Page 71 of Devi
Hewas in our backyard, topless and wearing sweat pants. He must have just got infrom a run. My eyes rested on his damaged hand. The fingers were healing andgrowing back, much to our amazement. There was a thick scar at the base of eachfinger where it was severed but the new bone and skin was coming in. He sensedme but didn’t turn. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his largechest.
“Whatnow, Kai?” I whispered.
Heturned to me with yellow, haunted eyes. Devon’s death haunted us all. Kaialways had a plan for everything; I was hoping he had a plan to find and killLayla. To stop the thing from growing inside of her.
“Alekcontacted me. He told me where Layla lives and so I sent Max and a few othersover there to scout it out.”
Hopebloomed inside my chest. We could go there tonight and take her out, but Kai’sface didn’t look happy.
“Itwas burned to the ground recently and because we can no longer smell them. Hertrail runs cold.”
Genuinefear gripped me. Images flashed through my mind of what would happen now. Laylawould get pregnant and …
Kaigrabbed the side of my face.
“Stopworrying so much. We will figure this out. We need to regroup and deal with thehumans finding out about us. The President wants me to join him in a pressconference. To settle the humans’ fears about our kind. Besides, Sylvia can’tfind Layla either, that dark witch is hiding her. It takes nine months to havea baby, right? We have time to make a plan to find her and kill her once andfor all.”
IfKai thought I was waiting nine months while that thing grew inside of Laylabecause of me, he was crazy. But he was right. We had shaken up the human worldwhen he revealed our race, we needed to contend with that first. I noddedreluctantly.
“Wewill lay low for a short time, help smooth over things with the humans. Stopthe riots. Then we find Layla. We end this,” I told him firmly.
Heswiped the hair across my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. “We end this,” heechoed, “together.”
But I felt theDevi stirring restlessly inside of me. We may end it together, but I may notlive to see beyond it. I tried to hide that feeling from Kai, but the desperatelook on his face told me I hadn’t.
“Together,” hesaid again, barely holding onto his humanity.
