Kody drew up short as she entered the room behind Nick and saw Xev huddled naked on the bed. Squeaking, she quickly turned around and dodged back into the hallway. “Sorry, Xev.”

Still Xev didn’t move or speak as he stared up at Nick with a brutal intensity that waited for Nick to unleash his worst wrath on him.

And that, too, drove the last of the Malachai anger out of Nick. Having been misjudged by most everyone around him, he wasn’t real big on doing that to others. He handed the blanket back to Xev. “Didn’t you hear the thunderstorm?”

Xev covered himself. “What storm?” He scratched at his ear, then raked his hand through the garishly bright red and yellow hair he’d been cursed to bear, trying to smooth it down.

“There was hail, pounding thunder … a blood rain,” Kody said as she came back into the room. She eyed Nick suspiciously. “Are you okay?”

Not really, but Nick nodded anyway since he was no longer on the verge of ripping Xev’s throat out, or shifting into his Malachai form. “My mother was kidnapped from the parking lot outside.” He glared at Xev. “Did you not hear it?”

Xev brushed his hand over the ancient words bearing his cursed fate that were branded into the flesh of his torso. “You think I did it?”

“I don’t know what to think. Honestly, I’m too pissed off to really focus right now. I just want to beat the crap out of someone. And since you’re here and taller, bigger, and meaner, you make a good target, bud.”

Kody placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “That’s the Malachai talking.”

“I know. But knowing doesn’t change the fact I want to kick the snot out of whoever did this. Or failing that … whoever happens to be close by.” Nick locked gazes with Xev. “I just find it odd that no one knew where my mom was until you moved in. Now…”

“I swear, I didn’t betray you. Why would I?”

“I don’t know, Xev. I don’t even know who or what you really are. Every time I ask, you dodge the question like a bullet aimed for your temple.”

Xev finally stood to his full six-foot-six height. As he gripped the blanket around him, his angry gaze went to Kody, then back to Nick. “Fine. You want the truth? Before my powers were stripped as punishment and I was damned by the Source gods, I was the god Daraxerxes. Cousin and friend to the firstborn Malachai.”

Shocked that he finally had an answer about Xev’s past, Nick stood there as the truth slowly sank in.

Xev had known the very first Malachai.

Day-yam.

While he’d known Xev was old—the first of the Malachai’s generals—he’d had no idea just how old that was, until now. Never would he have guessed that Xev was related to the Malachai demon bloodline. That he’d actually known Monakribos. “You were there in the very beginning?”