He wouldn't. He couldn't. He might be a full-blooded werewolf, but I was something a whole lot more. But as we stood there staring at each other, I knew it didn't matter. He would do whatever it took to protect his cousin and I would help him, no matter how inestimably stupid that might be. This is what Mom had warned me about. This is what she'd seen. Tao's life hung in the balance, and I wouldn't risk losing him.
"You can't be serious," Ilianna said, looking from me to Stane and back again. "Risa, you can't! Not against these people. Call Rhoan. Let him—"
"Tao is my cousin," Stane said softly. "This is my choice to make, not Risa's."
"But these people have a Charna at their beck and call," Ilianna said, voice rising. "And I haven't a hope in hell of defeating her!"
"You won't have to," I said, then glanced behind me, to the space near the trees that was filled with an unearthly heat. "Azriel?"
He appeared in an instant, his arms crossed and the sword at his back running with an ethereal blue fire. "I will take care of the dark witch, and anything she may raise to stop you. I cannot, however, help you with those she works with."
"Why? I mean, I wasn't asking you to, but why can you deal with the Charna and not the men?"
"Because the men hold flesh."
I frowned. "So does the Charna."
He nodded. "But by working her magic and calling forth the demons, she has flirted with the edges of the gray fields. The protection that flesh and life offer her no longer applies."
"But you killed the Razan who were chasing me in the tunnel, and they haven't messed with the gray fields."
"No, but they work for the beings who wish to undo the fabric of life as we know it."
"And the Aedh themselves?"
He said, "The Aedh are not flesh beings. Like us, they can take the form, but it is not who they are."
"So because of what they're doing, you can kill them?"