Goddess in the Middle by Stephanie Julian Page A

loved him too much to ever put a leash on him. She died protecting him. That bastard demon killed them all, then locked them in the house and burned it down around them.”
    The smile was gone, but the rage that she sensed from both Remy and Rom had turned cold, so cold it felt like ice against that part of her that only wanted to help others.
    “The demon knew we would realize they were dying. Our parents tried to block us, but we heard their screams in our heads. We were sitting in a movie theater, watching a stupid movie about some fake monster killing off idiotic teenagers while a real, live demon was slaughtering our families in our own home.”
    His gaze sharpened, and she felt him stare down into hers with something close to a blow.
    “Rom’s wrong. It wasn’t his fault the demon found us.”
    “Then why does he think that?”
    “Because a few days before, he saved a girl from an accident he witnessed at college. It was so fucking stupid, really. She tripped, something people do every day, but she fell. Rom just happened to be walking beside her at the time and he saw her heading straight for a rock on the side of the path. She could’ve died if she’d hit her head on it. He used his magic to knock her aside.”
    “So he believes because he used that tiny amount of power, the demon found you.”
    Remy nodded.
    It was possible, she conceded to herself. If the demon had been searching for them, it could have tracked their specific magic signatures and, when Rom used his power outside of the protection of the wards, then yes, it was conceivable the demon had tracked them that way.
    “But if that was the case, it would’ve had to know what general area to look at in the first place. Not even a tukhulkha demon can cast that wide a net for a specific magical signature.”
    “Rom thinks his constant back and forth through the wards gave the demon our general location, and then it just waited for one of us to use our magic so it could hunt us down.”
    “But you don’t believe that’s what happened.”
    Remy shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. Nothing matters except that the demon that killed our families is dead.”
    She paused before she asked the next question, knowing she might not like the answer but having to ask anyway. “So what are you going to do now?”
    ***
    Rom watched from the window, arms crossed over his chest as he shielded himself from Remy and Amity.
    He hadn’t lied when he’d stormed out. He’d fully intended to go for a run to cool down. He’d torn off his clothes and shifted into his pelt but then he’d stopped and taken a deep breath.
    He could still smell her. Her scent was all over him. It made him stop, forced him to think about what exactly he was running away from.
    With a huff, he shook his head, recalled his pelt and redressed. He’d meant to head straight back in and apologize, but he’d caught the gist of the conversation, and it’d been everything Rom had wanted to ask Remy himself but had never been able to force out of his mouth.
    His heart pounded so hard, he thought for sure Remy would be able to hear it as he waited for his cousin to answer Amity’s question.
    “We used to talk about returning to the den,” Remy said after a pause. “Years ago. When we were young and stupid and thought it wouldn’t take long to track down a demon and kill it.”
    They’d been chasing that fucking demon for so long, Rom had forgotten that, at one time, he’d actually had a plan for what to do after.
    Not that he and Remy had ever talked about what they were going to do. Rom had felt disloyal whenever he’d thought about life after killing the demon. As if in thinking about the future, he wasn’t concentrating enough on the present and their quest to avenge their families.
    It didn’t matter that he knew their parents wouldn’t have wanted them to become soulless killing machines, intent only on death and destruction.
    It was what they’d wanted so badly