by Karen Lynch
She replied immediately. See you then.
Smiling, I stuck my phone back in my pocket and resumed walking.
“You again,” said a voice so cold it chilled me to the bone.
I jumped as Faolin stepped out of the doorway of the building I was passing. The faerie’s face was hard as he closed the distance between us, and a knot of fear formed in my stomach. My first thought was to flee, but there was no way I could outrun him.
“What do you want?” I asked with false bravado, but the slight quiver in my voice betrayed me.
He stopped in front of me, and his scowl was even scarier up close. “I will ask the questions. Who do you work for, and what is your interest in Lukas?”
“I don’t work for anyone, and I have no interest in him.” Could Faolin have somehow overheard me talking to Tennin?
“Try again, and I want the truth this time.”
“That was the truth.” Anger replaced some of my fear. Did this guy have a problem with me specifically, or was he this paranoid with everyone?
“Is that so?” He moved until he was in my space. “Why is it that before last week, I’d never laid eyes on you, and now you’re suddenly everywhere we go?”
I stood my ground, despite the instinct to back away. “I could say the same thing about you.”
His lip curled angrily. “Really? You expect me to believe that you being in this neighborhood is a coincidence?”
“I was visiting someone. And what’s so special about this neighborhood?”
“Who were you visiting?” he demanded, ignoring my question.
“I’m not telling you that.”
He leaned menacingly close to me. “Because you’re lying. I’m giving you one more chance to come clean with me.”
My mouth went dry at the threat in his voice. “I’m not lying.”
“Have it your way.” His hand closed around my wrist in a bruising grip, and he set off down the street, pulling me along beside him.
“Let me go!” Panic filled me, and I struggled helplessly to yank free from his hold. I tried to reach for my stun gun, but it was on the opposite side from my free hand and I couldn’t get to it.
Humans and faeries passed us on the sidewalk, and every one of them gave us a wide berth. Not one person tried to intervene, even though I was clearly being dragged off against my will. What the hell was wrong with people?
We reached a building that looked like it used to be a retail space at one time. Instead of entering the front door, Faolin led me around to the back where several SUVs were parked. A brick fence that had to be at least ten feet tall separated the private parking lot from a garden, if the trees and vegetation peeking above the wall were any indication.
Security cameras and motion lights were mounted on the building and wall, and there was an electronic key pad on the door. The building owner was serious about security, and I had a strong suspicion I knew who that was.
Tennin’s warning came back to me as Faolin pulled me toward the door. He switched his hold to my other arm so he could enter the code, and my hand went immediately to the stun gun in my pocket. I was debating whether or not I was brave enough to use the weapon on him when his voice startled me from my thoughts. I looked up into his cold, knowing eyes.
“Don’t even think it.” His gaze dropped to where my hand was hidden in my pocket. “Your toy will not work on me like it did on the elf, except to piss me off.”
I let my hand fall to my side. He hadn’t physically hurt me so far, but I didn’t doubt he would if I provoked him.
He unlocked the heavy steel door, and it swung inward, revealing a small foyer. More cameras watched us from the corners of the room, and to our right was a second door with another keypad.
Faolin led me none too gently into the foyer, and I fought to control my breathing as a sense of impending doom hit me. I felt like a sacrifice being brought to the monster’s lair, and my imagination went wild about what was waiting for me inside.
Chapter 9
The inner door swung open before we reached it, and I saw one of the other faeries who had been at Teg’s with Lukas Rand. His eyes were lit with curiosity as he watched us approach, but he said nothing. He merely stepped back to allow us entry.
Faolin pushed me through the door. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but it was not the large, inviting living area. I saw a massive gas fireplace, brick walls, brown leather couches, and a large window overlooking a patio and the garden I’d suspected was behind the wall. An island separated the kitchen from the rest of the room, which had a distinctly masculine feel to it, and a flight of stairs led to the second floor.
My mind couldn’t process having so much space. You could probably fit our entire apartment in just this room.
Faolin shoved me down on one of the couches, reminding me this was not a social call. “Stay,” he commanded, towering over me. He looked past me at the other faerie. “Where is Lukas?”
“I’m right here.”
Lukas Rand descended the stairs. He wore jeans and a gray Henley with the sleeves pulled up to display his muscled forearms. Even casually dressed, he carried the same air of dangerous authority he had the other times I’d seen him.
“What’s going on?” Lukas walked over to stand beside Faolin, and I had to fight the urge to squirm under their scrutiny.
“Caught her hanging around during my walkabout,” Faolin told him.
Indignation surged in me again. “I wasn’t hanging around. I was walking to my car and minding my own business when you stopped me and dragged me here.”
Ignoring my outburst, Faolin looked at Lukas. “She claims she was visiting someone, but she refuses to say who.”
“Because it’s none of your business.” I tried to stand but Faolin put a hand on my shoulder and shoved me back to the couch. I smacked his hand away. “Will you stop manhandling me?”
Lukas crossed his arms over his chest, the action pulling his shirt taut over his shoulders and making him look even bigger. His unsmiling eyes met mine. “Seeing you twice in a week could be labeled a coincidence, three times is pushing it, but four is one too many to ignore.”
I frowned at him. “Four times? This is only the second time I’ve seen you since that night at Teg’s, and not by choice I might add.” I shot an accusing glare at Faolin, who answered with a sneer.
“And that day in Manhattan before Teg’s?” Lukas asked pointedly as if I had a clue what he was talking about.
“I never saw you in Manhattan. Before this week, I barely even left Brooklyn except to…” I trailed off as I thought about the day I’d crossed the bridge looking for a job, the day I’d hidden the elf boy who had turned around and stolen my train money. That had also been the last day I’d seen my parents. Had it really only been a week ago?
Then I remembered the faerie watching me before he’d gotten into a car and left. “That was you on the other side of the street.” How had I not recognized him at Teg’s? He wasn’t exactly forgettable.
“So, you admit you were there,” Faolin said as if I’d just confessed to some heinous crime.
“I have no reason to deny it. Last time I checked, there was no law against me going to Manhattan.”
Lukas eyed me suspiciously. “For a person who rarely leaves Brooklyn, you have a habit of popping up wherever we are.”
I huffed angrily. “I said I didn’t leave Brooklyn before this week, but things have changed. And trust me when I say I’m starting to wish I’d never laid eyes on you.”
“What changed?” Lukas asked.
My chest squeezed. “It’s personal, and I’d rather not discuss it with you.”
“You seem to be under the illusion you have a choice,” Faolin cut in. “We have ways of making you talk.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as a lump of ice formed in my belly. His expression told me he could and would carry out that threat, and he’d probably enjoy it.
A door opened, and several sets of footsteps soun
ded behind me. A moment later, Conlan and the other two faeries came to join Lukas and Faolin. I shrank back against the couch at the sight of the five large males looming over me.
“Goddess, what have you done to her?” Conlan demanded. “She looks ready to faint.”
Faolin didn’t take his eyes from mine. “We’ve done nothing…yet.”
Conlan shot him a dirty look and sat on his haunches so we were at the same eye level. “You okay, Jesse?”
I shook my head, afraid to talk and show them how shaken up I was. I’d been less scared of the bunnek yesterday than I was of Faolin. I remembered Tennin’s warning to steer clear of Lukas and his men, and I swallowed convulsively.
Conlan’s smile was kind. “No one’s going to harm you. I promise.”
He stood and faced Lukas. I couldn’t see either of their faces, but the edge in Conlan’s voice told me he was no longer smiling.
“What is this, Lukas? We don’t harm innocents.”
Faolin laughed harshly. “She might have fooled you, but not me. She’s up to something, and I mean to find out what it is.”
“Not everyone is a threat to us.”
“That is for me to decide,” Faolin said.
Conlan’s voice grew harder. “You can question her all you want, but I won’t allow you to harm her. That is not who we are.”
“Have you forgotten what is at stake here?” Faolin growled. “Would you risk his life for some female?”
His life? Who were they talking about?
“He will always come first,” Conlan shot back. “But you know he would not approve of this if he were here.”
“Enough,” Lukas barked in a tone that brooked no argument, but did little to ease the tension in the air. He stepped around Conlan to look down at me for a long uncomfortable moment before he said, “Come with me.”
I didn’t move. “Where are we going?”
Annoyance flashed in his eyes, and I knew he wasn’t used to being challenged. “Somewhere we can talk alone, unless you’d rather stay here and talk to Faolin.”
That got me on my feet. I skirted around an angry, protesting Faolin, giving him a wide berth, and followed Lukas through a door I hadn’t noticed. I almost had to run to keep up with his long strides as he led me down a short hallway to an open door.
As soon as I saw where we were, some of my apprehension left me. It was a library with a large polished desk in one corner and two upholstered chairs near the cold fireplace. The room had a manly feel to it from the navy-blue drapes on the window to the dark hardwood floor.
Instead of sitting at the desk, Lukas walked over to the chairs and motioned for me to sit. I did, and he took the other one. It was my first time alone with him, and his presence seemed to fill every inch of the room. He was still formidable, but it was his raw masculinity that I found most disquieting.
He wasted no time with small talk, and the first words out of his mouth took me by surprise. “I apologize for the way you’ve been treated in my home,” he said with the stiffness of someone not used to issuing such statements. “We have good reason to be suspicious of strangers, but we should have handled this better.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you. Does this mean you’re letting me go?”
“That depends on you. I have no wish to harm you, but I won’t risk the lives of my men either. You’re going to have to answer some questions to prove I’m not making a mistake by letting you leave.”
I tensed. “What kind of questions?”
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze locked with mine. “Let’s start with what brought you to my neighborhood tonight, and we’ll take it from there.”
“I didn’t even know you lived here.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Who were you visiting?”
I clasped my hands in my lap. “I can’t tell you.”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “Then you should make yourself comfortable because we will be here a while.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” I blurted. “Trust me; I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here.”
Lukas was unmoved. “You’re not making a great case for your freedom.”
I couldn’t betray Tennin’s confidence, especially to people he feared. But if I didn’t tell Lukas something, he wasn’t going to let me go.
“You know I’m a bounty hunter,” I said, and he nodded. “The person I came to see is a confidential informant who helps out on certain jobs. That’s why I can’t tell you his name. I gave him my word, and I won’t break it.”
I expected him to push me on it, but he switched gears. “You said something changed in your life recently. What was that?”
“I told you that’s personal.”
His stare was unrelenting. “You have to give me something.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper. The last thing I wanted to do was discuss my parents with him. For all I knew, he could hate them because they’d put away some friend of his, and he’d hold that against me. But I couldn’t see any other way out of this.
My shoulders slumped in defeat. “A week ago, my parents went missing. The last day I saw them was the same day you saw me in Manhattan, and I’ve been looking for them ever since. That’s why I was at Teg’s. And I was at the Ralston the other night because I found out they were there the night they disappeared.”
I hated the way my voice cracked, making me feel small and weak. No matter how many times I talked about their disappearance, it didn’t get any easier.
Lukas studied me for a long moment, his expression telling me nothing of what he was thinking. Finally, he asked, “What do your parents do?”
“They’re bounty hunters.”
His brow furrowed as if something had just occurred to him. “James… Patrick and Caroline James?”
My pulse leaped. “You know them?”
“No, but I’ve heard of them. They’re well-known in New York.”
I lifted my chin proudly. “Because they’re the best in the business. That’s why it makes no sense for them to disappear the way they did.”
“And how did they disappear?”
Feeling a little more at ease with him, I told him about the job they’d been working on and how they’d gone out that night to see their informant. I described the disturbing call from my mother, and I was emphatic about them never going off without telling me.
He rubbed his jaw. “This is the first I’ve heard of their disappearance. Why aren’t the other hunters looking for them?”
“Because they were told not to,” I said bitterly. “The Agency is running everything, but they’ve decided my parents are working with that goren dealer. Anyone who knows my parents will tell you that’s insane.”
Lukas rested his elbows on his knees. “So, you’re searching for them on your own?”
“If I don’t, who will?” I asked defensively.
Something resembling admiration flashed in his eyes. “How long have you been a bounty hunter?”
I squirmed self-consciously. “Less than a week.”
He didn’t try to hide his surprise. “You just decided to become a hunter?”
“No one would tell me anything. People in this business don’t open up to outsiders, even if you’re the daughter of hunters. The only way I could get them to take me seriously was to become one of them.”
“Did it work?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. But being a bounty hunter gives me freedom I didn’t have before. Now I’m going to do what I should have done from the start. I’m going to track down the goren dealer my parents were after.”
“The world goren dealers operate in is nothing like what you know,” Lukas said grimly. “It’s treacherous and inhabited by the worst of society. You’ll be lucky if you come out of it alive.”
I shivered as a chill went through me. “I know, but I have to try. They’re my parents, and I’m all they have.”
He sat back in his chair,
and I stared at my clenched hands. For a long moment, neither of us spoke, and I could only hope I’d convinced him to let me go. He no longer seemed angry, so that was a good sign, right?
He stood abruptly, and I lifted my head to watch him walk out of the room. I was debating whether or not to follow him when he returned. My stomach lurched sickeningly when Faolin entered the room behind him, looking no less contemptuous than he’d been when we got to the building. Then Conlan came in, and some of my dread eased when I saw his reassuring smile.
Lukas sat on the corner of the desk. “Faolin is the head of my security. Tell him what you told me. He’s going to check out your story, and once he’s satisfied you’re telling the truth, you’ll be free to leave.”
One look at Faolin told me he wasn’t happy with this arrangement. What if he wasn’t satisfied even after I told him everything? What would they do with me?
I nodded at Lukas, avoiding Faolin’s icy gaze as long as possible. “Okay.”
I repeated my story, and a few times, Faolin interrupted me to ask questions. His tone and the types of questions he asked made it clear he was trying to trip me up and show I was lying. But that didn’t happen because I was one hundred percent honest with him.
The only time I refused to answer a question was when he demanded the name of the informant I’d visited tonight. Not even his glares and unspoken threats could make me give up Tennin to him.
I did show them the paper Tennin had given me with the name and address of someone who might know where I could find the goren dealer. Faolin took a picture of the information with his phone and said he’d check it out.
I filled them in on what I knew about the goren job and that the dealer was an elf. I also relayed my suspicion that the elves who attacked me near the Ralston might be working for the dealer.
When I told them about the two faeries who had tried to break into my apartment, my interrogators exchanged indecipherable looks between them.
“How do you know they were faeries?” Faolin demanded in his drill-sergeant tone.