19 15| Athena

Hillary didn't shed a tear in front of me, but I heard the warble in her voice when she told me about Ricky breaking up for her.

It was for the best, she had told me, we didn't see eye to eye on the whole psychic thing. She had shrugged it off, telling me she saw everything working out between them in the end. I understood that, but I didn't understand why she acted as if being separated from him didn't hurt her.

But I also knew she would talk about it when she was ready, so I didn't push her. It did bother me, though—if her and Ricky, the perfect pair, could break up, was there truly any hope for the rest of us?

She had just left, though, and I was watching her little black car chug sadly down the driveway and onto the road. I couldn't help myself—I pouted a little. For the past two hours, I had done nothing but talk, laugh, and cry at rom-coms. I, for the first time in weeks, was thinking of something other than Mother. It was like old times, and now that she was gone, I had to turn around and face Griffin with his black eye.

"What happened to you?" I asked, crossing my arms. Griffin was staring at me with his lips twisted up in a frown, and his good eye was glaring. I got the sense it wasn't at me, though. He also had a pack of frozen vegetables pressed to his blacked eye. "Don't you heal fast?"

"This is healing fast. Two hours ago, my eye and socket were both completely crushed."

Yikes. I frowned, walking over to him slowly. "Let me see." I didn't know what I was looking at—I had never studied anatomy in detail nor had I ever been interested in medicine—but I had saw my mom do it plenty of times when she looked for scrapes and cuts on me. On my tip-toes, I gently gripped his chin, tilting it from side to side to side. "Yep, it's definitely a black eye."

There was also some red in it, too, like some blood vessels had been burst.

Griffin snorted, amused despite himself. "Do you have your medical degree? You really do have an eye for injuries."

I giggled, putting my free hand on the other side of his face. "Now what happened to you, Griff?'

"We have nicknames now?" He pursed his lips, thinking. "I should give you my own special nickname, something like… Sushi. I know, I know, it's not the cutest nickname, nor is it very flattering, but it's personal. I can assure you, no one else will want to call you that." Griffin was rambling, looking down at me with a look in his eyes I hadn't seen from him before. His skin was warm underneath my finger tips, and I noticed he was avoiding the question.

I tilted my head to the side. "You're avoiding my question."

"You know, the thing about sushi is, many people automatically reject it, thinking it's disgusting because of the raw fish bits," he continued, looking down at me with a heaviness in his eyes. "But only the best people know that sushi is delicious, a delicacy. They know it's something for those with high class tastebuds, those who are not afraid to deviate from the norm, try anything once. Or twice."

I decided to humor him, especially since it didn't see him like I would get any answers from him anyway. "And you're one of the best people?"

He didn't answer at first, just placed his hand over my left one, his fingers lying on top of mine. It was… intimate. Paired with the look in his eyes, I felt trapped, like something was about to happen, and I had no way of stopping it.

"I'd like to think I'm the best person," he replied, his voice husky. "Athena, remember that I can read emotions. You should let go because I want to kiss you. Do more than that actually."

I should've let go. I couldn't do that to Sebastian, not when he hated his brother. I couldn't do it to myself either. Kissing Griffin was a bad idea for multiple reasons, the main one being it was Griffin. His idea of research was laying up with some naked woman while the rest of us figured it out ourselves. Nothing good could come from this.

But, my God, I needed his intimacy, his distraction, his touch.

Despite the waning bells going off in my head, I kept my hand there. "Who hurt you?" I asked again, although I knew the answer. Sebastian. The rest of his siblings were missing in action, and Luca wouldn't leave Clare long enough to hurt Griffin.

He chuckled quietly, his warm breath tickling my cheeks. "Your boyfriend, sweet Athena."

"He's not my boyfriend," I protested. Not because I wanted Griffin to forget Sebastian and kiss me, but because Sebastian wasn't. "And why?"

"Because I deserved it." Griffin pulled my hands off of his face, slowly, reluctantly. He kept my fingers entangled in his, though. "I almost let you die."

I so did not want to talk about that. "I killed the demon."

"Thank God, right?" He took a step away from me, raising my arms to my chest. My entire body went hot. "Listen, Athena, the world ending be damned—"

Shaking my head, I interrupted him. "I don't want to talk about that today." I deserved a day off from thinking about my death, at least consciously.

He sighed, letting go of my hands. "Fine, let's have a history lesson—non-Mother related. But, first, let's head upstairs because, directly after, you need to work on your hand-to-hand combat." He pointed to the saber I had lying next to me. It was second nature to carry it with me now, much like Sebastian with his sword. It wasn't like I felt much safer—I knew I couldn't do much more than I had in my dorm room—but it was also a comfort thing. Having it with me grounded me, like it was a part of me.

I sighed, letting the feelings of desire shake off of me. Without the feel of Griffin underneath my hands, it was quickly fading, leaving me to think it was some fluke. Or maybe a total normal reaction to being a young adult. Just because you had feelings for someone didn't mean you wouldn't be attracted to anyone else, right?

But how could I do that to Sebastian?

"Hand-to-hand combat?" I questioned as his words registered. "I'm not going to be fighting a demon with my bare fists."

Griffin arched an eyebrow, pushing the door open. "Just tell the demons that. 'Oh no, please wait for me to get my weapon, I can't fight with my fists.'" He mocked my voice with a super high falsetto.

"I don't sound like that."

He shut the door behind us, pointing to the ground. "Stretch," he commanded, as he sat down next to me, stretching his legs out. I scooted closer to him, until my leg was right next to his, our hips lined up. His legs were way longer than mine. He smiled down at me.

Sighing, I leaned forward, my fingers gripping my toes. "Talk." I really didn't want to hear a history lesson, but I also figured it was less about history and more about something I would find interesting. Griffin was not the scholarly type. If he had to tell me something, it wasn't exactly educational.

Griffin released his own legs and stood, putting his hands on my shoulders and nudging me down further. My muscles protested, but I said nothing. "In a minute. I have something to show you as well."

I huffed, but I let him take me through my stretches, which included thirty seconds of everything. "Demons won't wait for me to finish stretching either," I grumbled when we were near the end.

He chuckled.

I eased back up, laying flat on the ground and taking deep, soothing breaths like Sebastian taught me. In…. out…. I repeated it over and over until my heartbeat was steady, and my mind relaxed. It's the best way to fight, Sebastian had told me, standing close behind me, his hands on my shoulder. I felt his breath when he did it, and it had been the single most soothing moment in my life—nothing but quiet, us, and the sound of our breathing. I did it even when I wasn't preparing to train. If you can relax your body before a battle, you can see more clearly. Move faster. Hit harder.

"Tired already?"

I opened my eyes and saw Griffin staring down at me. "Nope, just relaxing." I stretched my hand out, and he took it, pulling me up. This time, there was nothing in his touch, no tingling, no fireworks, just a hand. Thank God, I thought, because something about being attracted to Griffin like that made me feel….guilt. "Add that to the list of things demons won't let me do before they attack." On my own two feet now, I shook my hands out, reaching down to grab my saber.

Griffin stopped me, though. "First—our history lesson. We won't go too far back because the older the history, the more boring it gets." He started walking toward the wall of weapons, one hand in the pocket of his jacket, the other hanging at his side casually.

"'Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.'"

"Ah, that is often misquoted. The correct version is—" he paused while searching the wall, turning to me with his usual grin—"'Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.'"

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe if someone had listened in their classes, we would know who Mother is and how to defeat her."

He turned back to the wall, still searching, his eyes narrowed. "Someone did pay attention—my other siblings. I figured the knowledge was in good hands," he murmured, focused. "Anyway, I thought we were going to forego the Mother talk today."

We most definitely were, and tomorrow, too, if I could swing it.

He grabbed a machete from the wall. It had a black blade, a bright blue hilt. He turned it over, a little smile on his face. "There is a tall tale in the Underworld, for the more human of us, that every good demon has a soulmate, and his soulmate has a matching Dark Weapon. That would mean we had a soul, right?"

"I would assume you do. I also think the tall tale is kind of sweet." Everyone deserved love, even demons. Love could change the tides of the world if we allowed it.

Both sides consist of seven, if love shall fail, then so shall Heaven.

I pressed pause on the thought, saving it for later. Let Griffin finish his story, and then I'd figure out where I was going with that.

Griffin walked toward me, holding the machete out. "This is my Dark Weapon. If I do have a soul, that means some woman in the world possesses a blade exactly like this. And she's all mine."

He stood next to me this time, the machete sideways. The jewel in the middle of it, a ruby, glowed. "Each Dark Weapon has a special talent, and mine is this—"

One second I was looking at the blade, and the next I was looking at myself. Not a reflection, but me walking to class, long before I knew Sebastian. I walked next to Hillary, pretending to cat-walk down an empty sidewalk in a pair of stilettos I had bought the day before. I turned and smiled in Hillary's direction, but it looked like I was focused on someone else, something else. I didn't particularly remember the day; it had been a normal one.

"It reflects memories," he explained.

I tilted my head to the side. "This was before—"

"You met Sloth," he finished. "Yes. I have a natural affinity for finding beautiful women, and you, Athena, are one of the most beautiful."

The me on the blade turned back to Hillary, hooked my arm into hers, and they skipped off into the distance, back towards our dorm. The image disappeared, and I was, once again, faced with just a plain black blade. "Stalker," I accused, but I didn't really feel threatened. I knew Griffin well enough by now to know he wasn't a danger to me.

He shrugged. "I saw you by accident; I was looking for Hillary."

"And the other times?"

A look of genuine shock ran across his face. "How do you know about the other times?"

"I didn't." I grinned.

"Right." He watched me for a second more before moving on. "Now, for the lesson—it actually starts about thirty years ago, but we'll only go back three years because it's the most important part."

I turned back to the blade. I saw a dining room—at it was a family, two little boys, twins no more than seven years old, both with shocking red hair like the man at the head of the table, and a woman with pitch-black hair and bright blue eyes. They were eating dinner in silence, the boys staring down at the table and begrudgingly eating their vegetables, the mother sewing quickly, quietly. The father was on his phone. Not a particularly joyful scene and the expressions on their face screamed misery.

The memory got worse—someone kicked the door down, splintered into tiny pieces, and, in less than two seconds, the head of the first boy rolled. The mother gasped in shock, but soon she slumped over the table, blood dripping from her chest, eyes wide with death. A voice—"Ah, this has always been your favorite, hasn't it?"

I knew the voice so well, yet I had never heard it. Not this version of it. I knew the voice when it spoke with laughter and pride, when grief weighed it down when irritation flushed through it, and when the grips of anger refused to let go. I did not know this voice that sounded so dreadfully evil. The voice of a demon sent chills up my spine.

Sebastian stepped from the shadows, his sword at the little boy's neck. The boy didn't speak, but you could see the Dad, please, in his eyes. The man put his phone down, then his fork. "Don't do this to him." The dad refused to move; Sebastian shrugged. "He's already seen the two other two die."

Without warning, he sliced the boy's neck—it was just enough for the boy to bleed out slowly, looking at his dad. "Next time, you'll do as I say." With that, he was gone, and the man was left at the table, sobbing.

My heart twisted in my chest. "This can't be—"

"It is," Griffin interrupted. "As I stated before, it started thirty years ago, Sloth's warpath, that is. We don't know what caused it or why, just that it happened. First, it seemed as if it was just for vengeance, but there was no connection to him and the people he killed. Then it was just for fun."

More memories graced the blade, showing a person after person getting killed by Sebastian. He was methodical about it, his eyes blank but his lips upturned into a grin. It didn't look like the Sebastian I knew and loved at all. This was…a demon. I finished the thought grimly. Good or not, I couldn't expect Sebastian to not fall to wicked ways at some point.

But this… this was worse than wicked.

"It didn't matter who he killed or why or when," Griffin continued as I was pelted with more scenes. "We knew it was happening, but not to the extent until I decided to check on him. I went into his apartment, saw he had three humans tied up."

The blade went blank, and Sebastian appeared in an empty room, two men and a woman hanging from the ceiling, alive but beaten. Badly. They had deep cut wounds, burns, bruises, and more. Their lips were cracked, their eyes yellow with bags like they hadn't shut them in days. And they probably hadn't—I could see their eyelids pinned to their skin with push-pins. One man had wet spots in the front of his pants.. Sebastian flickered a lighter against a knife, all the while talking. He wasn't making sense. He was talking about evil and sins and perils, disgusting human filth. He chuckled.

"I won't show you the gory details. You've seen enough of that." Griffin sighed, and the blade went blank. "The first twenty-five years, we did and said nothing because, well, we're demons. We all had a dark period, but none darker than Sloth.

"He killed people—men, women, children. Nothing and no one seemed to matter to him, not even us. Cold-blooded, quick, like assassinations. He wasn't the brother we had grown up bullying. No, he was something much worse."

Despite the proof in front of me and the sickness in my stomach, I didn't want to believe him. That wasn't Sebastian. Not the one who made me pancakes when I stayed over. Not the one who carried me over puddles, paid for everything I wanted, and let me drive his expensive cars down the highway.

Yet, I couldn't ignore the other side of Sebastian. The side that tortured, maimed, and killed demons for fun. The wicked look that gleamed in his eyes sometimes. The anger that manifested into his hunting sprees. I hadn't cared before because they were just demons, demons I believed needed to be sent back. But humans—kids—

I—

"That's enough, Griffin." This wasn't a history lesson; this was slandering my best friend. "Stop it."

I had no reason to disbelieve Griffin. None at all. And I did believe him. The tears in my eyes, the bile rising from my stomach. The hammering of my heart against my chest. All of it because I knew Griffin showed and told me the truth.

Griffin glanced down at me with calculating eyes. "Don't sound so put off, Athena. We're not at the end of the lesson yet." He put the machete down, though, holding my gaze instead. "So the murders went on and on, across the country. By the time I got to him for that family, his body count had risen into the hundreds. He had killed more people in one year than heart diseases had."

It was obviously a joke, but I was in no mood to laugh.

Griffin continued, giving me a look that said he didn't appreciate that I didn't appreciate his joke, "It didn't seem like it would stop, so I took matters into my own hand. Like I said before, I was searching for Hillary. She had been the family psychic for some time, yet we had never crossed paths. Besides making people act on their greed, I did nothing except sleep around, travel, and try expensive food and women. Sometimes both at the same time."

This time, I did crack a tiny smile. "Get to point, Griffin."

He smiled slightly. "Don't rush me, I'm the teacher.�� He tossed the blade into the air, never breaking eye contact with me. "You didn't notice me, but Hillary knew who I was. She met me at a restaurant later that night, a pretty blonde. I didn't waste time for introductions, I just needed to know one thing: was there hope for Sloth, and what would it be?"

The blade came down, and he grabbed it mid-spin, holding it between his fingers. The blade shined, and he held it out to me. I saw Hillary across from him, a daring look in her eyes. This was pre-Ricky. She was definitely flirting, twirling her hair around her finger. I knew that move very well; I had tried to mimic it, but I ended up looking silly. My flirting was all in the eyes—soft looks, heavy looks, heated looks.

"You know what separates good people from bad people, Athena ?" Griffin didn't wait for me to answer. I looked up at him, saw him giving me an intense look. "Their soul. We are all born with a soul, even us demons, if you can believe it.

"With each bad deed, we lose another piece of it. For some—like Hitler—the pieces become so small and fragmented that they crumble away. For the rest of us, we store the few good pieces we have left in other people—family, friends, lovers, etc., etc. I once knew a man that only hung on to his good side because of his dog. No matter how much wrong he did, that dog still stood there everyday and waited for him to get home with excitement. It gave him hope.

"My point is, the things we place our goodness is are the very things that redeem us. They're what makes want to get up in the morning and be better people. They're the things that make us somewhat proud for every decent deed we did that day when we go to sleep. Do you get what I'm saying, Athena?"

Not at all. I stared at him blankly. "We need to get Sebastian a dog?"

He rolled. "How did you—you know what, never mind. Continuing on. Hillary told me that there was only one thing in the world that would save Sebastian from himself, and he wouldn't get to it for another three years." Griffin raised the blade eye level with me.

In it, I saw Hillary talking to Sebastian in a home. In her hand, she had something that was making Sebastian look sick to his stomach. She was motioning wildly with her other hand, trying to get him to understand something. It was turned toward him, so I couldn't see what it was yet. Sebastian took the picture from her, though.

"She left then, told me it was out of my hands now, that only she could help Sebastian. Three days later, she found us at his apartments, no torture victims, thank God." He shuddered dramatically. "She came in and walked up to him, shoved something in his face, and told him, 'This. This right here is your saving grace. If you want to deserve her at all when you get her, you'll stop whatever the hell you're doing.'"

Her. My heart fluttered. With disappointment. A girl had been his saving grace. I wished Griffin had been talking about the dog.

���And then, quietly, she put the picture in his hand—because that was what it was—and folded his fingers over it, and told him, in the most stubborn but gentle voice she could, 'Because that girl is my best friend. And if you hurt her at all, I'll have to kill you.'"

I took a deep breath. My hands trembled. The blade showed a picture of me, smiling in a Halloween costume. I was a cat—something cheap I had gotten about three hours before the Halloween party—and I had my tongue out, a peace sign up. Sebastian's hand cupped the photo. Griffin was staring down at it. Griffin pulled the blade away from me, obviously thinking I had seen enough.

"He stopped after that, quit cold turkey. Of course, in typical Sloth fashion, he brooded over it for a few days—holed himself in his room to think about the evils he had done. Honestly, I couldn't even get him to drink with me," Griffin grumbled. "Then he came out of his room, and he started dedicating everything to righting his wrongs the best way he knew how—by destroying every evil he could. Whether it was putting humans in prison, helping solve crimes, banishing demons back to the Underworld.

"I, of course, left after I saw that he had been set on somewhat of a strait and narrow path. I could go back to my expensive women and food. The rest is history. Or, rather, the present." He walked away, back towards the walls of weapons. "Do you know, Athena, what his Dark Weapon is?"

I nodded. "His sword." He kept it strapped to the back at all times, and he never went anywhere without it.

Griffin grabbed something off the wall. "Wrong. It's this." He showed me a saber, identical to mine, except with the black blade. It had the same white-gold hilt with the designs carved into it. The onyx jewel was a ruby, though, winking at me. "He chose this Dark Weapon when we were kids. About twenty-two years ago, he found yours in a town in Alabama he was driving through. It wasn't too far from the beach."

I looked at the blade. It was absolutely beautiful. "What does it do?" I asked. I loved the pretty look of mine, the purity and strength behind the pearl blade—but Sebastian's black blade was gorgeous. It was dark and enchanting, a little dangerous and powerful. "And why doesn't he use it?"

He shrugged. "Ask him those questions. I don't have the slightest idea." He hung the saber back up on the wall.

If Sebastian had a matching Dark Weapon to my First Blade, then that meant, if the tall-tale was true, he was my soulmate. I didn't even know if I believed in those. It could be worse, I thought, but it wasn't like I even thought Sebastian was bad. I was just dumbfounded. Not surprised, though. If I was being honest with myself, I had felt the slightest connection there from the first time I locked eyes with him.

I inhaled, wishing I had foregone the history lesson and just learned hand-to-hand combat instead.

"My siblings, all we've ever wanted, if we took a second, to be honest with ourselves, is love. Whether it comes familial, romantic, platonic—although, you can see how giving birth to a demon would make any mother skeptical to love their child. My birth mother was the most Christian of them all, and even she couldn't judge not." He spun around, giving me a look that made me take a step back. Griffin stalked toward me, a chilling smile on his face, his movements precise and lethal. "I didn't really believe in love or the story of soulmates with matching weapons, no matter how appealing and romantic the idea of slaying together was. So when I saw your face—the face of the woman I had been waiting for—I didn't really care if you were the one to hold whatever good was left of his soul."

Griffin was in front of me now. On instinct, I swung at him, and he captured my wrists easily. Granted, it was a lazy, off-balanced hit.

There was no way Griffin had wanted me. It changed nothing, but it did make sense as to why he was so apt to keep me safe.

I gave him a dark look, the earlier desire replaced by panic. Sebastian, I thought, wishing he could read minds and come save me. What did Griffin have planned? "Why did you tell me this?" I demanded.

He ignored my question. "I came here to see how deep this bond went, if the little legend was true," he pressed on, putting my wrists at his chest. "See, I thought seeing how he felt about you, feeling it, would make me change my mind about how much I wanted you, Athena —but it had the opposite effect. Every time I feel the same thing he feels when he sees you, I feel like I'm falling for you, too."

Deep breath. Relax. I could take Griffin. When you can't outfight them, out-think them, Sebastian often told me. "You're not in love with me, Griffin."

Griffin had done his share of horrible things, too. I didn't have to know his story to know that. I also knew, without a doubt, that I would let Sebastian's past remain his past. We'd have to discuss it, and—God, this was so stupid, but he wasn't that guy anymore. And what kind of person did it make me care about human deaths but not the demons who only came to this plane to live?

A horrible, selfish one.

My brain scrambled, trying to connect everything. The line from the prophecy. Sebastian being my maybe-soulmate. Griffin thinking he was in love with me, when he desired nothing more than to have sex with me. Mother. My life being in ruins. How to get out of this room without being harmed.

Griffin only chuckled. "Don't be so afraid, Athena. I have no intentions on hurting you." To prove his point, he released my wrists and stepped back. "I do, however, think I am in love with you. I've never felt like this about someone before."

"It could totally be a crush. I get it, I'm cute—"

"You are also smart, funny, brave—"

"You've never given other women the chance to show you that part of them." My saber was across the room.

"I am a very good brother to Sloth. But also, I am a demon—an unredeemed one at that." He strode closer, his eyes on my lips. He wanted to kiss me. No, he was <i>going</i> to kiss me.

I leaned away from him. "Griffin—earlier, I—" I was sputtering, unable to get the words out. There was somebody out there for Griffin; she just wasn't me. I couldn't say that, though, couldn't find myself doing anything except staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

<i>Sebastian, please, now is the time to just teleport in here with your anger, beat the brakes off your brother, and get me out of here.</i>

Sebastian was my soulmate. He was also a murdering machine. Griffin thought he was in love with me. Griffin needed to find his soulmate. This was a lot to take in, and Hillary would definitely be getting a call later because she could've warned me against this. I knew she had seen it. She had to have.

He leaned closer, his lips an inch from mine. "Athena." My name was breathless, a prayer on his lips.

"Griffin," I warned.

Would he kiss me without my permission, thinking he knew what was best for me? Would Sebastian finally arrive as Griffin kissed me and think something was up between the two of us? Should I just kiss Griffin—all I had was a tall tale and a small crush on Sebastian. He probably wasn't my soulmate.

"I can feel the conflict within you," Griffin murmured, his lips at my ear. "Relax, it's just one kiss."

A kiss I didn't want, soulmate or not. "Sebastian hates you." My voice shook. Not with pleasure, not with fear. Nerves. He was making me nervous, and not in the good way.

"He hates all of us," he said hoarsely. "We killed his family."

They killed his family. His words were ice over my head, on my skin. "Why?"

"Not important." He sounded frustrated. Used to having his way with women, I wasn't acting in a way he liked. "What's stopping you, Athena?"

What was stopping me? Sebastian and I were just friends. I had kissed other guys before, dated others. If we were soulmates, neither of us confirmed it or knew it. We didn't owe each other anything. I could kiss Griffin today, and another of his siblings tomorrow, and it shouldn't matter.

But it did. Because he hated them, and he had sacrificed his feelings to keep me safe.

Also, I really didn't want to kiss Griffin, despite the moment earlier, despite the heated look in his eyes now and his incredible handsomeness.

I balled my fist and punched him in the stomach, anger coursing through me. "You manipulative bastard," I growled as Griffin doubled over in shock. "You evil, conniving prick."

Griffin stood up, a smile on his face, disappointment in his eyes. "That's not the worst thing I've been called."

"If you loved me," I said, ignoring him, "you would have never shared that with me. You weren't warning me or tryin' to convince me that Sebastian had somehow been saved. You wanted me to be disgusted by him."

He only lifted a shoulder in response. "Oh, believe me, I do love you, sweetheart. My methods may have been a little… unorthodox, but I had the best intentions." He tilted his head to the side. "Does it honestly not bother you that he murdered children?"

Oh, it did, but it was something I'd come to terms with later. It was also something I would never tell Griffin. "Tell me your sins, Griffin. Since you're so perfect." This time, I advanced towards him, ready to throw him through the wall and down the stairs. My bravery came with the door opening, something I distinctly heard behind the roaring in my ears. "What from your past do you need saving from?"

His eyes flickered. "Tell me, are you curious why doesn't use his Dark Weapon?"

I saw his question for what it was—a last attempt to throw me off, to make me rethink how much I adored my best friend. Oh, I was curious, but I also knew Sebastian, and I knew he had a reason for everything.

"He doesn't use it because he doesn't want to," I answered, my voice carrying in the silence. It lacked that deadly growl Sebastian's had, but the intensity was present. Later, later I would demand answers.

"Sebastian is my best friend, and absolutely nothing will change that. He would give his life to protect me—the least I could do is forgive him."

Silence.

His murders were not mine to forgive, though. Perhaps Sebastian could start with the families. Maybe ask for forgiveness. Forgive himself. If he even felt at all sorry about what he had done. And if he didn't? How did that make me feel?

I had so much to think about, so much to contend with.

<i> He's a demon.</i>

<i> He's your best friend.</i>

<i> He's still the man you've always known.</i>

<i> Would I forgive a human murderer? </i>

I risked a look at Sebastian. His glare was dark, pointed at Griffin. "If Athena so much as breathes in a way that makes me think she's hurt, I will make sure you never wake up."

I held my breath.

Griffin had the audacity to look truly frightened. He looked at me. "Call off your dog."

Sebastian didn't look at me. His eyes remained laser-focused on Griffin. However, we had been friends long enough for me to know he was aware of my every movement. If I nodded my head, he would see it and end Griffin right there.

"I need someone to teach me hand-to-hand combat," I said, sparing Griffin. Later, when all this was done, let them fight it out amongst each other. "You aren't the best at it."

Griffin's eyes shuttered with relief.

Sebastian smiled. "You should learn to fight two people at once anyway. You won't always be one-on-one."

Great.

Between his anger and Griffin's irritation, I was in for it. I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. "Right. Let's get to it."

Sebastian and Griffin had kicked my butt. I was littered with bruises and sweat. After they literally sept the floor with me, they had gone downstairs for a "talk," and I had hit the shower. Now I spread across Sebastian's bed, icing a particularly painful bruise on my shoulder (courtesy of Sebastian's fist). I had caught the hit accidentally. It was supposed to go to Griffin, but I hadn't been aware of the plan.

Sebastian hadn't said much to me, and I hoped his reluctance didn't come from fear at my reaction. I was confused, yes—but I had meant every word I said to Griffin. This changed nothing about our friendship.

<i>Soulmate</i>, I thought, blowing out a deep breath. Did I believe in those? If they existed, was he truly mine?

Sighing, I looked over as my phone buzzed. An unknown number was texting me. I wished it was Hillary's response to wordy, accusatory text demanding an answer as to why she didn't warn me about what would happen with Griffin. Instead, the answer surprised me.

<i>This is Clare. Your cousin. Call me as soon as possible.</i>