by Eve Langlais
“The barrier around the phaedrealii has always been thinner for some,” he said. “Those touched by magic or curses”–she looked up at him with understanding in her eyes–”artists who see the world differently than most, children, the insane.” He closed his eyes briefly, searching his memories. “I encountered few true humans in the phaedrealii, none that might have been your mother.” When she let out a shaky breath, he made a cautioning sound. “But the court is a vast and uncharted place. When we speak to the king again, we can tell him about her. And as the gates fall, perhaps she will reappear.”
Avery bowed her head, the waves of her hair falling around her face. “I should’ve crawled in after her, but I was scared–”
“Don’t,” he said sharply. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder and flexed his fingers hard enough to pull her out of her downward spiral. Avery looked up at him, her eyes narrowed in pain, not at his grip, he knew, but what was inside her. “You couldn’t have known,” he told her. “And even if you had, you couldn’t have stopped it.” No more than he could have when he jumped into the midst of Sibilla’s spell.
After a long moment, her shining gaze locked on his, she jerked her head in a nod.
He shifted his hand to stroke her hair, reveling in the way the strands curled around his fingers.
Avery tilted her head into his knuckles with a sigh. “I became a journalist because I wanted to deal only with facts: sources I could interview, figures I could double check, lies I could expose. At the Times, I didn’t turn in a story until I knew it was right. Two years ago, I was assigned a family abduction case. Fairly straightforward: a non–custodial father with a history of psychotic breaks snatched his son.”
“Another flaw in the phaedrealii barrier?”
“No. It ended happily. The boy was found, the father got his meds straightened out. I attended their damn baseball game after the ordeal, and it was wonderful.” She swiped at her cheek though there was nothing there, and he imagined it was only the memory of tears that bothered her. “That’s when I realized how it could have–should have–ended for me.
“I’ve been looking for Mom ever since. And when I find her, I’ll believe anything she tells me, just to see her.” She reached up to clamp her hand around his wrist, a power in her hold that surprised him. “It’s that stupid hope thing you mentioned. That’s why I can’t leave now. If the phae are coming, this might be the closest I’ve ever been to getting her back.”
He’d known it was a waste of time to ask her to go, and for a heartbeat he contemplated forcing the issue. But he understood her wish to change the past.
Hell, he was here for exactly the same reason.
He rose to his feet and held his hand out to her. Without hesitation, she put her palm over his. The implicit trust tightened his chest with both horror and pleasure as he pulled her upright. She knew what he was and the mistakes he’d made, and still she was willing to stand beside him, no questions asked.
He handed her one of the bags from the cart. “If you are too crazy to save yourself, then we meet with Barrows in an hour.”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “I wonder if this interview will be more suited for CQ or the Times.”
He wondered if she’d have the chance to write anything.
She took her bag into the bathroom and he spread the content of his over the bed. Tira Dyer had provided fresh clothing–fair enough since he’d ruined his stabbing her imp–though there was no leather coat to replace his shredded one. A pity. He’d liked the dashing affectation and could understand why vampires favored the look.
The black jeans fit close to his skin and flexed when he moved. He pulled on his boots which lay where he’d kicked them off the night before. For a moment, their weight seemed to pin him to the ground. If only he could spend another night barefoot with Avery…
He grabbed the short–sleeved cotton shirt–also black–from the bed and yanked it over his head, as if he could knock away the wistful thought. He hadn’t come here to while away his nights with a woman near as damaged as he was. Regardless of what happened next, he had no nights left he could truly call his own.
The shirt was tighter than he would have chosen for himself, and the gray wings outlined on the chest made him scowl with more ferocity than was warranted.
He read the words upside down. “Bat country? Ravpyrii do not shapeshift into bats.”
Avery emerged from the bathroom. Her gaze roamed his body, her lips quirking. “It’s a literary reference. Looks good on you.” A spark of heat in her eyes made his breath catch before she glanced down at her own olive green shirt where a bulbous–eyed, thin–chinned face stretched across her breasts. “I got Area 51. I wouldn’t have guessed Dyer had a sense of humor.”
As if the fit of the shirt wasn’t tempting enough, tight black leggings cupped her ass in a way that made his hands twitch with longing. She’d pulled her hair into a thick plait down her neck, the red strands gleaming against her skin, pale except for the small bruise his bite had left.
He closed his eyes at the possessiveness that surged through him.
“Hugo?” He felt the warmth of her hand hovering near his bare forearm.
The phone jangled, and the space opened between them again.
Avery took the call, listening for a moment. “We’ll head over there. By the way, thanks for the novelty t–shirts. Nobody will give us a second look.” When she hung up, she reached for her backpack. As she stood to sling it over her shoulder, she lifted her chin. “Show time.”
Chapter Eleven
Striding through the casino lobby to the second private elevator labeled “Staff Only”, Avery wished she could’ve stopped at the shops to replace the ballet flats–rhinestoned with the words “What happened…” on one toe and “in Vegas?” on the other–that Dyer had included in her bag of clothes. But she didn’t suppose there was an army surplus in the ComeTrue marketplace, so the chance of finding combat boots was probably slim to none anyway.
And besides, they probably shouldn’t keep a multibillionaire vampire waiting.
At the elevator, she punched in the security code, and they rocketed to the top floor. She found herself wanting to reach for Hugo’s hand, but she curled her fingers into a fist to banish the wish. He’d think she was just some frightened human chick.
Which technically she was.
How shameful to discover that she’d spent all these years allegedly looking for answers, but when the moment of truth was before her, a part of her still wanted to close her eyes. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, afraid to look at what might be under the bed.
Heck, she’d jumped into bed with the monster.
As far as self–pep talks went, that probably wasn’t one for the motivational posters, but the memory added some extra sparkly sass to her walk as the elevator door opened and they stepped out.
A vast, unfinished room of bare rebar and exposed wiring spread before them. The concrete floor stretched away to the distant windows on all four sides. Since ComeTrue was taller than any other downtown high–rise, the view extended from desert to mountain, city to Strip. A tall figure stood at the nearest pane of glass, staring out into the wintery light.
Hugo continued forward and Avery hastened to follow as Deon Barrows turned to face them.
He was dressed all in black, from oxford to creased trousers to wingtips. A touch of silver in his black dreadlocks gave him a subtle male gleam, like a particularly expensive Rolex. He looked so much like she figured he would, she might’ve been a little disappointed. Except his startlingly pale eyes–especially striking against his dark skin–warned her that in a city of money and vice, he was the apex predator.
She had her cell phone out, camera at the ready, but Barrows held up one flat palm. To her surprise, the skin at the base of his fingers looked rough. Where did a multibillionaire vampire get calluses? Maybe she shouldn’t wonder.
“Please refrain,” he said. She couldn’t place the slight lilt in his ac
cent. Whatever it’d been, he’d tried to banish it. “I’d rather not take it from you.”
She gave him a small frown; she’d start with confused and then escalate to annoyed if necessary. “I thought if you agreed to meet with us, you understood our reason for coming. We’re doing a story.”
“Tira said you are here to bring back the phae. That has nothing to do with the ravpyrii.”
Hugo crossed his arms over his chest, widening his stance. “It does if the Undone Queen has chosen your castle of dreams for her own nightmares.”
“Speculation.” Barrows flicked one finger before his fist closed over the rough evidence of his not–quite–perfect mask.
Avery snorted. “Said the man…” she drew out the word just long enough to be sardonic “…who made his first million timing market fluctuations in the price of gold.”
Barrows shrugged. “Gold, liquor, flesh, sin. There’s some deviation in the baseline, but you’d be surprised how well they hold their value over time.”
“With that attitude, no wonder you decided to settle in Vegas.”
“We can live here with no one the wiser and all the energy of human feeling we need.” His pale eyes glittered like desert suns. “This I will not risk, not for phae or wereling.”
“For humans?” she needled. “You were one, once.”
“Mostly forgotten, I assure you.” His gaze narrowed on Hugo. “Why would you advocate for any of them? I know you can’t truly care what happens to them.”
“You don’t know that,” Hugo said, his voice chillier than the light outside. “And I don’t know you, but you’ve passed enough years to know that change is inevitable. And considering what you’ve built here, you must know the odds are never in our favor.”
“They are in mine,” Barrows growled.
But in his irritation, Avery heard a touch of ambiguity. He wasn’t sure what was coming, and since his stock market record was testament to his steely cojones, the fact that he wavered was enough to trigger full–blown panic in her.
Except she had a job to do.
“Tell you what,” she said, spreading her hands wide like a good card shark. “If the fairy queen doesn’t show up tonight, we walk away. The phae and the werelings will find another place to stage their return.”
Hugo shifted to the toes of his boots. “Avery…”
She held up one finger. “Fairies have a history of making deals. And Mr. Barrows is a betting man, right?”
Her nerves tightened at the sensation of two ravpyrii males focusing their ire–black eyes and pale–upon her. It felt kind of… sexy.
Hugo let out a slow hiss of breath. “You are a nuisance, Avery Hill.”
She shrugged. “Usually they say crazy.” She closed her hands with a clap as she stared at Barrows. “But if the queen comes and we help you fight her off, then ComeTrue becomes campaign central for the return of the phae and the rest of this mad, mad world.”
Barrows was silent so long, she thought she’d lost him.
At last, he said, “Either way, this sounds like a loss for my people.”
She shook her head. “One way, you’re kicked to the curb, and I rather suspect you know what that’s like.” His head jerked up, pale eyes narrowing, but she continued, “The other way, you gain allies you never had before.”
“Allies.” He spat the word bitterly and rounded on Hugo. “Tira tells me the phae made such a brilliant deal with you. To free you from the ravpyrii curse.”
At Avery’s side, Hugo straightened. “She already offered me a place among your people if I walked away from my pledge. I declined.”
Barrows revealed his fang in a sneer. “You are a fool to believe phae promises. The ravpyrii magic can’t be broken.”
Hugo inclined his head. “Not quite true.”
“Not without killing you,” Barrows snapped.
“That… is true.”
Avery’s heart skittered a painful sideways beat. “Hugo, if you knew the phae couldn’t change the spell that altered you, why did you say you’d help them?”
He said nothing. The tarnished winter sun added more shadows than light to his distant gaze.
“Hugo?” she choked out. What wasn’t he telling her?
In the strained silence, Barrows answered for him. “Because he wants to die. Phae magic made him and the phae can undo the deed.”
A cold wash of shock weakened Avery’s knees. She whirled to face Hugo. “That’s not…” True. In the ruthless edge to his jaw and fathomless black of his eyes, she saw his reversion to the forbidding man who’d approached her just a day ago.
Her stomach churned, and the orange was a sour taste in the back of her throat. Had she actually believed she was coming to know him? That there was something between them? Okay, she wouldn’t say magic, knowing what she did now, but she’d thought they had a connection, a shared bond of difficult lives made more confusing by mysterious influences they couldn’t control. And yet those very mysteries had brought them together. But even while he’d pretended to worry about what happened to her, all the while he knew he wasn’t walking away from the night alive. And she’d be alone again.
“Avery.” He took a step toward her, and she took a reflexive step back.
Barrows loosed a cold laugh. “Even this simple human knows you’ve made a mistake.”
“Yes, I’ve made many,” Hugo snarled. “But this one will be the last.”
“Being ravpyrii is a gift–”
“A curse!” Hugo slashed one hand through the air.
“Only because you’ve thought it such,” Barrows said. “But I’ve made ComeTrue a haven for us: luxury, privacy, an ever–changing banquet of life force. There will be no death here. Not unless someone wishes it.”
“Hugo.” Without her conscious thought, Avery’s hand reached for the man at her side, but it only got halfway there before she forced it down. “You should listen to him. If he has another way–”
“It’s not another way.” His voice crackled like breaking ice. “It’s another prison, like the phaedrealii. An enticing lie.” He met her gaze, his black eyes more shadowed than ever. “I’m fighting for the freedom of the phae and werelings because that’s what I want too. I don’t want another seven hundred years of this.” He splayed his hand to take in the space around them with its views out to the horizons on all sides but its heart exposed and empty.
Barrows scowled. “Just because I haven’t brought in the decorator yet–”
“Tell yourself whatever you must,” Hugo said, his words inescapable. “It won’t be enough.”
With a tight expression, Barrows lifted his chin. “Then I just need a few billion more.”
Under other circumstances, Avery might have laughed at the casino mogul’s arrogant look, but the knot in her throat was a scream of denial at Hugo’s hopelessness.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She finally found someone who could actually understand her, whose touch brought her to life in a way she’d never experienced, and he’d rather die? What did that say about her chances of making peace with her own fucked–up existence?
A sickening mix of fury and despair bottled up behind the scream until she seriously contemplated “decorating” Barrows’ penthouse with some “life force” that would let both ravpyr males know exactly what she was “feeling”.
But she’d vowed she wasn’t going to let mere facts get in the way of her bigger truths anymore. A new world was coming, one where she might be reunited with her mother and find explanations for some of the strange and joyful memories of her childhood. It was everything she’d been searching for these last few years. She clenched her fist around the necklace charm hard enough that the tiny point of the heart bit into her palm.
If Hugo de Grava wanted his freedom, she wasn’t going to get in his way, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her either.
Even though, when she thought of what they could’ve been together, she’d almost–almost–used the word magic.
Chapter Twelve
Barrows was a blackguard of the first order, but Hugo believed the other ravpyr when he agreed to Avery’s challenge: if the Undone Queen made her move and was successfully repelled, he would meet with Raze the Ruiner and his wereling mate about the return of the phae.
“It could work,” he admitted reluctantly. “In the last decades, I’ve had more difficulties keeping up a convincing façade.” He shot a mock glare at Avery. “Mostly because of pesky reporters.”
She gave him a thin smile. Which was more expression than she’d given Hugo since Barrows had exposed him. “Us simple humans have so little going for us compared to vampires and witches and fairies and werewolves. At least we can be pesky.”
Barrows’ unsettling eyes flicked over her, the ice thawing. “Not so simple, I guess. I can see there is more to you than pesky.”
The ravpyr’s blatant assessment raised Hugo’s hackles. The atavistic response was more suited to werelings, but he couldn’t stop it. Avery was his. He’d been inside her, and she in him. The thought of anyone else touching her as intimately and reveling in the unique mélange of her passionate humanity wrenched a silent howl from his depths.
But as he’d told Barrows, he’d made his choice before he’d set one foot out of the phaedrealii. Though Avery tempted him to choose again, to pull the lever on unpredictable fate and take another shot, he couldn’t draw her further into the tangled, dangerous world he was unveiling. And he wouldn’t–couldn’t–lose one more person he loved to the flow of time that didn’t touch him.
Every life was a gamble, he knew that. But because of the ravpyrii curse, he would always lose. Every time. And he just wasn’t willing to try again. Whether that made him a realist or a coward, he wasn’t sure and refused to care.
Not that it mattered, since it seemed Avery wasn’t going to speak to him ever again. After their meeting with Barrows, she told him she was going back to their room to work on her story and bluntly suggested he go elsewhere.