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then. Get him to his father, then kill them both. Those are your orders.”
    Gah, he made it sound so simple.
    “But—”
    “No buts!” Sraosha snarled. “I am well aware that you no longer hold sway over the younger’s emotions. Someone else is manipulating him. We can only assume that they work for the Atramentaceous Order, and before they take complete control of their weapon, we must destroy it.”
    Those words set her fury on fire. “Nick is a boy. He’s not an it.”
    Sraosha cocked a disbelieving brow. “Is that insubordination I hear?”
    “No, sir.” It was indignation and extreme aggravation that he was being so obtuse about this. She’d been raised that you didn’t slaughter the innocent on the chance that they “might” do something wrong.
    “It better not be, and you’d do well to remember your place, nekoda. I took you in when you had nothing and no one. Have you forgotten how I found you?”
    She swallowed the tears that rose up to choke her as they always did whenever she looked at the past. “I have forgotten nothing.” Especially not the demon who had destroyed her entire family and left her alone in the universe. She’d vowed over her parents’ graves that she would find the demon Malachai and destroy him before he had a chance to kill them.
    No matter what, she would stop him.
    “I will do my duty.”
    “Then you better hurry before Nick grows any stronger.”
    Nekoda lowered her head and pressed her fist to her heart in salute to her guide. But as she returned to the stall she’d left at St. Richard’s, she couldn’t stop the rush of emotions that tore her apart.
    Sraosha was right. She’d fallen for Nick in the worst sort of way and now he wanted nothing to do with her. And judging by the look he’d given her earlier, he hated her passionately. And that hurt her a whole lot more than it should.
    Who could have possibly told him what she was? She hadn’t breathed a word to a single soul. She had no real friends. No family left.
    No one should have known her true identity.
    Someone was working against her. If she could find out who, then perhaps she could spare Nick from his death sentence.
    Don’t be stupid. You know Sraosha is right .
    Sooner or later, Nick would go Malachai. The demon in him would devour every part of the human heart she treasured, and leave him nothing but a killing machine who had no mercy or compassion for anyone. He would become the monster they’d written legends about.
    Reaching up, she touched the heart necklace he’d given her.
    He was such a kind, giving soul. Respectful. Gentle. Things his father had never been.
    Our births and bloodlines don’t define us. The paths we choose to follow do. None of us have to be what we’re born to be. We have more courage and power inside us than we know. Trust in yourself, kitten, and stay true to your own convictions, no matter what others say or do. They don’t matter anyway. People will come and go from your life, but you will walk hand in hand with yourself forever. Whatever you do, don’t choose to be something you hate. I walked that path for far too long, and it’s an ugly place to live. I want you to be better, because I know for a fact that you are better than I ever was. Her father’s words haunted her.
    He had defied his birth and his parents. As had her mother and uncle. Each had chosen to be much more than they’d been born for. They had shown her strength and courage. What it meant to swim upstream through the deadliest waters and hazards.
    There will be one Malachai born unlike all the others. He will know love and if you can keep him wrapped in it, grounded by it, he can be turned from the dark that spawned him. He will be the greatest champion this world has ever known. But should he lose anchor, he will turn into the one that destroys us all. For the very love that gives him goodness is the love that will turn him to pure hatred when he loses it.
    “I have to win him back,” she