Anya rolled her eyes to the back of her head. “What Elyssia is trying to point out is, we overlooked something ever since first learning of Jelissa’s disappearance. What if she’s in the human realm?”
This gained her a ton of swearing in response.
“Yeah, my thoughts precisely. We never got around to thinking of a contingency plan for what we would need to do if Jelissa was in the human realm, for whatever reason. With everything that’s going on in that realm right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that will awaken her sin eater side, and no doubt it will be completely starved and become a ravenous beast in the midst of an open buffet.”
Bran dropped right where he stood to sit on the ground, knowing better than anyone what his daughter would be up against should that happen. Also knowing what could happen when a starved demon went on a rampage. As old as he was, it was no longer an issue for him; in comparison Jelissa was only just a babe. Worst, she would be like a child in the candy store for the very first time. It wasn’t that a sin eater demon needed to consume sins to survive. What the consumption did was fuel their power. But the child had more than enough power within her as it was. And too much of even a good thing was just that—too much. He had no idea if she would be able to control that much power, let alone contain it, the latter being one of his greatest fears.
His other fear? If she was in the human realm, would the demon blood running in her veins make her subject to the laws of his kind? Or would her other bloodlines protect her from just that? He didn’t know. And he had never brought up the subject, or even worried about any of these things until now. And that alone made him feel like a damned fool.
Another fear: she was not a registered demon so she had no summoning name, but what if her birth name could be used as one? As a matter of fact, that right there could be something to be used in her favor. Could they summon her back home? Could it really be as simple as all that? There were too many variables, too many unknown factors to make any type of decision one way or the other.
Bran had so many thoughts and questions running around like racehorses through his demonic head but he didn’t want to bring them up because he was afraid of worrying Tia even more than she already was. He was already scaring the shit out of himself. And a frightened demon was a dangerous demon, which made one more thing for him to worry about in regard to his daughter. Then again, maybe it would make her dangerous enough to harm her captors? That thought brought a sly smile to his lips. A smile that was just as quickly wiped away by the reality of the situation.
He really did need to let them all in on all the details that being a sin eater demon consisted of. As much as he would like to not care, his little girl’s life was at stake if he didn’t. For them to even begin to formulate a plan of action, all the actors had to be laid before them.
Except for his true name. That he would still hold on to at all costs. As much as he loved and trusted his new family, that was the one thing he would never give them. Not so much he –wouldn’t – the fact of the matter was he couldn’t.
Another thing he had kept to himself all this time was he’d had Rasputin fry his summoning name from his brain before he had formed any attachments. When he’d gotten into this realm, he hadn’t wanted to take any risk of slipping up and allowing someone to learn it and use it against him in some way. One thing he wouldn’t reveal was if he did need to go to the human realm to rescue Jelissa, he would be taking the chance of being summoned. Them not knowing his summoning name meant they would not be able to summon him back, and he could be stuck there or sent back to his own realm if that happened.
Plus, chances were greater than not that she was indeed within the human realm. He still hadn’t had the chance to fill them all in on the fact their Jelissa was not the only one missing. And now that he had sat and really given himself a chance to think about the implications of which factions also had someone missing, the implications of that hit him like a Mack truck. The young ones missing were a werewolf, a vampire, and he’d also smelled an incubus creeping in the back of the mob that morning. For any type of demon to come out of their hidey hole without even attempting to mask their smell meant their young must be among those missing also. So, whoever held his daughter planned on unleashing everything within her, possibly all at once, and what better place to do that than the human realm where there was sin galore?
With a triumphant effort, Bran stood to say four words he’d never thought to utter in his entire existence. “We need to talk.”
9
The Evil Bitch That Did
Laughing sinisterly like the evil hag she truly was, Jelissa’s captor watched on several surveillance monitors as all the events she had orchestrated played out in vivid color. All her carefully laid plans were coming to fruition as she sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the show. The surprising advances humans had made in this realm were beyond remarkable, and since she had one of the younger generation of techno-mages in her
