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Chapters (39)
  1. KAREN CHANCE
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Also by Karen Chance
  39. Connect with Me

Of course, he told me anyway.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

On the one hand, you spend most of your time acting like you are nothing but little Cassie Palmer, utterly human and frequently overwhelmed by the situations you find yourself in,” Pritkin’s incubus said, looking aggrieved. “But as soon as things go sideways, you act like your mother. Taking on an elder god, one on one—”

I scowled at him. “As opposed to what? Zeus was trying to kill me. Was I supposed to just take it?”

“No. You were supposed to think. You are neither of those two extremes. You are not a god, but you are not human, either. You have power, but you need allies—which you have! Yet you did not call for them—”

“I didn’t have a chance—”

“You did. You did on the Thames and later, in this room. You didn’t take it.”

“I tried to contact them on the Thames! Pritkin and Mircea both!”

“But not to summon them. You did not even attempt to shift them here to help you.”

“And do what? Get them killed? We were fighting Zeus—”

“Lover’s Knot! If you die, so do they! It doesn’t matter where they are!”

I scowled at him some more, because he had a point and I hated it. “You told me they were in Faerie. That they chased that goat guy through a portal or something.” I couldn’t remember the whispered words exactly, because of when our conversation had taken place. But I knew that much! “I couldn’t have shifted them here if I’d wanted to.”

“But you didn’t know that.” He sat up. “Tell me, what would have happened if you hadn’t accidentally given me power? If I hadn’t been energized, and able to break out of my prison and come find you? What would have happened then?”

“You know damned well—”

“But do you?”

“Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it!” I’d just woken up, my brain felt spongy and bruised, I was grappling with a possible relationship-killing event, and this bastard was still yammering at me.

I wanted to shift something, I thought savagely.

Right back to hell.

I got up instead and went to the dressing table.

“But we need to talk about it,” the demon said stubbornly. “That is why I came. The vampire isn’t a problem. His kind loves power and he’s currently at war. He is grateful to have allies. And thanks to the importance of family in the vampire world, he is accustomed to asking for and receiving aid.”

“Your point?” I asked, picking up a brush. And then putting it back down again, when the first stroke sent a cascade of dust into the air. What the hell?