Only You (The Mephisto Covenant Series) by Stephanie Feagan Page A

blue eyes as she begged me to bring her back – and her heartbreak when she understood I couldn’t.
    E ryx had laughed.
    He watched me try, watched Jane bleed out in my arms while I forced every ounce of energy in my body into hers, and when it was clear she was gone forever, he laughed.
    Sometimes I woke to the sound of his laughter, ringing through the years.
    I hated him with every immortal cell in my body.
    I kept my eyes on Romania and barely hea rd Jax when he said, “Key will tell us more as soon as he can. I called this meeting in the meantime because we need to all be on the same page about Mariah.” From my peripheral vision, I saw him sweep his gaze around the room. “You all got that she’s Anabo, right?”
    Everyone nodd ed. Zee said, “She has no glow.”
    “Yes, she does,” Sasha said . “It’s just very dim.”
    “ What’s wrong with her?” Ty asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jax said , “but she’s definitely Anabo, and Jordan’s sister. We owe her every courtesy and all due respect.” He looked at me then. “Phoenix, we get it, but we can’t stand aside and allow you to abuse her. For one thing, it’s cruel, but there’s also the future to consider. If she’s miserable, there’s no way she’ll ever agree to stay, as a Lumina or as Mephisto. She’ll leave because of your behavior, and that’s not fair to her, or to us. If you can’t control yourself around her, I think it’s best if you leave and stay away until she’s had time to learn and understand who we are and what we do, and decide, on its own merit, if she wants to join us.”
    I looked away from Romania and met the gaze of my closest brother. Jax and I had always understood one another, so I was well aware of the subtext in his speech: Get the fuck over it. Whatever understanding he’d had of how it was for me had dissolved the instant he met Mariah and knew she was Anabo. I wanted to leap across the distance between us and pound him until he begged for mercy. “Is this a rhetorical question, brother?”
    Ajax drew himself up. “I’m dead-ass serious. You went off the rails tonight. Either you’ve got the ability to not do that again, or you don’t. Decide. Now.”
    I took a quick assessment of their expectant faces before I refocused on Jax. “Fuck you.”
    “Not rising to the bait. Answer the goddamn question.”
    I looked at Zee, who shook his head. “Already beat the shit out of you. Not gonna happen again.”
    Ty shrugged. “I’d enjoy getting into it with you, Phoenix, but it won’t help. You need to figure out how to deal, or leave.”
    Sasha simply cocked one delicate brow.
    Denys glared at me and said in a low voice, “It’s not fair, and I’m man enough to say what everyone’s thinking. Because you’re all fucked up, you think you don’t deserve her, but at the same time, because she’s not pure and perfect like Jane, you’d rather throw her away like yesterday’s leftovers than even try . I’d take her in a heartbeat if I could. I wouldn’t give a damn if she had sex for money, or if she’d fucked every guy in Romania for free. She’d be mine . What, you think you’re some kind of special case because of Jane? No, Phoenix, all you are is a sanctimonious, self-righteous asswipe on a perpetual guilt trip. Fuck you .”
    Never in our lives had I heard Denys say something like that. I was so stunned, I had no reply.
    I was still taking it in when he added, “ Next time . . . there’d better not be a next time. We’ll send your ass to Kyanos for the next century. We spent the last century tiptoeing around any mention of Jane, always trying to protect you. I’ll be damned if we’ll spend the rest of eternity handling you with kid gloves because you can’t handle that you have another Anabo! ” He slammed his fist on the table and it cracked, right down the middle. A thousand years old, made from a Kyanos hickory, and my baby brother, the joker, the perennial party guy, the one who was