Page 8 of Hybrid Heroics

“It’s doing the same thing over and over again—”

“And expecting different results?” I widened my eyes. “Does that sound familiar? But no. I wasn’t talking about Albert Einstein. I was thinking more along the lines of Ray Bradbury. He said, ‘Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.’ Have you ever thought about that?”

Alric narrowed his eyes. “Can’t say I have.”

“Shame,” I mumbled, glancing into a mirror that showed me perceived failures.

Only now, I didn’t see it as the failure I once did. Reagan had explained what happened in the camp, and York had helped me piece together our memories.

I wasn’t looking at my failure anymore. This was Alric’s.

His magic flared to life behind me, raising the hair on my arms as it flew into the mirror, changing the reflection.

I stared at Papi, watching as he talked to the rest of my parents.

“She’s not worth the trouble anymore,” the Second Devil of Hell said, his voice slightly higher in pitch than it was in real life. “Why are we still going through all this—”

I snorted. “Try again. You might not like Sam, but he would never say I wasn’t worth the trouble. He’s been in at least a quarter of the trouble with me.”

I didn’t bother explaining that this mirror only showed failures. There were others for the emotions of feeling unworthy or unwanted or regret.

His magic whirled again, light to the touch. If we weren’t in my mind, I wasn’t positive I would be able to feel the miniscule flow.

York appeared next, his arms wrapped around another woman’s waist as he twirled her long brunette hair around his fingers.

First, we had too much history for me to even entertain this lie. Second, if my druid’s hands were that close to anyone’s ass, he was absolutely going to grab it. Third, my fae was the one who played with hair. York only cared if he could pull it to get a better grip or angle during sex… Or that one night in the Ivy Buffalo when we met for the second first time.

I swiped my hand over the mirror, internally grinning as I showed Alric the demise of his eldest daughter. Another failure on his part. He had perceived short-comings when it came to his offspring, because he didn’t produce the prophesied Child of Kings. The actual issue I had with this was he knew she would die when we came face-to-face, and he thought her expendable.

His magic rolled a little stronger with the next image. My mates popped up, sitting around an unfamiliar kitchen table as they debated if they’d made the right call. I watched closely, noticing the vacant look in Novak’s usually liquid gold irises.

“Why bother?” Stone asked them.

Briggs laughed. “Good sex?”

“That’s not enough to deal with this shit,” Palmer rumbled.

I rolled my eyes as I clicked my tongue. The mirror blacked out before Kelvin’s camp showed in the reflection in snippets.

Me, hiding in the shadows of the cell as Alric walked by.

Destroying the camp with my guys. Kelvin’s head rolling across the floor, another of the Moore bloodline erased from this world.

And then I kept going, just to piss Alric off.

My heel in Kadence Moore’s chest. Her head in my grasp before I tossed it at the feet of vampires.

Satan’s death by Lilith’s katanas. The demonic rebellion fried to a crisp as their ashes mixed with the sand of the Lilk desert.

Anna and Katie’s sloppy work with the shifters they’d captured. Their deaths.

Getting Alric’s files before the drunkards and their deaths. Gary Brown’s death after we outed him to the mage council for his involvement with Alric.

Ralph’s death. Alania’s death by Vaughn’s hand.

I gave him a systematic replay of how I’d foiled all his thought-out plans in a matter of weeks. How we’d methodologically picked everything apart to get closer to him. I left out all the chaos and emotions and bullshit in between.

But the bottom line was there.