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tight that his fingers ached in protest.
    He’d bought this house as a birthday present for his mother when he’d been twenty. He could still hear her squeal of joy as he handed her the key. See her standing beside him as she stared at him in disbelief.
    “Happy Birthday, Mom.”
    “Oh Nicky, what have you done now? You didn’t go and kill someone, did you?”
    Her question had appalled him. “Mom!”
    Still, she’d been relentless as she narrowed her blue eyes on him and stood arms akimbo. “You ain’t doing none of that drug dealing either? ‘Cause if you are, boy, love or no love, I’ll beat you blue.”
    He’d scoffed at her warning. “Mom, you know me better than that. I would never do anything to embarrass you in front of your church friends.”
    “Then how you get all this money, chere? How you able to buy a house this fancy at your age? You still a baby and I couldn’t afford two bricks off this place.”
    “I told you, I’m the personal assistant for a broker down in the Garden District. He put the house in my name, but technically he owns it. He’s letting me rent it from him.” It’d been a partial lie. Part of being Kyrian’s Squire back when Kyrian had been a Dark-Hunter had meant that all of Kyrian’s properties were owned by Nick—at least on paper. This house, though, really was Nick’s. His salary was such that he could have easily bought three houses like this, but his mother would never have believed that he could make that kind of money without breaking the law.
    “Broker, hmmm. That sounds like one of those euphemisms for drug dealer to me.”
    “Ah, Mom, c’mon inside and see the book room. I’ve already got your chair there so you can read those novels you love so much.”
    “Baby, you spoil me. You know I don’t need nothing this big and fancy.”
    Yeah, but as a kid, he’d heard her crying enough times in the late night hours that she couldn’t do better for him than their rundown rented room—that the only job she could find was stripping. “My baby deserves so much better than this.” Meanwhile her parents had lived in a nice home in Kenner and had money to burn. But they’d disowned her the minute she’d become pregnant with him. His mother had sacrificed everything to keep her son—her dignity and her future. And though she cried at night that she couldn’t give him the things she thought a boy should have, by day, she was the best mom anyone could have hoped for.

Since the day he was born, it had been the two of them against the world.
    “You’ve always taken care of me, Mom. It’s my turn to take care of you. I got a big house ‘cause one day I’m going to give you enough grandkids to fill it full.”
    Nick winced as he swore he heard her laughter on the wind before she’d dashed into the house to inspect it. And as he stood there, rain began pouring down on him, soaking him to the bone.
    He’d found his mother dead in that chair in the library...
    Unrelenting pain and grief tore through him with talons made of steel. They shredded every part of him.
    How could she be gone and by such vicious means? Her throat had been ripped out and her body drained of blood. She was all he’d ever had.
    “I can give you vengeance.”
    It was Stryker’s promise to him. The Daimon lord had told him that if Nick gave him information against Acheron and the other Dark-Hunters and the Squires who served them, then Stryker would give him the power he needed to kill Ash.
    It was all Nick wanted.
    Then he heard Ash’s voice in his head. “You know, Nick, I envy you your mother. She’s one hell of a lady. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”
    “Why did you let her die, Ash?” he snarled under his breath. “God damn you!” But in his heart, he knew who was really to blame for all of this and that hurt even more. If only he’d been a better son. A better friend. None of this would have happened.
    He’d been the one who had signed on to this world where