“How the hell did you get all the way out here? I’ve been tracking your phone all damn day,” he says, driving faster. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw where you were.”
“Is Ella okay?” I ask instead of answering. I don’t even know where we are anyway.
He snorts derisively. “The princess is just fine.”
“How do you knock her out?”
“I’m stronger than her. She can’t control her power, so she leaves herself exposed when she’s using too much of it.”
“She hit us but not you,” I point out.
“You’re deflecting, Kya,” he says, still driving through the small trail like it’s meant for a large vehicle.
Limbs scratch against the sides as I lean back, letting the paint of the vehicle scream against my ear.
“How’d you get this far out? Is he what I think he is?”
There’s no way he’s guessed all of what Chaz is, but the fire and the eyes he used gave him away for one entity. He may already know about red jinn, so I choose my words carefully.
“Yes,” I say, hating myself for feeling so deceptive. “I know you probably want to kill him because now you see him as a threat, but—”
“He flew you out here?” he asks, interrupting me.
“No. He can’t shift. At least, I don’t think so. He carries their powers, but he’d have shifted when the fight was going on if he could shift, right?”
“I have no idea,” he groans.
“Are you going to go after him?”
It’s his pattern. Find someone too powerful, extinguish the threat... Or try to. He’s been unsuccessful in the past, and I blame it on the fact he couldn’t bring himself to kill a weaker woman when the time came.
Leah and Roslyn would both be dead right now if he’d been able to go through with it. He won’t admit as much, probably never will, but I know that’s why. It’s why he helped me.
He looks at us and sees the sister he lost... The sister who died while begging for her life. He sees the girl who was still mortal as they ripped her apart savagely with no remorse the day they captured him and his brother.
But the others don’t know that. And he would never tell them that either.
They don’t see what being betrayed by his only surviving family did to him. They don’t see what he endured. They see the scars, but they don’t know the amount of pain an immortal has to suffer to be reduced to keeping scars.
Our bodies are flawless, designed to be such a way. Scars are almost impossible to acquire, and he’s riddled with them. His body is marked with a survivor’s tale, engraved with more pain and brutality than any one person could survive without going mad. But, contrary to popular belief, Slade is very sane. He’s also very focused. And very lethal.
It’s why I follow him.
He’s quiet for a long time, and it seems to take forever before the trail we’re on suddenly turns into an actual road.
“You’re not answering me,” I say softly, not wanting to piss him off and have him turn his anger on me. “Do you find him a threat to them now?”
“I have no plans to go after him,” he states flatly. “He’s been in their lives for a really long time. If he had any malice of intent, he’d have already shown it.” He slows down, relaxing in his seat. “I never attacked for them, Kya. The wolf hybrid hurt our people. She was a traitor. I still think she deserves to die or to at least feel as tortured as the people she dragged back into that hell.”
“She had no choice, Slade. They broke her mind. You’re so strong that you forget others aren’t.”
“They broke her in a few short years. I have no sympathy for her,” he says curtly. “I survived centuries without breaking.”
I said the same thing about Roslyn. I’ll always defend Slade’s words to them. It’s where my loyalties lie. But I honestly understand why she broke. Though I’ll never admit as much to her.
I don’t point out that this is more about his brother breaking than Roslyn breaking. The sting of that betrayal will forever stay fresh with him.
“And as far as the Aquarius goes, you know my reasons for that. I recall stopping you from finishing what I started once you’d seen how those years were. What it was like to be hunted. What it was like to know your parents were fileted alive.”