that could pierce this man’s skull and siphon away his soul shred by shred.

I sucked in a ragged breath, and Omen glanced at me. Something in his expression sent a shock of comprehension through me.

He didn’t want me to subdue my hunger. When he’d said there was a way, he’d been going to suggest that I use my power. That I flay our captive’s being down to the barest essence, for all the torment it would put him through, to see everything he’d been and done.

If the man refused to communicate with us and Ruse couldn’t wheedle him into doing so, devouring him was the obvious answer. It would tell us more in a matter of minutes than we might get out of him or his home… ever. And what this lackey knew might make the difference between saving hundreds of millions of other beings, mortal and otherwise, untold amounts of pain.

Still, my body balked. My tongue quivered over my lips, and the hunger rose up my gullet. How could I know whether I was making this decision out of justice or monstrousness?

My voice came out in a croak. “Tell him. Make him understand that he’ll die if he doesn’t agree to share what he knows. He should have a choice.” Even if we were already sure of which one he’d make.

“Snap?” Sorsha said softly. Her hand slipped around my forearm, a gentle warmth. So much gentleness my beloved could offer despite all the fire and strength in her as well.

She wasn’t concerned about herself. She’d shown she loved me regardless of whether I turned to this power. It was only my own well-being she was worried about—how I felt about going through with this act.

“I’m not going to order you,” Omen said. “It’s your choice too. I’ll just point out that there’s a lot on the line. Sometimes there isn’t any answer that isn’t at least a little monstrous.”

The truth of those words settled in my chest. Sorsha squeezed my arm, and the resistance inside me started to melt.

Yes. Avoiding devouring this man would likely sentence all those other beings to their own horrifying deaths. Would letting that devastation happen be somehow more humane of me simply because I hadn’t carried out the destruction