“Because I don’t want you in danger—how about that? Is that damn good enough for you?” I shouted.

Kat jumped, her eyes widening slightly.

Hands on my hips, I looked away. I counted to ten. Still pissed, I counted to twenty. Didn’t work.

“Daemon,” she said, her voice softer. “You can’t stop me just to protect me.”

My head swung back to her. “I need to protect you.”

“Daemon, I’m flattered—I am, but your job is not to protect me. I’m not Dee. I’m not another one of your responsibilities.”

“Damn right you’re not Dee! But you are my responsibility. I got you into this mess. And I will not be dragging you further into it!”

“I’m not stopping,” she said, shoulders squaring.

Shocked, all I could do was stare at her for a moment. Didn’t she get it? Freezing knives would never prepare for her going toe to toe with an Arum. “Does it even matter that I don’t want you in that kind of danger? That I won’t facilitate something as idiotic as you gearing up to go against the Arum?”

She flinched. “Wanting to help you and your kind is idiotic?”

My jaw tightened. “Yeah, it is.”

“Daemon,” she whispered. “I get that you care—”

“You don’t get it. That’s the problem!” I stopped, pulling it all back in, sucking the air right out of the room with it. “I won’t be a part of this. I mean it, Katy. You choose this, then…whatever.” I hated saying it, but it was true. I would not usher her down this path. “I won’t have this hanging over my head like I do every freaking day with Dawson. I won’t make another mistake and condone this.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Daemon—”

“What will it be, Katy?” I looked at her dead on. “Tell me now.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

I jerked back, as if she had actually hit me. That would’ve been better than this, because she had made her choice. She’d chosen to put herself in danger. She’d chosen to ask me to be okay with it. She had chosen this. Every part of me hardened.

“That was the wrong thing to say. I’m done.”

Anger simmered inside, a constant companion since the night Kat nearly took a knife to the chest. The bitter edge of the fury had faded, only because I put some space between the incident and us. Knowing that she was still training with the psychotic asshole and not being there drove me crazy.

But I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—be a part of that.

It was bad enough knowing that I had stood by and virtually watched everything with Dawson happen and had done nothing to stop it. Then again, I was traveling down that same path at the speed of a racing bullet, wasn’t I?

As mad as I was with Kat, what I felt for her hadn’t lessened. A part of me wished it had, because it would make dealing with this a hell of a lot easier if I didn’t care, but I did.

I hated seeing how worn down she looked in class. I hated how upset my sister was, because Kat wasn’t spending any time with her. Dee asked nearly every night about Kat, as if she expected me to hold all the answers. Screwed-up thing was that I did, but what could I tell her? All I could do was reassure Dee that she hadn’t done anything to upset Kat. I hated that training had become everything to her. What was she trying to prove? That she was strong? That she could stand side by side with me?

Just thinking about it pissed me off and made me want to blow shit up.

A little over a week after the last training session, my phone dinged. Setting my laptop aside, I lifted my hand. The phone slid over my dresser and flew straight to my palm. As my fingers closed around it I wondered if Kat was able to do this now. Control movement so precisely. A lot could happen in a week. I flipped the phone over, seeing the text. My eyes widened slightly. It was from Kat.

Can u come over?

I stared at the message for a good minute and then tossed the phone on the bed. Leaning back, I scrubbed my hands down my face. I lowered my arms, flipping my gaze to the ceiling. I tracked the weblike crack in the plaster. Another text came through.

This is important!!!

Ten minutes passed before a third text dinged on my phone. I was half tempted to pick it up and throw it out he window, but I glanced down and saw the message.

Its abt Dawson.

I was off the bed in a nanosecond. Rushing down the stairs, I flew outside and went next door without a second thought. There wasn’t a single part of me that thought Kat would bring up Dawson without there being a real damn good reason for it.

Kat answered the door. “Daemon…” She trailed off, her gaze dropping south of my face.

It was below thirty, but I barely felt the chill hitting my bare chest or seeping through the flannel pajama bottoms. I stepped inside. “What about Dawson?”

She shut the door, and I couldn’t tell if it was my heart racing or hers, but it was pounding in my chest. As she turned around, she was still staring at me, her cheeks slightly flushed.

“Kat.”

“Sorry.” She walked toward the living room, pressing her arms to her sides so she didn’t brush against me. I got there first, struggling to keep my cool. She took a deep breath and then said, “I saw Bethany today.”

Chapter 20

My head jerked to the side as I stared at her. “What?”

“Dawson’s girl—”

“I know what you said.” Dragging my hands through my hair, I couldn’t believe what she had just said. “How can you be sure it was her, Kat? You’ve never seen her.”

“I’ve seen her missing persons flyer. It’s a face I can’t forget.” She sat down, rubbing her hands over her knees. “It was her.”

“Holy shit…” I sat beside her on the couch, dropping my hands between my legs. I couldn’t process this. “Where did you see her?”

“At the post office after school,” she said.

“And you waited until now to tell me?” I laughed under my breath. “Because you were training with Bilbo Baggins and you had to wait until he left to talk to me?”

Her mouth opened and then she nodded. She squeezed her knees. “I’m sorry, but I’m telling you now.”

I nodded as my gaze swung around the room, landing on the Christmas tree I’d help put together. God, that seemed like forever ago. “Man, I don’t…I don’t even know what to say. Beth’s alive?”

She cleared her throat. “Daemon, I saw her with Brian Vaughn. She’s with the DOD. They’d pulled over on the side of the road and the car door had opened. That’s how I saw them. He was closing the door and he looked angry.”

Slowly, I looked at her, and our gazes locked. Time stretched out as the shocking news gave way to understanding. My entire world shattered in an instant and then rapidly rebuilt itself. I’d been 99 percent sure that something had happened with Bethany, and Dawson had healed her. Knowing how that changed Kat and if what Blake had said was true about the DOD searching for humans like Kat, then it took no leap of logic to figure out that what had happened to Dawson and Bethany was because of the DOD and not the Arum.

Somehow, the DOD figured out that Dawson had done the forbidden. How? I didn’t know. But at that moment, it didn’t matter, because they had come into my house and they had—they had fucking lied to Dee and me. They had ripped the world out from underneath our feet and it had been a lie.

Maybe all of it had been a lie.

Because if Bethany was still alive, and with the DOD, then Dawson…he could be alive.

I shot to my feet, switching into my true form unintentionally. Rage pounded like the beat of a steel drum. Bulbs on the Christmas tree rattled as a wind picked up inside the room.