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She blinked up at hien

"Tell me where Sidonie is," he said, his voice hard and uncoan breathlessly, struggling for enough air to speak Her head rolled from side to side in denial "I don’t knohat youher in their cool glow

"Wrong answer," he growled

She shrieked as he ripped herand found nothing And when he was finished, he dug his fingers into her chest and squeezed her heart like an overripe toers like soruesome puree

When it was all over, when Silas had become part of the bloody mud on the floor of the warehouse, Aden stood If she’d had any power left, he’d have absorbed it willingly, but by the time he’d killed her, she’d been drained of every ounce He closed his eyes against the inevitable adrenaline crash and felt Bastien and the others gathering around hith

"She didn’t know anything about Sidonie’s kidnapping," Aden said quietly

Bastien gave him a worried look "Then where is she?"

"I don’t know"

"We should go, h the s in theto burn away this ers will strip thelanced around the nearly empty warehouse "If any of herthe sentence There’d been no one left to survive Silas’s death

"It’s late, my lord," Bastien reminded him It was late, much later than he’d planned The business with the dead doorman and its follow-up had taken far too much of his time And he wondered if someone had planned it that way, soood to curse the rising sun and its implacable effect on his va and fluently Sidonie was out there soh of her blood that he’d have known if she died Unfortunately, there were far worse fates than death He had experiencedfor her? That he wouldn’t stop until he found her?

He drew a deep breath as they exited back onto the street, grateful for the fresh air As cold and wet as it was, it was an improvement over the warehouse, which had beco blood and ash

"Is it over,to look at Aden as he opened the SUV’s door

His lieutenant was asking if the night’s battle concluded the challenge If Aden was now Lord of the Midwest

Aden nodded, but waited until they were in the SUV and on their way ho into detail "Silas was the last er that I know of It’s possible sos for the rest of us to kill each other off, but I haven’t heard of any"

"But then, how do you claim the--"

"That’s Lucas’s call He’s the current Lord of the Midwest in fact, if not in spirit I’ll notify him of hting h," he added thoughtfully, "if Silas had tried to claiht for it"

"Or simply sicced Raphael on her," Bastien muttered

Aden chuckled "You’ve met Raphael, Bastien Does he strike you as a vahtened in a rare grin as he looked over the seat at Aden "I think Cyn could get aith it"

They shared a tired laugh, and Bastien said, "So, you inforodforsaken ranch of his in the middle of nowhere, and he forht in drunken revelry, and then we co But before we do any of that, I need to find Sidonie It wasn’t Silas who kidnapped her, so as it? And what do they want?"

"Could it be that unknown challenger you talked about?"

Aden frowned, shaking his head "Maybe It doesn’t sound right, though It took manpower to take Haer in toith the numbers to do that, I’d have heard about it Da the rippling heat inside his skull that warned hi sun was nearly to the horizon

"I can have soht people put out feelers toive us a head start in the search for her"