Page 22 of Unbound

“I love you, Florence,” he whispers. “And if you need to go back to the Covenstead, then I want you to.”

Tears well in my eyes. “I want to, but I’m not leaving you.” My lips curve into a smile. “Not that you’d let me go.”

“No, you’re not going anywhere.” He slowly sits up. “Besides home.”

“Yes. Home,” I repeat. Home. With him.

The door to our bedroom flies open, and light from the hallway spills inside. I sit up in shock, sucking in a shaky breath. Xavier’s eyes open, and he stares at his brother with obvious annoyance.

“What in God’s name do you want?” he asks calmly as he reaches over, making sure the blankets cover my naked body.

“We have a huge fucking problem,” Theo says, his fangs flashing as he speaks. “A huge fucking demonic problem.”

His eyes shift to me. “And it’s all her fault.”

Chapter

Eight

“What the hell do you mean?” Xavier asks Theo, sounding more annoyed than alarmed.

“The Reapers,” Theo says, giving us an expectant look that should suddenly make everything clear.

“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Xavier says slowly, and I get the feeling he’s acting unbothered on purpose. “What about the Reapers?”

“A bunch of them were found dead this morning.” Theo holds up his phone, showing us a news article. “It was some sort of ritualistic killing. Just like the one at that camp.”

“You could’ve led with that,” I say, pushing up onto my elbows while still being careful to hold the blanket over my bare breasts.

“You let that demon out,” Theo snaps. Before he can launch into a speech about how this is all my fault, I hold up a hand and shake my head.

“When did they die?”

“What does that matter?” Theo asks.

“It matters because that ritual was done to bring a demon to Earth. Vaelric was already here as of last night, right after sunset.”

Xavier turns and looks at me, his eyes narrowing slightly. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what he’s thinking. The ritual at the campground didn’t make sense either. It was different from the ritual needed to bring Vaelric to Earth. We’d assumed they’d simply gotten it wrong.

But maybe they weren’t trying to summon Vaelric at all.

“Something about this makes sense and doesn’t make sense at the same time,” I say. I bite my lip and look from Xavier to Theo. “Let me get dressed and get my brothers. Bring me whatever information you have about the ritual. Pull your police contacts or whatever and get me crime scene photos. I have a theory.”

Theo mutters something about me giving orders, but he leaves the room anyway. Xavier gets up and closes the door, and I take a second to appreciate his naked body before the room dims again. He turns on the overhead light for me, and I get up, my mind whirling as I go to the bathroom and then get dressed.

“What happened at the camp was connected to Vaelric,” I say out loud as I pull a white-and-blue dress over my head. “But it wasn’t the right ritual to bring Vaelric to Earth. They didn’t have my blood or any witch blood that we know of.”

“What are you thinking?” Xavier asks.

“That demonic encyclopedia said Vaelric commands other legions of demons. From what I know, each legion usually has some sort of general or lieutenant.”

“You think they were trying to bring forth another demon?”

“I do.” I flip my head upside down and rake my hair into a messy bun. We go downstairs into the kitchen, and I desperately wish there were someone else here to make coffee in the morning so it would be ready and waiting for me.

Antonio and Devon are in the family room watching golf, which throws me off for a couple seconds. It’s not the fact that my brought-back-from-the-dead-brother is hanging out with my former baby-daddy-to-be , but since when does Antonio like golf?

“I heard most of that conversation,” Devon says. “Are we gonna be fighting demons again?”