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Bring her to me, Malachai, and I’ll save her for you

This time, he knehose voice taunted him "Noir?"

Yes Come to me, Ambrosius And I’ll take care of you both

Nick started to obey, then caught hih, he wasn’t anyone’s fool "I’ll take care of you both" sounded like a threat to hi his attention back to her and the seconds of her life that were running out of her and down his arms

What should he do? She would die any minute now

Her life or an eternity of slavery for him?

Kody’s words haunted him now Sometimes our choices are only between lesser evils But they are our choices alone to make

Was this fate or free will?

He didn’t know And honestly, right now, he didn’t care A decision had to be

Life or death?

Slavery or freedom?

CHAPTER 13

Kody came awake in the softest bed she’d ever been in Panic tore her apart as she reone after Nick to protect hi she remembered was Nick in his de for anyone Yet the fierce Aed her not to die

Noir …

He’d offered Nick a bargain for her life

"Oh Nick," she whispered Please tellaround the room, she frowned She lay on an old-fashioned Rice bed The hand-carved testers rose al that formed a dome over her The lower part of the tray was painted sky blue with clouds In the high arch overhead, someone had painted it to look like an ancient teold and burgundy threads

She sat up, then immediately wished she hadn’t as a wave of nausea and pain hit her It was only then she saw that she earing a white flannel nightgown War to freak her out Who had removed her clothes? What had happened to her?

Where was she? She knew she wasn’t dead So inside her gown, she saw the jagged scar where she’d been stabbed All right, their fight in the Fringe Realry Who had dared to touch her while she’d been unconscious?

What had happened to Nick? Andthe living"

She lifted her head out of her gown to find Caleb standing in the doorway He had his dark hair brushed back from his face, which only emphasized how handsome a man he was

If he just didn’t have that little demon infestation problem …

"I’m at your house?" she asked

"You don’t have to sound so offended I do have people clean it, you know?"

"Sorry" She sighed wearily "You have no idea how confusing it is to wake up in a strange place with no idea how you got there"

Caleb laughed "Sure I do Happens tolifestyle "Yes, but I woke up in this bed alone"

He sucked his breath in sharply "Lo, Kode"

Maybe, but … "Are you going to tell ot here and who undressed me?"

He held his hands up in surrender "That be your boy, not me You want to bitch-slap soht you here"

That concerned her evento you about what happened?"

"Only that you tere attacked, and you went down He needed someplace safe to put you until you could heal We both decided taking you to his place would be a huge round him until retirement if he did that, not to ot stabbed, and why you both weren’t in the hospital

True On all accounts

And none of this was allaying her fears She should be dead How had he saved her?

Not one of the possibilities appealed to her They all ended with Nick doing himself harm

"Where is he now?"

Caleb checked his watch "As of an hour ago, Sanctuary He and hisover to school in a few, for parent-teacher conferences" He dropped his ar ation What do you know that I don’t?"

"Noir offered hiain We need to know if he took it"

Caleb hite as a sheet before he started cursing under his breath "He seemed like normal Nick to me when I saw him But now you have me worried, too That boy finds ue that Much like Bubba and Mark, you couldn’t leave Nick alone for fivehe shouldn’t Or that so his back was a full-ti have I been out?"

"Aled in reaction Four days? Really? "Are you serious?"

"Why would I joke about that?"