Chapter 1

Kansas, November 9

Torr Maston would rather have fought a hundred poisonous demons bare-handed than face the man lounging on his motel room bed.

Nicholas Laith pointed the remote at the crappy TV, not even glancing away from it as Torr stepped out of the cramped bathroom. If Nicholas had found him, then more of his brothers would be close behind. They’d all gang up on him, try to convince him that he should return home. And when that failed, words would turn to force.

Torr really didn’t want to hurt any of his brothers.

“Nice shower?” asked Nicholas. His face was heavily scarred, the crisscrossing marks making it hard to read the man’s expression.

“How did you get in?”

“Electronic key card lock. Easy to open.”

Torr silently cursed Nicholas’s techie skills as he forced his words out slow and even. “Why are you here?”

“You asked me to come.”

“No, I didn’t.” Company was the last thing Torr wanted. Isolation was better. Easier.

“Not directly, maybe, but you definitely issued a challenge by disappearing like you did. You knew I’d have to come looking for you just to see if I could find you.” A grin creased his scar lines. “Surprise. I win.”

Torr instinctively moved toward his sword, only to find that it had been relocated. His sword belt was on the nightstand across the room rather than propped just outside the bathroom door, where he’d left it. “How’d you find me?”

The man who’d been his friend a lifetime ago—before Torr’s world had been shattered—shrugged and switched to the next TV station. “You didn’t make it easy. Ditched your cell phone. Ripped out the truck’s tracking devices. Never used any plastic. You really shouldn’t have challenged me like that if you didn’t want me to come find you.”

Torr’s hand tightened into a fist on the damp terry cloth around his hips. “Do you think, maybe, that I disappeared because I didn’t want you to find me?”

Nicholas shrugged again and paused for a commercial selling videos of drunken young women lifting their shirts for the camera. “Don’t care what you want. It’s time to come home.”

“No.”

“No? That’s it? I track you down after you being AWOL for seven months, and you just refuse to come back? I found you fair and square. That means I win and you have to come home.”

“Since you’re apparently no good at taking the not-so-subtle hints I left behind that I want to be alone, I thought I should make it easy for you to understand. I don’t know how to be any clearer than a single word with only two letters.”

“You’ve pouted long enough. Time to move on. Get back to work.”

“Pouting? You think that’s what I’ve been doing?”

“I know you loved the woman, but she’s gone now.” Nicholas’s voice dipped low, to that gray area between sympathy and pity.

A flash of rage ignited just beneath Torr’s skin. One second he was standing several feet away from Nicholas. The next, he had his brother-in-arms pinned against the wall with a forearm digging into his throat.

The skin between the scars on Nicholas’s face darkened from the lack of air, but the man didn’t fight back. He just stared at Torr, his bright blue gaze calm. Accepting.

Torr wished Nicholas would fight back. Smashing heads would have gone a long way toward distracting him from his misery.

But Nicholas didn’t fight. He didn’t even blink. No way could Torr hit a man who wasn’t fighting back.

With a feral growl, Torr shoved away from his brother and stalked across the room.

Nicholas rubbed at the bruise already forming on his neck. “I’ll let Joseph know you’re not fit for duty.”

For some reason that pissed Torr off even more than if Nicholas had tried to drag him back. “I fight fine. I just need you all to leave me alone.”

“So you can get yourself killed?” Nicholas shook his head and started texting. “I don’t think so. You need to stay out of the field until your head’s screwed on straight.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Are you still taking them from Joseph? Or have you stopped giving a shit about everything you used to hold dear?”

“I vowed to fight, to protect humans, to kill Synestryn. And that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s what I’ll continue to do whether you, Joseph or anyone else likes it or not.”

“Until one of the Synestryn brings you down. Which will be soon if your state of distraction is any clue.”

“I’m not distracted.”

“No? Then how did I find you? I’ve been on your trail for a couple of days now, keeping my distance. You never noticed me once.”

“Maybe you’re just that good.”

He snorted. “Or maybe I’m not and you’re in no condition to fight alone. I know losing Grace has upset you, but—”

“Upset me?” Torr stripped off the towel and started dressing so that he wouldn’t attack his friend again. “I’m so far past upset I can’t even find a word to fit where I am.”

Nicholas’s tone turned gentle. “You will get over her. You’ve been alive long enough to know it’s true. It sucks, but it’s true.”

“I don’t want to get over her. I want to be with her.”

“It’s not possible. Even if she survived, she’s on another world.”

“I know that,” growled Torr as he fastened his jeans and belted his sword around his hips.

“You have to let her go.”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do. I know all the platitudes, all the hollow advice. Move on, stay strong, life goes on.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at his brother as he confessed, “I love her. She’s still out there. She may even need me. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to change any of that.”

The metal disk attached to his back pressed against his spine as he bent over to lace up his boots.

Grace had put the disk on him—embedded it in his flesh in an effort to save his life and reverse his paralysis. The magical device had worked, leaving him whole and strong. His wounds, his pain, his weakness—they were all hers now, slowly killing her human body and stealing from him the fragile spirit it housed. He would have done anything to take back those wounds and spare her, but the device worked in only one direction. She could heal him, but he couldn’t do a thing to help her.