"Damian ... "

"Whatever it is, it's ok," he said.

She struggled to control her emotions.

"Isac. He killed your brother."

She didn't think anyone heard her choked words. Silence followed. When she was brave enough, she looked up at Damian. He had leaned back in his seat, his face a frozen mask. She met Dustin's penetrating gaze.

"And Claire."

"Claire what?" Damian growled in a voice that bordered on inhuman.

"She and Isac."

She couldn't bring herself to say what they'd done. The words were too painful, and by the predatory stillness of the man across from her, she was terrified of what he'd do if she said it again. He rose, as if on autopilot, turned, and faced the window.

"I know you're jealous, but this is disgusting," he said in a low voice so sharp she jumped.

"I'd never do that to you," she said, unable to stop the tears she'd been holding back since the start of the evening. "She's sleeping with Czerno and feeding him the names of the new Guardians. She and Isac killed your brother. They plotted together during the hunting trip you and your brother took the day before he died. Claire lured him away from his Guardians to the warm springs by the - "

"Enough!"

He faced her, eyes whirling madly. His accusation and fury were plain on his flushed face.

"Why do you think she came here? She wants to find a way to kill you, too!" she forced herself to continue.

"You jealous little bi - "

Before she knew what she did, she'd closed the distance between them and slapped him hard. Fury bubbled within her, breaking free.

"Tonight, I've given you the last shred of me that was human!" she shouted. "I just signed their death warrants, and you think I'd stoop so low as to point the gun at someone because I'm jealous? You think I'd sell my soul because of something so stupid? I'm doing this for you! This is what I am! But you know what, Damian? f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k you!"

Hurt, she fled into the cold night air, stopping only when she reached the center of the gardens. Pierre trotted after her. She dropped to her knees and sobbed, unable to control her pain and fear.

Damian started after her, furious. Dusty caught his arm and motioned for those in the library to leave.

"You're a d.i.c.k. You know how hard it was for her to tell you that?"

Damian glared at him, his restraint on his powers rippling. Long buried rage was bubbling upward, along with the tiny instinct he'd squashed thousands of years ago.

"I can't believe "

"I believe her, Damian," Dusty said in a calm voice. "Claire's been on the European front for a hundred years. She just rotated to the southwest on orders that neither you nor Jule nor I issued, and the Tucson sites have fallen like flies. Because of her natural ability, she's been intimately involved in screening new recruits. It'd be easy for her to flag the newbies for Czerno's men."

Dusty's words floored him, and Damian couldn't help but feel hurt that his BFF hadn't told him of his suspicions sooner. He paced, mind racing with memories he could no longer suppress, thoughts of his brother, of Claire, of Darian's death. Sofia's words freed them from deep within his mind, and Dusty's hammering the fact made it impossible for him to silence them as he wanted to.

I don't know if I trust my wife, brother.

Maybe Darian hadn't been talking about infidelity but about something else. The memories came faster. Darian was chopped into so many pieces that there'd been no body to bury. Not providing his brother a proper burial the burial of a king! had sickened him. Almost as bad, how many others had died from the treachery of a single Guardian? How many Guardians had he lost this year alone?! How many humans were dead because he lacked the strength to face his instincts?

He roared and slammed his hands on the desk at the far end of the library, unable to stop the images racing through his mind. Claire was all that remained of his brother, and he'd loved her out of respect for a man whose death he'd never been able to accept. Memories of how much Darian loved Claire, of his own nights in her bed, overwhelmed him. That she'd used him, killed Darian ...

"Damian."

Dusty's soft voice brought him out of his mind, and he realized he was kneeling on the floor with his head bowed.

"Brother," Dusty whispered.

He knew Dusty was right, knew Sofia was right, knew he'd known since just after Darian's death that there was something not right about Claire but was too desperate to hold onto the last piece of his brother to face the truth. He was reliving the pain of Darian's death, sickened by his own cowardice. Darian had even tried to warn him, and he'd never wanted to see what was in front of him.

Forgive me, brother.

"I know, Dusty," he admitted in a thick voice. "I think I've always known."

"No, brother, you couldn't have known how twisted she was. No one could."

"Even someone who reads minds?" he demanded with a bitter laugh.

"Did you ever read hers?"

"No. It was Darian's rule - if you trust someone, don't do it. She is ... was the last of my family."

If he had, how many thousands of lives would have been saved? How good was a Defender of Humanity who purposely looked away from something that led to so many deaths?

"Darian's death is not your fault," Dusty said in a hushed tone.

Damian closed his eyes. Dusty knelt beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing.

"Trust me," he whispered. "We're in this together."

The words were familiar, the same words he'd spoken to Dusty thousands of years ago, when he'd discovered the youth who was not yet a man on a slave trader's block, bloodied and weeping for the family he'd just lost.

He met Dusty's pale blue eyes and saw his pain reflected in Dusty's tight face.

"These oracles are dangerous," Dusty said with a faint smile. "I forgot that part about them."

"Darian's finally dead to me," Damian said hoa.r.s.ely. "Tonight, I lose him forever."

"You've still got me and Jule," Dusty reminded him. "And a terrified little oracle who's sobbing her eyes out right now."

"I f.u.c.ked that up."

"She's resilient to make it this far. She'll be ok," Dusty said. "As for the traitors, I'm offering up my skill set, if you need it."

"You can have the others. I'll deal with Claire."

"Are you sure?"

"I should have done this long ago, brother. No one else will die because of me."

Dusty's phone dinged, and he retrieved it.

"Jule's asking if you're ok."

"Tell him we identified his Europe issue."

Damian picked himself up, grateful for Dusty's presence.

"Have the four rounded up," he ordered. "Let them sweat for a day, then do whatever you want with the three."

"Interrogation? Execution?"

"Both."

Dusty nodded and strode out. He'd not had to work too hard for confessions in the past thousand years, not after word of his cold, methodological skills leaked to the Guardians. Dusty was a one-man Internal Affairs department. The Guardians knew that betrayal would be confronted by Dusty, and even those loyal to Damian feared him appearing unexpectedly at their door.

Damian knew him well enough to know all the tales weren't true. His reputation alone was enough to make most men weep when confronted. But this time, he suspected Dusty would live up to his legend.

As for Claire ... pain spiraled through him. He waited in the library until he'd composed himself and left for his suite. He couldn't stem the memories flooding his mind and felt the wound of Darian's death reopen wider than it had originally been.

Pierre was in front of Sofia's door. He stopped, guilty yet too raw to confront her. Pierre glanced up from his video game at his hesitation.

"She sleeps, ikir," he supplied. "'Tis the best time to deal with her."

Damian snorted. Pierre's lip was completely insubordinate, and it was obvious he'd never worked for Dusty. Dusty was a stickler for formality from his men, while Jule's hemisphere was far more relaxed. Damian didn't care; Sofia liked Pierre, and he had a feeling Pierre's blunt dose of reality was soothing to her in a world where nothing else made sense.

He entered her room, emitting enough of his power to hide him from her senses. Her curtains were open, as they had been every night since she transformed. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes puffy even in sleep. Her sleep was troubled. He sensed the visions in her head, not surprised to see his own black memories playing on the screens on the back of her eyelids along with a dark nightmare of a man in a corner crying. He wondered if the man was his soul, weeping for his brother.

He sat down heavily in the corner, watching her. He was ashamed of his last words to her. She'd struggled with Claire, wanting to spare him the pain he'd unleashed on her. Her eyes had been shadowed since he met her, her own struggle with her new world taking a visible toll on her. The videos running through her head were dark and disturbing, had been since she entered his world. They drove her away from him and the true purpose of his Guardians. She was alone and segregated, partially because she was new, and partially because an oracle's soul-reading job was brutal enough that most oracles - including his mother - killed themselves soon after their full powers manifested within them.

He wanted her to see what he saw, the good his Guardians did for humanity, the courageous, selfless hearts of his men, the difference they made in fighting evil. It was a war his family had been fighting for millennia, one that wouldn't end even with his death. He ached to show her how much she meant to him, to open her closed vision of him and his world and show her the beauty that made him fight as he did.

She saw nothing but death and the darkness in every soul she ran across.

Yet she tried to learn her new role with a selflessness that struck him now as incredible. Everything she did, she did for him, even if she feared him. Jule had always said he inspired men to follow him, though he saw nothing different in what he did than what his deputies did. He'd been as gentle with her as he'd known how, and still she suffered under the weight of the visions. For the first time in his life, he felt helpless to help the small form of the woman before him.

He rubbed his face, mind going to Dusty. Despite his reserve, he could tell Dusty liked her. He suspected it was because the same mettle lining Dusty's backbone lined hers. They had similar cool reserve, unlike Damian and Jule, and had both survived ordeals that would cripple anyone else. He understood why she'd looked at Dusty before telling him about Claire. She'd found courage in a kindred soul.

He leaned forward. He'd hurt her tonight. He didn't want to hurt her. Ever. Even with all his powers, his armies, his ability to read minds, he didn't know how to make things right with her. True, they had eternity to figure each other out, but he didn't want her turning cold like Dusty or jaded like Jule. He loved her fresh innocence, her selfless courage. He loved her hugs, though he'd never experienced hugs since he was a babe. He liked that she sought him out, not the leader of the Guardians, not the White G.o.d, not the Defender of Mankind. She wanted him, the man behind the t.i.tles and the power.

He'd treated her like s.h.i.t tonight, and he was at a loss as to how to prevent the tortured existence that became the fate of most oracles.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it and transported himself out of her room. Jule's message brought him back to the unpleasant task ahead of him.

I'll be in town in a day or two. Dusty told me everything.

Grimly, he returned to his duties of entertaining his guests, feeling as if he needed to do something for his little oracle.

"Sofia."

She stirred from her trance, mind replaying scenes of Darian's death. Darian had quieted as the scenes of his violent death played through her dreams. He sat in the dark corner of her mind, still and silent.

"We must go, Sofia."

Pierre spoke from her doorway, framed against the light of the hall. The clock read 2:38.

"Right now?"

"It's important."

The thought of Czerno loose somewhere in the house made her sit up quickly. She still wore the gown, though strands of hair blinded her and she knew her pillow would be filled with makeup. Pierre eyed her and crossed to her bathroom, tossing several items into her travel bag. She fixed her hair while sliding on her shoes.

"Is Czerno here?" she asked.

"Mon dieu non!"

"Then what's the rush?"

He waved her out and led her at a quick pace to the front door.

"You look terrible," he said, considering her.

"Rough night," she muttered and s.n.a.t.c.hed her makeup bag from him.

A town car with darkened windows awaited them. She spent the next half hour in the dim lighting of the car fixing her makeup with Pierre's persistent pointers. They entered a large neighborhood and drove the same few blocks a few times before stopping in front of a large adobe hacienda walled off from its neighbors.

"Go inside. I'll wait til you enter the gate. You'll be safe."

She hesitated then exited the car and shivered in the late night breeze. The town car left as she stepped inside the gate. She knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again. It wrenched open, and a man in a black trench coat Damian's size looked her over once.

"Not tonight. Get the f.u.c.k outta here."

And slammed the door. Sofia took a step back and silently urged Pierre to hurry. Damian's men were not the type she wanted to p.i.s.s off.

"Why are you not in side, mademoiselle?" he asked, agitated as he trotted through the gate. "It's not safe out here."

"You said it was."

"It's safer inside."

Sofia swallowed a retort. Pierre pounded on the door with the discretion of a jackhammer. The door opened, and a different, blond man looked them over before stepping back.

"Pierre," her bodyguard said, clapping him on the arm.

"Everyone and their mother is here tonight. You might as well come in," was the surly response.

"What happened?"