Pulling my gaze away, I let out a ragged breath. “It bothered Zayne for a while—the whole not taking on the role as the clan leader thing—but he’d come to terms with it. He...he realized that who he was becoming didn’t line up with a lot of what other Wardens believed. He was okay with it. Really.”

“He told you this?”

“Yes.”

“He was talking about the ‘kill all demons on sight’ stance most Wardens have?” he guessed. “Not all of us are that way. I’m not. Neither is Nicolai.”

I’d already figured that, considering they had worked with Roth and Cayman in the past.

“But I get it,” Dez went on. “Especially after what went down with Layla. There was no going back after that.”

No, there wasn’t. Not when Zayne’s father and almost the entire clan had been ready to kill her after she’d accidentally taken a part of his soul. They’d raised her and should’ve known there had been no malicious intent behind her actions, just stupidity on both her side and Zayne’s.

The jealousy over Zayne and Layla’s previous relationship was long gone. So was the weird mixture of bitterness that surrounded the knowledge that it was supposed to have been me who’d been raised alongside Zayne.

None of that mattered now, and it annoyed me that I had wasted time on it.

“By the way,” Dez said. “You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Lifting my hand, I touched my chin. My fingers came away smudged. So, it was my blood. I wiped my fingers on my jeans. “It’s nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” he murmured.

Luckily, he didn’t speak after that, but the trip to the Warden compound seemed to take forever. When he finally pulled up in front of the massive house, I nearly launched myself out of the SUV. Dez was right behind me. I started forward.

And promptly tripped over the first step, having not seen it.

Catching myself, I sighed and then carefully walked forward. Dez reached around me, opening the door, and we stepped inside. It took a couple of moments for my eyes to adjust to the bright light of the foyer as I followed Dez toward Nicolai’s office. On the way we passed a few Wardens either off for the night or heading in. The wide berth they gave us told me they probably had learned the truth about me.