My captor snarled, his grip never loosening. My heart sank. Clearly, I was too weak to pose even a mild threat to them at this point. Caspian Werther stepped in front of me and grabbed me by the chin, using the punishing grip to push me to my knees once more.
“If you know what’s best for you, wretch, you’ll stop fighting and accept your fate. You don’t belong here.” His voice sent shivers up my spine. “This is our realm. You are not welcome. Your very existence is a criminal abomination.”
The last bit of hope drained from me. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said, hating the defeated tone of my voice. “Why are you doing this?”
Werther made a dismissive sound. “Why does one swat a fly?” he asked.
The guy behind me grabbed the hood of my jacket and used it to pull me upright, then he and his buddy were hustling toward the car again. Toward a fate I could barely imagine.
The roar of a motorcycle engine cut across the background of city noises, growing louder by the second. It sounded like it was moving fast—far too fast for a parking lot. It also sounded like it was coming this way. I dragged my aching head up, trying to see where it was coming from. The glare of a single headlight half-blinded me.
“Is that—?” one of my captors began, only to be cut off by Werther.
“Move!” Werther snapped.
Before he could take his own advice, the engine roar grew deafening and a large, dark shape hurled past me, so close that the wind of its passage ruffled my hair. The motorcycle sideswiped Werther, sending him flying. His body hit the pavement hard and rolled.
Tires squealed on pavement as the motorcycle slewed to a stop, and a dark form stepped off of it. My heart leapt into my throat as a familiar figure with wind-whipped black hair and the ethereal face of a dark angel strode toward us, reaching over his shoulder to pull a sword—a fucking sword—from a sheath strapped to his back.
“Rans?” I cried, wondering if I’d just suffered a psychotic break and was hallucinating wholesale now.
He spared me only a brief glance, and when he did, his eyes were glowing… lit from within by the bluest of flames. Before I could do more than gasp, one of my captors was rushing him, an extendable truncheon snapping to full length in his hand.
“Get in the car, worm,” hissed the one still holding me.
Only one option occurred to me, since I’d already had it proven that I didn’t have the strength to fight them. I went absolutely limp, flopping to the ground like a sack of potatoes despite the agony in my shoulders as the man tried to keep me upright using my bound arms. I forced every muscle to go lax, making myself a dead weight.
Let the asshole try to get me in the damned car now.
Somewhere behind me, metal clashed and I heard the thump of flesh on flesh. I wanted desperately to crane around and look, but I didn’t dare. Someone grunted, and the man trying to drag me the last few feet to the car hissed like an angry cat.
“Get your hands off of her,” said a familiar British accent, from very close by.
I did crane around then, only to find Rans standing a step away from my captor, towering over me like an avenging angel in black leather, sword in hand.
“Our Queen will hear about this, parasite,” growled the man holding me.
“I have no treaty with your Queen. And I did warn you,” Rans replied calmly. The sword flashed, and my captor screamed, staggering back to land with a thump against the black Mercedes as he clutched the stump of his right arm.
Something wet had flopped onto the pavement next to me. I very carefully didn’t look, but that didn’t stop my gorge from rising at the knowledge of what had just happened. Rans leaned in and grasped me by the upper arm, helping me stagger to my feet. He turned me to face away from him and murmured, “Hold still.”
With the faint rasp of a blade against hard plastic, the zip tie binding my wrists snapped and fell away. Pain shot through my shoulders as I jerked my arms free of the unnatural position they’d been bound in.
“Time to leave,” Rans said grimly, sheathing his sword and hustling me toward the bike.
I staggered, stumbling over my own feet, praying desperately that this unexpected final burst of adrenaline would hold long enough for me to cross the hundred or so feet separating us from the motorcycle. A firm grip kept me upright, and we were almost there when movement caught the corner of my eye.
“Werther!” I gasped, as the crumpled figure rose with impossible grace from where he’d been flung by a high-speed impact mere moments before.
Rans was already spinning me around, stepping sideways so that his body was between me and my miraculously recovered tormentor. I felt Rans’ body jolt with some kind of impact that drew a soft grunt from him. Before I could respond, we were moving again, and he was dragging me onto the bike behind him, gunning the engine.
I threw shaky arms around his body, scrambling for somewhere to put my feet. Werther was running… charging toward us, a vicious snarl twisting his too-perfect features. Panic clutched me as I stared at his fevered eyes. His outstretched hands. But then the bike peeled away, leaving me to cling to the solid form in front of me as Rans accelerated away from the scene of carnage in the parking lot.
My breath was coming in great, rasping sobs, and it felt like I couldn’t get enough air. I leaned against the broad back in front of me, and my eyes caught and held on the flash of silver metal and the finely wrought wooden handle protruding obscenely from Rans’ left shoulder.
It was a knife. Werther had thrown a knife at us as we’d been running for the bike, and Rans had purposely shielded me and taken the hit.
“Your shoulder!” I cried, the wind trying to whip the words away as soon as I uttered them.
“Least of our worries right now,” Rans called back.
A flash of light in the motorbike’s round little rearview mirror dragged my attention away from the horrible sight of the dagger protruding from Rans’ flesh, and I twisted to look over my shoulder. Car headlights followed us, careening crazily as the black Mercedes jumped a curb to come after us in the most direct line possible.
“Hold on, luv,” Rans warned. “Things are about to get interesting.”
TWELVE
MY HEART RACED AT about a million miles an hour as I maintained my death grip on Rans’ waist. He wove the motorcycle expertly along the darkened streets of downtown St. Louis, not allowing the Merc to gain ground. I was hopelessly disoriented, but I had the vague idea that we were circling back, approaching the Civic Center again. Rans braked sharply and swerved into an alley with cars parked along one side.
There was no way the big Mercedes could follow us, even if Werther was willing to mow down smaller cars and crash through them like bowling pins. We emerged on a different road and Rans continued his unpredictable path through the city, speeding down one-way streets, barely clearing stopped cars as we wove between them at stoplights, repeatedly slipping past cars coming at right angles to us on cross-streets, with mere inches to spare. Horns blared in our wake, but it was inconceivable that Werther could track us this way in his massive, ungainly vehicle.
Rans slowed down for an almost sedate left turn, then twisted the throttle and rocketed onto a freeway onramp, making my body slide back sharply before I caught myself. He merged with traffic and accelerated, speeding along, passing cars right and left—even moving all the way over to the center shoulder to swerve around a few.
The city flew by in a blur as we screamed along the expressway.
Rans zipped through a gap and sped down an off-ramp, exiting the freeway after what had probably been only two or three miles. I was clutching him so tightly that I didn’t know if I’d be able to pull my fingers loose once we eventually stopped. My joints felt frozen in place. Petrified.
But… it appeared we had lost our tail.
Rans drove the bike through a narrow alley somewhere behind Enterprise Center. The bike jumped as we left the pavement and drove along the verge running beside the train
tracks, gravel spitting from beneath the flying tires. I fretted silently about possible dead-ends or unexpected drop-offs, but there was method to Rans’ madness. The next thing I knew, he’d followed a concrete culvert up a gentle slope and hopped onto the I-44, heading west.
My chest hurt. My head hurt. Everything hurt, but for that moment, I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on Rans’ uninjured shoulder, just breathing. In, out. In, out. In, out as the wind whipped past us.
After a few minutes, I chanced raising my head and recognized where we were. This was the Central West End, site of many of the city’s tourist attractions. Rans exited the interstate and drove sedately through traffic, heading toward a fashionable apartment building across from Forest Park, near the Zoo and Art Museum.
Rans turned into the driveway and headed down a ramp leading to a secure basement parking garage. He stopped to punch in a code at the gate, and the barrier lifted.
“Almost there, Zorah. Stay with me for a bit longer.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. All I could do was hold on as the bike pulled into the underground parking area, my head swimming now that we were no longer speeding through the night. Finally, we came to a complete stop, the engine rumbling into silence. Rans braced the motorcycle upright and deployed the kickstand, letting out an audible breath.
We sat there quietly for a few seconds before he finally spoke.
“You can open your eyes now.” A hint of dry amusement colored the words.
I scowled at his back. “Shut up. They’re open.”
God. I’d almost forgotten what that accent of his did to me. I knew I should still be terrified out of my mind. Yet something about being here alone in this anonymous basement garage with him settled my nerves. I felt surprisingly safe. Protected, for pretty much the first time in the last two days. It was a feeling I’d almost forgotten in that short space of time.
“Are they, now? I’m glad to hear it,” he said. The amusement was still present, but tempered now with a hint of tightness around the edges. “In that case, you can do me a favor.”
“Hmm?” I hummed, lost in my post-adrenaline haze.
“Be a dear and pull the knife out of my shoulder, would you? It’s an awkward angle to get it myself.”
That woke me up fast. I stiffened, straightening away from him despite the screaming protest from my body. “What? I… don’t—”
“Grab the handle, and pull straight out. One smooth movement,” he said patiently.
My stomach churned its displeasure at this idea, but what else was I supposed to do? I gingerly wrapped my fingers around the burnished wooden handle and tugged. The blade slid free with a terrible sucking sensation.
“Cheers,” he said, as though he didn’t have a bleeding hole in his shoulder. “You might as well hold onto it, now that you’ve got it. Silver’s not much use against Golden Boy and his ilk, but that much of the stuff will be worth a few quid, at least.”
I stared at the dagger stupidly. It was a work of art as much as a weapon. The rivulets of crimson that stained the blade resembled rich brushstrokes of paint on a master’s canvas. My gut twisted. Something about the thing gave me a milder version of the feeling I got when I was around Werther.
“Is this seriously made of silver?” I asked in a faint voice.
He snorted. “Oh, yes. If it had been steel, my shoulder wouldn’t feel like it’s burning from the inside out.”
“I don’t like it,” I said, still staring at the finely crafted knife.
“Really?” he replied. “That’s rather interesting.” He rummaged in a pocket and passed a clean handkerchief to me. “Believe me when I say I’m not too chuffed about it either… but hold onto it for me anyway.”
It took me longer than it probably should’ve to understand that the handkerchief was so I could clean the blood off the blade. I tried to pretend I was wiping down a kitchen knife after slicing some kind of juicy red fruit. It didn’t help. When I was done, I handed the stained square of cloth back to him awkwardly, not sure of the proper handkerchief protocol under these sorts of circumstances.
The freshly cleaned silver gleamed in the overhead lighting of the garage. My backpack was long gone—abandoned somewhere in the parking lot behind the bus station. I was afraid if I tried to put the dagger in my raincoat pocket, it would slice through the material and cut me. After a moment, I slipped it down the inside of my soft leather boot.
Rans had canted his body half-sideways on the seat of the motorcycle to watch me. I realized that sitting behind him like this, I had him hemmed in, so I stood up, bracing myself on unsteady knees. Once I was clear of the bike, he swung a leg over in a smooth, practiced movement and stood in front of me.
“All right there, luv?” he asked.
His eyes were such an unusual shade of blue. The inner fire from earlier was gone, but even now, I was in danger of getting lost in them.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “What now?”
“We’ll take the lift upstairs.”
I did a quick English-to-American translation and realized he meant an elevator. I could see a set of stainless steel double doors in the corner, so I nodded.
“Okay,” I said, and tried to take a step in that direction.
My vision tunneled in from the sides and the muscles in my legs turned to rubber. A strong arm caught me around the shoulders, keeping me from face-planting on the concrete floor.
“Hmm,” Rans said. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“I’m all right,” I tried to protest, hearing how reedy my voice sounded. “M’okay.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
I breathed deeply, trying to push the gray fog from my vision. “Jus’… give me a minute…”
“I would, but I’m not sure a minute is going to help much.” I was distantly aware as Rans pulled one of my arms over his shoulders and rearranged his grip around my waist. “Now, come along, tough girl. Let’s get you someplace where you can sit down and rest while I get this mess sorted out.”
I nodded rather than waste breath on words. Rans led me to the elevator and I focused on shuffling one heavy foot in front of the other. On some level, I became aware that I was leaning on a man with an untreated knife wound.
“Your shoulder,” I slurred.
“One nice thing about black leather; it’s brilliant for hiding bloodstains.” The words were wry.
“But—” I protested.
“It’s fine. It’s already healing.”
That… didn’t seem right somehow, but I let it go. The elevator doors opened with a ding, then closed behind us a moment later, shutting out the view of the parking area full of expensive cars and one sleek black motorcycle. Rans pressed the button for the top floor, and entered another complicated code on the keypad next to it.
My heavy body grew heavier as we accelerated upward. He supported me easily, his grip never wavering. I knew I was plastering myself against him like a cheap whore, but I didn’t have the strength to stand on my own.
And, if I were being honest, it felt… really good. He felt really good.
His leather jacket was cool against my feverish body. His arm around me was sure and strong. He smelled like some exotic blend of spices underlaid with musk. I wanted to nuzzle against the bare skin of his neck. I blinked rapidly, appalled with myself.
Even now, my mind was coming up with this kind of inappropriate shit? What the hell was wrong with me?
Fortunately for Rans’ virtue and my sanity, the elevator came to a smooth stop and disgorged us into a posh entryway with a single white door across the way. He supported me over to it and mashed the button on a small intercom unit set in the wall.
“Guthrie, mate—you in there?” he asked. “Got a bit of a situation here.”
A few moments passed while I tried to ignore the heat building beneath my skin and the pleasant tingles radiating outward from where his fingers splayed across my ribcage, supporting me. The click of a lock disengaging preced
ed the door swinging open to reveal a frowning black man with a vaguely familiar face.
Guthrie Leonides, my mind offered helpfully. Rans’ friend from the restaurant the other day.
Guthrie’s sad, dark eyes ran over us, the silence stretching for an awkward beat. I could only imagine what I must look like—half-dead and half-debauched as I hung all over Rans, staring back at Guthrie with my jaw slack.
“Do I want to know?” Guthrie asked eventually.
“Nope,” Rans said briskly, popping the ‘p.’ “But if you ask nicely, I’ll tell you anyway—later. For now, I need someplace to hide out and a couple of fake IDs. So, are you going to invite me in?”
My fractured attention swung to Rans’ face, just in time to catch the faintly unhinged smile he threw his friend. My brain clicked a moment later, and I realized it was a joke. Inviting the vampire in.
Guthrie’s answering expression was definitely nearer to the resigned end of the spectrum than the amused one. “Come on in, you undead English asshole. And hello again, Miss…?”
“Bright,” I managed. “Call me Zorah.”
Guthrie held the door open for us. Once Rans had maneuvered me through, he closed it and I heard the lock click into place. Again, I should probably have been terrified—alone in a locked apartment with two men I didn’t know, so weak I could barely stand on my own. Instead, the sound of that lock engaging made the remaining tension in my shoulders slide away into sweet, blissful relief.
Safe, my instincts insisted. You’re safe now.
“I think I need to sit down,” I said in a quavering voice.
“I think you need to sleep for the next day or so,” Rans shot back, eyeing me like he thought I was about to pass out on him. It wasn’t a completely irrational concern on his part.
Guthrie was also watching me with a worried frown. “Take her to the guest room. Do I need to get a doctor up here?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Rans said. “Though it’s likely there’s not much a human doctor could do for her.”
“Huh?” I blinked at him stupidly, trying to keep up with the cryptic conversation while also trying not to fall over. It was becoming surprisingly difficult to juggle those two things.
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