Opposition

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Dee shoved her hand at his chest. He only moved at the last second to avoid a direct hit to the heart, but he took an up-close-and-personal blast anyway. I cried out as he went down, his sister right on top of him.

  I knew in that instant that she would either really hurt him or kill him unless he treated her like the Luxen he’d just taken out.

  Archer had the other Luxen engaged as I shot forward, making up my mind.

  Daemon might hate me if I ended up having to kill his sister, but I’d rather he despise me than hate himself for hurting her worse.

  I grabbed handfuls of her long hair and yanked her off Daemon. She hit the floor, arms and legs sprawled like a crab. She looked up, eyes glowing like diamonds.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I said. “You—”

  Dee popped up. Like didn’t even bend her knees, just shot right up and was in my face. “Oh, you have no idea how badly I want to do this.”

  Then she drew her arm back and cold-cocked me right in the face.

  The impact knocked me away, and I landed on my butt as pain lanced through my jaw and down my neck. Blinking fresh tears out of my eyes, I stared up at her.

  “That felt so good,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “I think I need to do it again.”

  Oh, it was on like Donkey Kong.

  I lumbered to my feet, nowhere near as gracefully as Dee. Behind her, a Luxen zipped into the room just as Daemon rose. They two of them collided at the same moment I slammed my fist into Dee’s jaw.

  Her head snapped back, black tresses flying out around her in a way that made her hair look like Medusa’s snakes. Dull pain flared along my knuckles, but there was no time to really pay attention to that.

  Dee launched herself at me, grabbing my ponytail and jerking on my neck. A fiery sensation coursed down my spine, and I reached up, digging my fingers into her arms. She didn’t let go, and there was a good chance she was going to rip my head off.

  Time to get dirty.

  Twisting in her grasp, I gripped her arms as I brought my knee up, shoving it right in her lady parts.

  Dee shouted hoarsely and let go, bending over as I straightened. I clutched her hair and brought my knee up once more, connecting with her face. She went down on one knee as I stumbled back, breathing heavily.

  “Please,” I gasped out. “This isn’t you, Dee. Whatever this is, it isn’t you—”

  She was up and her hand was bonding with my cheek in an epic smack, spinning me around in a little circle. Holy crap, that stung.

  Dee slammed her hands into my back, knocking me onto my knees as she wrapped a slender arm around my neck and squeezed.

  I gasped, fighting for air.

  The little training Daedalus had taught me kicked in, and I grabbed her hand and then threw my weight forward. She went right over my shoulder, landing hard on her back.

  She shouted something too furiously for me to understand, and I struggled not to find something sharp and plunge it into her eyeball. “We’re best friends,” I told her, pushing to my feet as she rose. “Don’t you remember? We’re best friends, Dee.”

  “You’re just a stupid human.” Bluish-red blood trickled from her lip. “Because that’s all you are, underneath it, just a fragile, useless human who bleeds easily.”

  “Jesus. It’s like I’m a muggle to your pure-blood or something.”

  She just glared at me.

  I backed up, keeping an eye on her. This so wasn’t the time for Harry Potter references. “We planted flowers together and you borrowed a lot of my books and never gave them back. You made Daemon talk to me and be nice—you hid his keys. And you—”

  She tackled me to the floor, clawing and pulling my hair.

  We were in full girl-fight mode.

  Both of us had a hold of each other’s hair as we rolled across the floor. I gained the upper hand for a second. “We hung out together on Halloween and watched stupid movies. And we fought Baruck together—”

  Dee flipped me, her nails tearing the collar of my sweater. “None of that means anything.” She grabbed my shoulders and slammed me back down with enough force that I was stunned for a second.

  For long enough.

  Hauling me up, she screamed as she spun around—spun me—and the next second I was flying through the air. I hit the wall. Plaster cracked and gave way. For a second, I could see clouds of white dust fly everywhere and then I was in the den, toppling over the back of a couch, hitting the floor.

  That—that bitch! She’d thrown me through a wall!

  I lay on the floor, unable to move as I stared up at the ceiling, blinking out the tiny stars clouding my vision. There was a ringing in my ears as I forced my body to shift onto its side.

  Dee climbed through the Katy-size hole in the wall, which was pretty big. Good Lord, she wasn’t going to give up.

  Hands shaking, I pushed myself to my feet, breathing through the unholy burn surrounding my ribs and back. There was probably a lot of stuff broken, important stuff.

  She landed on the couch and then dived at me with murder in her expression. I darted out of the way at the last second, and she hit the coffee table behind me. Glass shattered.

  Now she looked stunned as she stared at the ceiling, her chest heaving. I didn’t give her a chance to recover.

  I landed on her, my knees digging into the broken glass, and slammed my hands onto her shoulders. “We’re best friends,” I tried again, not knowing what else to do. “You picked out my fake name—from one of my favorite books. You gave Daemon his new name.” I shook her, rattling her head back and forth. “You were picturing Archer naked not that long ago and you wanted one perfect night with him.” Her hand connected with my face again, wringing a pain-filled grunt from me. “We’ve been through some harsh stuff, but we’ve always made it out together, even after what happened to Adam.”

  She went wild, like some kind of demon straight out of a nightmare, smacking and bucking, kicking and scratching.

  “You and Adam tried to help me,” I shouted at her as I pinned her with all my weight, straining to avoid her swinging hands that hit my face and chest. “Do you even remember Adam?”

  “Yes!” she shrieked. “I remember him! And I remember—”

  “Me being the reason for him dying?” Every part of my body ached, and I could feel blood in a lot of places, some really uncomfortable places, but I had to get through to her. I had to. “It was my fault. I know that! And I’ll never fully forgive myself for what it did to you and to our friendship. But we got past that, because you’re like a sister to me.”

  Dee froze with her fingers curled along the torn hem of my shirt, like she was about to rip it straight off me, and at that point I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if she had.

  “Do you think he’d be like this now? Adam loved everyone, and he would’ve hated this war—hated what his kind was doing to innocent people.” I watched the white light fade from her green eyes. “He would’ve hated what has become of you. Can’t you see that? You’re better than this. You’re—”

  Dee threw her head back and she screamed—screamed like I was trying to murder her, and I eased off, raising my hands. The horrible, wretched sound was like a wounded animal, something dying. She shuddered under me and squeezed her eyes shut. Both of us were still for a handful of seconds, and then she screamed again, until the sound was raw and pained, until I thought there was a good chance she might be dying.

  “I’m sorry,” Dee whispered as another great tremble rocked her lithe frame. As I stared down at her, trying to catch my breath, trying to process the two words, her beautiful face crumpled and big, fat tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

  20

  { Daemon }

  As the last Luxen dropped to the floor in a messy pile, I whipped around to where I’d last seen Kat and Dee. There was a massive hole in the plaster, exposing the wooden frame inside the wall, and that had also taken a hell of a beating.

  They’d go
ne through the wall.

  “Good God.” My stomach dropped as I stepped over the dead Luxen and darted toward the open doorway that led into the other room.

  I kept telling myself they had to be alive—both of them—because I would’ve felt it if either of them suffered a mortal wound. It did nothing to slow my racing heart or to ease the sick feeling curdling in my stomach.

  Archer was standing just outside the den, his shoulders rising and falling in deep breaths. He didn’t say anything as I pushed past him, stumbling to an abrupt stop. The room was absolutely destroyed—the couch broken, TV smashed, and vases shattered on the floor. Piles of dirt and shredded petals were embedded in the carpet.

  My desperate gaze zeroed in on the middle of the room, and damn if my knees didn’t almost give out on me.

  They were on a smashed coffee table, Kat on top of my sister. They weren’t fighting, but both seemed frozen. I was frozen. Then I heard it. The deep, destroyed sounds of a person breaking wide open.

  Kat, her hair half in the ponytail and half out, lifted her head and shuddered, then rolled off my sister and slowly rose to her feet. She backed away, running shaky hands over her messy hair. She looked over at me with wide eyes. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth, and each breath she expelled seemed to wheeze out of her.

  I started toward her, but stopped. My gaze swung back to my sister. When Kat had climbed off her, she’d rolled onto her side, curled up into a tiny ball. The sounds—the sounds were coming from her.

  “Dee?” My voice cracked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her arms folded over her head. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” And that was all she kept saying, over and over again between the sobs.

  Glass crunched under my feet as I walked to where she lay, and when I reached her side, my knees did give out. I landed next to her and gently placed a hand on her shaking shoulder. “Is it really you, Dee?”

  Her sobs grew more ragged, and there was a stream of words from her bouncing around in my skull. Most of it incoherent, one giant run-on thought, but there was no mistaking what it meant.

  Somehow the connection to the rest of the Luxen had been broken. I didn’t know how, but it didn’t matter.

  I gathered her off the ruined table and glass and sat back, pulling her against me, and she scrambled closer, like she used to do when she was small and was afraid of everything. As I held her close, I carefully picked out the pieces of glass stuck in her hair, in her clothes.

  “God, Dee . . .” I tucked her against my shoulder. “You about killed me, you know?”

  She was shaking as her fingers gripped my arms. “I don’t know what happened. They came, and what they wanted was all I could think about.”

  “I know.” I closed my eyes, smoothing my hand up her back. “It’s okay now. Everything is okay now.”

  Dee didn’t seem to hear me. “You don’t know the things I did or what I was thinking, what I was okay with them doing to people.”

  But I did. At least some of it from the short period of time I’d been around her while she’d been connected to them. The things I’d seen and heard her do were things I forced myself not to acknowledge, because they hadn’t been her fault.

  And so I told her, over and over, that none of it mattered and none of it was her fault. She started spouting crazy shit, like her being evil, and the crap broke my heart. Tore me right up.

  “What you did was their fault. Not yours. If you ever believe anything I’ve told you, you believe that.” I folded my hand over the back of her head, willing her to accept my words. “You don’t have an evil bone in your body. Never have, Dee. Never.”

  The trembling eased a little as I held her, and I don’t know how long we sat in the wreckage, but when I opened my eyes finally, the room was a little blurry.

  “It was Kat,” she said, her breath coming not as fast as it had been before. “She did it. I wanted to kill her. Oh God, Daemon, I really wanted to kill her, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “As we were fighting, she kept talking to me, forcing me to remember what it was like . . . before they came.” Dee pulled back, her lashes thick with tears. “And it was about Adam.” Her breath caught on his name. “She was talking about him, and I remembered more than just the pain and the anger. I don’t know, but it just snapped, and suddenly I was looking at her and I wasn’t hearing any of them anymore. My thoughts . . . they were my own.”

  I closed my eyes again briefly, promising myself that I’d repay Kat a millionfold as soon as I had the chance.

  Once Dee settled down enough that I knew she was okay and wasn’t seriously injured, I looked around the room. I hadn’t realized that Archer and Kat had left. Concern for Kat worried away at me now that I knew Dee was going to be all right.

  I helped her stand. “How are you doing?”

  Dee wiped the tears and blood—bright red blood that couldn’t belong to her—from her cheeks with the sleeves of her dark sweater. My heart thundered in my chest as she took a deep breath. “I’m okay, but Kat . . . It got pretty rough between us. Oh God, she probably hates me now. Like really—”

  “No. She doesn’t hate you. If she did, she wouldn’t have tried to bring you back. Kat loves you like a sister, Dee. In fact, she’s kind of like your sister now.”

  That statement pulled Dee out of her troubled thoughts. Her nose wrinkled. “What do you mean? Because that sounds a little . . . weird considering what you and her do and all that.”

  I laughed, and damn, it felt good to be standing in front of my sister again and laughing. “Kat and I are married.”

  Dee stared at me and then blinked wide eyes. “What?”

  “Well, we’re not really, really married, because we did it with our fake IDs when we were in Vegas— Ow!” I stepped back, rubbing my arm right in the spot where Dee had punched me. “What was that for?”

  “You two got married and neither of you told me?” She stomped her foot, shimmering eyes on fire. “That’s so wrong! I should’ve been a part of it.” She spun around. “Where is she? I’m seriously going to hit her again.”

  “Whoa.” I chuckled as I grabbed her arm. “Can you wait to hit her again until we make sure she’s okay?”

  “Oh yeah, probably a good idea.” Then she whirled around and threw herself at me, circling her long arms around my neck, and I stumbled back a step. “You two really did it?”

  Dee’s lips trembled into a small smile and not the kind I’d seen on her lately. Not cold. Totally her. “That’s amazing,” she whispered as she pulled free. “I’m happy for you—for her. But I’m still going to punch her. After we make sure she’s okay. Oh God.” Her face fell. “What if she—?”

  “It’ll be okay.” I placed a hand on her back, steering her out of the living room.

  First person I saw was Archer. Of course. And he wasn’t looking at me at all. Oh no. His face was pale, his eyes wide and pupils dilated. Shaken up. I’d never seen him look quite like that before, and I sure as hell didn’t want to acknowledge why.

  “She’s outside,” he murmured, staring at Dee, who was also staring at him, and they were like two people who had never seen another person before. Damn. “She’s okay.”

  Dee was staring at Archer, and I bit back a curse. Her voice was low in her throat. “Go.”

  At least she’d forgotten about hitting Kat. I resisted the urge to warn Archer to do . . . well, to not do anything, but as I walked toward the doorway to the foyer and stopped to look back at them over my shoulder, what I saw should’ve had me going off like a rocket.

  I hadn’t heard either of them move, but they were standing toe to toe, and Archer was touching her cheeks with only the tips of his fingers as he gazed into her eyes. There was something sort of poignant about the moment. Yeah, I sounded like I’d be writing love sonnets by the end of the year, but in a moment of empathy and maturity I really hadn’t realized I was capable of, I didn’t lose my cool.

  She needed this—she needed Arc
her, and who in the hell was I to begrudge her the solace when I had my Kat?

  Blowing out a breath, I headed toward the front of the house and cringed when I saw the front door across the room. Oh, Lore and Hunter were gonna be pissed.

  Kat was sitting at the top of the steps, curved slightly inward. As I walked around her and down the steps so I was in front of her, she slowly raised her head and her gray eyes met mine, reached right inside me, and squeezed my heart.

  “She’s okay.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.

  I nodded as I knelt in front of her. “Because of you.”

  She shook her head.

  “Yes. She told me what you did. She could’ve killed you, Kat.”

  “I know, but . . . I didn’t want you to have to fight your sister, to have to hurt her. I didn’t want you to have to ever make that choice and live with what happened.”

  It made me love her more than I thought possible. I placed my hands on her knees and leaned in, pressing my lips against her