“Ahem.”
Azren stood in the doorway, hair still damp from the shower, still slightly pale but upright and coherent. “You will delete that.”
I tucked my phone into my bra. “Not happening, dude.”
He stalked toward me, but the hound reared its head and speared Azren with amber eyes and a chest-rumbling growl.
“Ha!” I stuck out my tongue.
Azren exhaled, composed his features, and then looked down at the hound. “He knows I don’t mean to hurt you. Merely remove unauthorized content featuring me from your mobile device.”
The hound stopped growling and backed up, and heck, was that a glint of amusement in its fiery eyes? But Azren was making a move at me, and there was no way he was getting that video. Chair scraping on tile, I stumbled up and tried to dodge, but his powerful frame had me pinned to the counter, groin to groin.
I tilted my chin in challenge. “You wouldn’t dare.”
His hand dove down the front of my top.
My pulse spiked at all the contact. “Hey!”
His fingers grazed my breast, calloused and deft, and my sexy dream surged to the surface of my mind’s eye. Heat surged through me, staining my neck and spreading along my collarbones in an unwelcome flush that had a gasp tumbling from my lips. Azren froze, his hand still inappropriately placed. His jade gaze fell to my parted mouth, and a new pressure exerted itself against my groin. My eyes widened, but Azren didn’t seem fazed. In fact, his attention was still on my mouth, hungry and wanton. Oh, God. Was he reading my mind? Because, of course, he could do that. He’d promised not to, but ... My stomach flipped and clenched. Pancakes, think about pancakes.
“Wila?” Tay said from the doorway.
Azren slowly released me and stepped back, both hands in the air as if in surrender. My phone was still safe. Still tucked in my bra, but my breasts tingled from the brush of his fingers, and it took everything I had to tear my gaze from him and focus on Taylem. And fuck did the troll blood look pissed.
“Problem?” His tone was even, but I knew from experience things could go from even to unstable in a matter of seconds if Tay lost it.
“We’re cool.” I adjusted my top. “Azren just wanted me to delete the video of him dancing off my phone. I declined, and he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“It looked like he was taking more than matters into his own hand,” Tay said dryly.
Azren pulled out a chair, grabbed a fistful of bacon off the plate Gilbert had placed in the center of the table, and began to eat. “You’ll delete that video,” he said with his mouth full.
I snorted. “Like hell.”
“You have to sleep sometime.”
“Trust me,” Trevor said. “You do not want to enter her room, not unless you’re colorblind.”
Gilbert chuckled.
“Shut it, the lot of you. There is nothing wrong with the color pink.”
Taylem’s brows shot up. “Your bedroom is pink?”
“Wouldn’t you know that,” Azren said snidely.
Taylem went very still, and then he pulled out a chair and parked his butt. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Azren looked up in surprise. The two guys did that weird silent communication thing they’d done the first time they’d met, and then Azren reached across the table and pushed the plate of bacon toward Taylem. Taylem took a rasher and popped it in his mouth, chewing slowly.
Seriously? What had just happened?
“Wila? Listen,” Gilbert prompted.
The radio turned up, and Missy’s voice echoed around the room.
“...strange sightings of feral creatures at the edge of town by the old water mill. Howls and screams. What has found its way into Arcana City now, and will the institute give a fuck?”
Gilbert turned down the volume. “It sounds like a Lost sighting to me.”
It sure did. “How the heck does she get all this information?”
“The hobo network,” Trevor said absently while scanning the Daily Vine.
“I think my ears are broken, because I thought I heard you say hobo network.”
He looked up from his paper. “Oh, come on. You must have heard of the hobo network.” He looked to Taylem. “You know, right?”
Taylem nodded slowly. “The homeless see and hear it all,” he explained. “People walk past them, pay them no mind. They’re invisible. It’s a common theory that’s where Missy gets her intel and updates.”
Well, that was pure genius and made perfect sense. The homeless population was high in Southside. They had their own network, their own little world, and the Arcana acted as if they didn’t exist.
“So, we hit the mill tonight,” Tay said. He dropped his gaze to the hound. Anywhere but on me, it seemed.
Shit. This was what I’d been afraid of, this discomfort. It wasn’t how it was meant to be.
“It seems that your hunch was correct. He’s not going to hurt you,” Tay said.
The hound stood up and padded out of the room. The vibe in the kitchen was getting increasingly weird, and there was way too much testosterone floating about, so I followed. It headed back into the lounge, lay down in the patch of sunlight streaming in through the French windows, and closed its eyes.
Well, that was anticlimactic. Urgh. So many questions and no way of getting any answers. “Hey? You got a name?”
He cracked one eye open.
“I can’t just call you hound ... Or can I? Hound. Yeah. Okay, Hound, I’m gonna go run some errands. Catch you later.”
Back in the hallway, I bumped into Tay headed for the door.
“Are you off now?” Stupid question. Of course he was.
He kept his gaze on the exit. “I need to run to the warehouse and stock up on booze. I’ll be back tonight. Six p.m.”
Hell, no. We weren’t going to start down the weird-vibe route. “Tay, come on. What? You can’t even look at me now?”
As if with great effort, he transferred his gaze to my face. His pupils dilated and my breath caught in my throat as his pain hit me. My lungs felt tight and it was my turn to drop my gaze.
“Now who’s not looking?” he asked softly.
“Tay. I just want things to go back to the way they used to be.”
“I know you do. And they will, in time.” He lifted my chin with the crook of his index finger. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Love’s like that, Wila. It can take many forms, and if I can’t have you the way I want, then I’ll find another way to love you. I just need time.”
I nodded stiffly, my lips aching to say the words that would end this awkward phase, that would allow us to be together. But it would be a lie, and I’d end up hurting him tenfold. If I couldn’t offer him my heart and soul and my fidelity, then I didn’t deserve him.
The door closed softly behind him, and I turned away to come face to face with Azren.
“He’s in love with you,” Azren said shortly. “But you know that.”
“Yeah.”
His eyes narrowed. “And you love him.”
I flinched. “Not in the way he wants. I’m not wired that way.”
He gave me a pitying smile. “Like the Draconi females. They have many lovers at the same time. They are free and yet they are bound. Maybe that is what you need?” His gaze was intense, probing.
I held up a warning finger. “Don’t you dare go poking about in my head.”
He balked. “I gave you my word I wouldn’t.”
“Not unless your liege asked you to, right?” Agitation brought my bitch out to play. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”
He pressed his lips together and last night’s not so sexy dream came to mind. Valance’s face filled my mind’s eye, his lips twisting mockingly as he addressed his mother. There’d been a whip in my hand, ready to hurt him. No. Not my hand, Azren’s. And Elora’s voice had been issuing the commands. I shook my head. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I cleared my throat, shoving the dream out of my mind. “Altho
ugh having several lovers at the same time sounds utterly liberating, I’m not Draconi. And on this side of the border, men may be able to take a bunch of lovers, but for a woman to do the same would label her as a whore. Not to mention the fact that most nephs don’t like to share.”
Azren arched a brow. “Well, I suppose in that regard, the Westside is more advanced and the males more mature.” He ambled up the stairs, leaving me to ponder his words. Words which echoed what the voice had said.
But wishing things were different didn’t make them so. This was my world, and I’d have to live in it. Tay deserved to be loved the way he needed to. He needed a mate for life, and as much as I ached for him, and as much as he filled my heart, I knew he wouldn’t be enough for me. I was a cavern, an empty chasm always wanting more, needing more. Better not to claim anything. Better to remain apart, to play but never get involved. Best to keep things light.
Time to forget matters of the heart and get to work. People to see, places to go, and later, some Lost arse to kick. But first, I needed to see a man about some armor-piercing bolts that hadn’t worked worth a damn on a metal monster.
8
Barnaby stared at the bolt bag I’d flung onto the counter and then folded his arms across his chest. The usual good-natured twinkle in his eye was absent today.
I copied his stance. “I could have been killed.”
“You asked for a bolt that could pierce anything on this earth, and I gave you bolts that could pierce anything,” he replied.
“Obviously not, because they didn’t even make a dent on this thing.”
Barnaby slid a bolt from the bag and turned it over. “I don’t like your tone, Bastion.”
“And I don’t like getting my arse handed to me because a state-of-the-art weapon I paid through the nose for doesn’t do its job.” Fuck it, pissing him off wasn’t going to achieve anything aside from losing my special client privileges. I sighed. “Look, Barnaby, I’m not here to argue. I’m just trying to figure out what went wrong. I honestly could have been killed.” I clasped my hands together. “It shook me up, you know?”
He popped the bolt back in the bag, his expression softening. “Well, there can only be one explanation.”
“What?”
“This creature that attacked you is made of a metal not from this world.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“An alien, Miss Bastion. It must be an alien creature.”
Okay, he had to be kidding. “There are no such things as aliens.”
“And until a century ago there were no Draconi or Shedim, there were no pockets, and the humans didn’t know there were such things as neph. Miss Bastion, there is more to our world than this rock we sit on. There are worlds upon worlds, there is a multiverse—galaxies and universes other than ours.”
Was it that much of a leap? Bearing in mind everything we knew now? No. “So, you think this creature is an alien, and the Arcana Institute have an elite team hunting it because they know what it is?”
I could hear the words coming out of my mouth and they sounded crazy, but when had life ever been sane? We have dragons and demons and Others, why not throw in some spider metal aliens?
“Yes.” He fingered the bolt back. “That’s exactly what I think. But I am intrigued to know what it is we’re dealing with. If you come across this creature again, if you happen to get a sample of the metal, I’d pay you well for it.”
“Ha. Not likely. I intend to steer clear of that thing.”
He leaned down and retrieved a rolled-up document.
My pulse leapt. “Is that what I think it is?”
He nodded. “Wasn’t easy to come by either.” He rolled open the map and spread it out on the counter, jabbing a finger at it. “See here, this used to be an active sewer system, but they shut it down fifty years ago. And here, under the turnaround forest, we have another network of tunnels vaguely marked.”
I’d filled him in on Azren and our mission. I’d had little choice but to confide in him after he’d helped me save Azren’s life when he’d been infected with Subzero. Just as well, because if anyone could help us out, it was Barnaby. I hadn’t been expecting him to have the goods today, but damn if it wasn’t convenient. He retrieved two vials. And I rolled up my sleeves while he drew the blood he needed in payment. The question hovered on my lips, what the heck did he do with my blood? But I bit it back. Questioning payment was a no-no.
“All done.” He popped the vials into his pocket.
Sweeping up my bolt bag, I headed toward the arch that would lead back into the main shop, the antique storefront that Barnaby Winkle operated under.
“Be careful tonight, Wila,” Barnaby called out.
Huh? How did he know about tonight? I glanced back at him with a frown.
“The old water mill is a death trap.”
My mouth fell open. “Fuck, Barnaby. Have you developed a mind reading potion?”
He chuckled, and the twinkle was back. “No. But I do tune into FFS, and I’m aware of the strange bouts of activity around the city. I know the Lost have escaped, and I know you’ve been trying to fix it while the fuckers that caused the mess enjoy total oblivion.”
“Well, looks like someone’s been tapping the pulse of the city. What else do you know?”
He smirked. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now, Wila. Just keep your wits about you tonight and steer clear of the second floor of the mill. The floor’s rotten.”
“Thanks for the tip, and you know me—careful is my middle ... heck, who am I kidding.”
He had the serious face on again. “And remember, if you get me a sample of that metal ...”
“Yeah, yeah.” I slipped through the arch back into the shop and then out into the midday sun. The air was cool and crisp. Fall was round the corner and so was the lunar eclipse. Less than two weeks to go and we’d be facing Elora empty-handed. My stomach curdled.
Fuck this shit. Once we bagged this pack of Lost, we’d use the map and we’d find the rebel Shedim. There was no way we were facing the dragon liege with nothing to show for our efforts.
The clock inched its way toward six p.m., our pre-agreed meetup time. Azren was sitting at the table, seat pushed back, legs spread, and chin tucked in as he studied the map Barnaby had given me. He was kitted out in black again today: black biker boots, black jeans, and a long-sleeved black polo shirt that strained across his shoulders and biceps, emphasizing his large frame. The guy was a monster and the chair looked like a plaything. How had it not collapsed under his weight yet?
“Once we deal with this pack of Lost, we need to organize to clear the Underground,” Taylem said. He hoisted his metal club up and braced it on his shoulder.
Okay, time to reassess monster status. When it came to stature, Tay topped Azren by a couple of inches for sure, and he was definitely bulkier. In fact, the kitchen was way too small for us all.
“We have other business to take care of first,” Azren said, raising his head and carefully rolling up the map before handing it back to me. I tucked it into the letter holder by the bread bin.
“We can help with that too,” Tay said.
“I don’t know,” Mack said. “The Collective left them alive for a reason. Should we be messing with that?”
It took me a moment to realize that Mack was addressing Taylem’s earlier statement about the Lost.
Tay shot him a disgusted look. “Hell yes, we should. The Lost are dangerous. There is no benefit to keeping them alive.”
“Unless The Collective hoped to cure them?” Azren pointed out.
“I can do some digging,” Gilbert said from his position by the back door we never used. “Maybe if I look far enough, I can find some clues on why the Lost weren’t exterminated as claimed.”
“Thank you, Gil.” I smiled at the spot I sensed him to be in. “I’ll mention it to Noir too. See what he can find out from the inside.”
So far, we’d kept a low profile on the whole Lost thi
ng, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves because of my involvement, Azren’s presence here, and the contract I’d signed. The risk of them finding out I’d given Elora a way into our territory was too high, and not knowing exactly what the contract said didn’t help. They’d kill me to eliminate that threat. It was why Noir, up until now, hadn’t done any digging into the Lost. But too many people had died because we’d held off. It wasn’t right. My life wasn’t worth more than anyone else’s. We needed to fix this however we could. And if that ultimately meant going directly to The Collective, then so be it. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, though.
My phone buzzed with a text from Noir. I scanned it then pocketed the phone. “Noir couldn’t get out of his prior engagement. It looks like we’ll be doing this the old-fashioned way, sans Arcana.”
Taylem’s lips parted in a sadistic grin. “The best way.”
As we got our shit together and streamed toward the exit, I caught Azren’s eye and inclined my head, because he had a valid point. Getting rid of the problem topside was one thing—we were saving lives. But holding off on attacking the population in the Underground should wait until Noir and Gilbert had a chance to do some digging.
Hound poked his head out of the lounge as we piled into the foyer.
“You coming?” I indicated the front door. “We’re headed to the old water mill and we’re taking the bikes. If you’re up to it, you can meet us there.”
Okay, I was talking to him as if he understood, but there was way too much intelligence in those amber eyes to indicate anything else. He’d somehow been able to find me each time I’d been in mortal danger, and even though the guys were tagging along this time, having Hound was the icing on the cake.
He backed up into the lounge and then shot through the French windows into the night.
“I guess he’s meeting us there,” Mack said, amused.
Tay was the first out of the building and Mack followed close behind. Azren gripped my elbow gently to stall me.
I looked into his feral face, examining the clean-cut, harsh lines which were quickly becoming so familiar to me.
City of the Lost (Chronicles of Arcana Book 2) Page 8