Horror washed over me. “But you have a plan?” I asked.
He nodded. “I take this info public.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m trying to come up with a way to show what Spector is doing. If I can leak it to the supe communities, the public outcry will be huge. The council is blinded by power, and controlling information is what they do best. But if the public finds out what’s going on, the council will be forced to act against Spector in order to save face. The public won’t want our leaders holding that much power or bringing demonic hybrids to the world. Demons are already feared and even hated in some circles. They won’t stand for this, and hopefully, we can get Spector shut down.”
It all seemed to click into place. “Can you really make that happen?”
“I’m trying,” he said impatiently. “It’s not easy. They watch our every move in here. And the timeline just got moved way up since you brought in that demon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my words quiet.
Stiles seemed stressed and tormented, and to my surprise, Cheryl left my side to give him a hug. He tucked her under his chin like he’d done it a thousand times, and my brows rose in surprise. “We’ll figure it out, sugarplum,” she cooed. “You’re my big strong man.”
Okay. That gross little sentiment yanked me out of my pity party like a rotten tooth.
“I know, princess. I’ll get us out of here,” my brother replied while stroking her hair.
Gross.
Ignoring them, I looked around the room, searching for Crow and Tomb. I needed to speak to them and figure this out. Maybe we could come up with a plan to help Stiles. Not to mention I needed to be held and comforted by people that understood the intensity of our bond and the betrayal I felt over Risk’s trick. Plain and simple, I just wanted my mates—my real mates. I needed them.
“Do you know where Tomb and Crow are?” I asked.
Cheryl stilled.
Stiles looked guilty.
I felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest. “What happened?” I asked in a rush. “Where are they?”
“Oz was pretty pissed when Belvini took you away. He…” Stiles’s voice trailed off, making me want to shake the words out of him.
“Where are they, Stiles?” I asked again, but this time it was Cheryl who answered me.
“They’ve been in the training room since you left. It was…loud. I heard screams.”
I didn’t waste a single second. My heels were marching over to the first guard I could find, protective need spilling out of me in a trail of thick webs as I went. I wasn’t about to lose the two mates I cared about. Risk might have ruined me, but I still had them, and they still had me. I would protect them with every fiber of my webbed being.
I stopped in front of one of the guards that had dragged me here, staring him down with a deadly look as my spider rushed forward to intimidate her prey.
It only took four simple words spoken aloud to get what I wanted:
“Bring me to Oz.”
Chapter 20
“I was wondering how long it would be before you showed up.” Oz greeted me the moment I entered the training room. I barely heard his cocky words. I was too busy staring, horrified at the scene in front of me:
Tomb and Crow standing in a capsule of hellfire.
The clear, vertical coffin was ignited with deep blue flames, burning away their skin and flesh, leaving nothing but pearl white bone. But I knew it was them. My mate bond gnashed and roiled inside of me. Tears immediately swarmed into my eyes and started spilling over my cheeks as I watched their bodies burn. They couldn’t even scream because their throats were coated with the flames that consumed them whole. Curling cells, ashy organs, charred existences all contained in a glass cage.
“Stop it!” I screamed, sprinting toward the enclosed case. I pounded on the glass as my entire being shattered. Up close, I could see their bubbling bodies decomposing in the ravenous flames. I sobbed uncontrollably, my chest constricted with a devastating pain that was indescribable.
Oz simply laughed.
There was so much blood. It pooled at the bottom of their cage, mixing with devious destruction. It couldn’t tell which skeleton was which. The air was singed with the smell of burnt skin and agony.
“Your gargoyle is stubborn. He could shift at any moment. His loyalty is pathetic,” Oz explained at my back. I turned to face him, murderous determination sending sharp webs through my fingers and tumbling to the floor.
I was going to kill him.
“Stop it! Just fucking STOP IT!” I screamed, the words scraping my throat raw.
Oz looked amused by my rage, his eyes glittering with dark excitement. He was getting off on hurting my mates. I had no idea how long this had been going on. While I was fucking Risk, they were being burned alive. Bile coated my throat.
Oz lazily pulled his tablet out and clicked a button on it, turning off the steady stream of hellfire.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset. It’s not like they can die,” he said as I turned back to face my mates. It was torturous, waiting for their bodies to regenerate. Molten, steaming tendons, muscles, and fat covered their skeletal forms collapsed on the ground. Blood appeared, a heart began to pump with vigorous intent. Lungs expanded and filled with air. Eyeballs burst from their sockets, and screams escaped their scorched mouths the moment the breath of life filled their chests.
Sobs racked my body as I fell to my knees and caressed the glass separating us.
It took so long. So long for their bodies to heal and regenerate. Bones, muscles, organs, skin, hair. It was like a macabre puzzle being put back together.
When their skin knitted back together, the blackened char receded completely, leaving healthy and blemish-free skin behind. Their eyes opened as if they’d been asleep, and
