He couldn’t honestly say he felt any grief at her passing. But maybe he was just in shock.
Nikolai had killed her.
Horrible as that may be, a part of Lucas had been right there with the big guy when he’d unleashed his power on Sadie. Something deep and dark within him had wanted her punished for what she’d done to him.
He didn’t blame Nikolai for it. That realization came as another shock. If she’d been the only casualty, Lucas could have lived with what the Liberi had done.
But the rest—the building residents. The trees around it. Power like that shouldn’t exist.
Nikolai shouldn’t exist.
At first he thought the ache in his chest was due to almost being sucked dry himself, or perhaps his over-excited state, but it grew worse as his thoughts rolled back to Nikolai being locked away. Was Lucas merely feeling empathy for someone whose inherent ability was ruling his future, through no fault of his own?
He’d been all too willing to think of Nikolai as evil. But he’d seen into the man’s head, if not his heart. Nikolai hadn’t wanted to go with them. He’d sensed raw terror from the big guy, and the struggle to do the right thing, despite it. The things the Liberi had done weren’t driven by a desire for power. He’d simply lost control while trying to save others.
While trying to save Lucas.
Lucas owed the big guy, plain and simple. Three times now, Nikolai had stepped in to pluck him from a fate worse than dying. That he’d accidentally almost killed Lucas while trying to save him wasn’t the point, really. Once unleashed, the power was beyond the Liberi’s control.
But what if he was trained? What then?
Ahead of him, Aria hesitated. “I have no idea where I am,” she confessed. “We were running. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Lucas wrenched his gaze off her hips, but not quite fast enough—her brows lowered into a scowl. Her eyes reflected her inner chaos, flaring amber. People passing on the street caught flashes of color from her distinctly inhuman gaze and were shooting her odd looks. There was only so much that fantasy contacts could explain away, and glowing wasn’t among them.
It was doing odd things to Lucas, too, but for very different reasons. “Keep your eyes down,” he whispered to her, doing the same with his own and attempting to clamp down on his unleashed and rather rampant libido. Thankfully, the cloak hid many sins. “Betsy’s place is this way.” He stepped past her to take the lead.
Aria raised a hand to tuck Mai close to her neck before lowering her eyes. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
No question as to who “he” was. Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t care, either,” she accused.
The fact she was wrong only added to his internal confusion. “He almost killed us.”
“He saved us, too.”
Lucas gritted his teeth. “Yes. Yes, he did.” Her stony silence prompted him to the truth. “I owe him.”
The stiff set of her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “I do too. So what are we going to do about it?”
Lucas glanced at her as he turned down Betsy’s street. “What can we do about it? The Watchers have him. It’s up to them, now.”
Her eyes spat fire at him from the depths of the hood. “So that’s it? Leave him to them? We have to do something to help him.”
Lucas’s gut clenched. Nikolai’s fate mattered far more than it should. When had Lucas lost control over his life? For someone who specialized in self-preservation, he’d been doing a piss-poor job of it as of late. But then, from the moment Aria walked into his dreams, his life had taken on an element of the surreal.
She seemed good at spreading chaos wherever she went. Even as they walked, humans, particularly males, were riveted by her. It amped every instinct Lucas possessed.
He admitted to himself, now, that he’d been jealous of Nikolai, because the Liberi was a good match for Aria. Tall, perfect, powerful. Everything Lucas wasn’t.
Nikolai was worthy.
It was a thought that twisted him up inside, but it was the truth. The man measured up in every category except one—the possible harbinger of death bit.
Kind of an important qualifier.
His mind flashed back to the handsome Sabre in the apartment. Every inch of the guy had also screamed “worthy.” Big, strong warrior type. A perfect match for a certain beautiful female Dragon shifter.
