by D. N. Hoxa
I went through everything he said again in my mind but came up empty-handed. That was okay. There wouldn’t be a full moon for two nights. I had time to find out where Helen was going to be.
“Thank you, my friend. I will bring you the fruit as soon as I have it.” I drank the last of the wine in my glass and turned around to leave.
“I’d tell you not to come back for a couple of centuries, but that’s not going to stop you,” he said with a laugh. I did notice that his mood had improved a lot since I promised him that fruit. It made me wonder.
“Maybe next time you’ll get another favor out of me, too,” I reminded him and continued to the side deck.
“I’m curious—why isn’t she your mate yet?”
“Because she’s even more stubborn than I am,” I said and jumped over the railing onto the pier. His laugh filled my ears. This time, he didn’t cut it short.
“A bit of advice, my friend,” he said, but he didn’t jump off the yacht. “Leave her while you still can.”
I walked away without a word.
The lights were off in Sinea’s apartment. She wasn’t picking up her phone, which meant she was working. I turned around and headed for downtown again, feeling better by the second. I’d taken some time to feed and to run, to convince myself that Yutain was not an immediate threat to Sinea, and now I was ready to talk to her.
I texted John to send me the information I was looking for. John was connected to the Guild’s database for the past seven years, though the Guild had no idea. He didn’t have access to deeper information, not like Ryan Asher, but for locations and other things that the Guild didn’t feel the need to protect, he could access it within minutes.
It took him exactly three minutes to text me back with a list of three locations near me. They were the places where maneaters had been spotted and reported to the Guild, or the Guild’s searching spells had flagged them. I went to the address closest to Lucas Cook’s apartment. Their area included both his and Sinea’s places, but since he was the contact person for their team, the Guild was more likely to contact him for maneaters closest to him.
It only took me a few minutes to get to the apartment building John had sent me the address to. I smelled Sinea’s jasmine scent even before I realized that she was deep down the alleyway to the side of the building. I didn’t want her to see me just yet, and if I went close enough, that werewolf was going to be able to smell me. If I got on the roof, however, he wouldn’t know I was there until I wanted him to.
I took the stairs through the five-story apartment building, too fast for the humans living there to see. The building on the other side of the alleyway was seven stories high, and there was a woman standing by the window, her eyes on me. I couldn’t smell her, not from that far and high up, but my instincts said she was human. Even if she saw me jumping from the building and called the police, she wouldn’t be able to prove anything because there would be no body.
I went close to the edge of the rooftop, the floor of it set with small, grey stones that made it impossible to walk in silence. In the alleyway, I could see Sinea and the three men—as well as three maneaters. They were backed against the wall at the end of the alley—four stories high, far too tall to climb fast enough, even for them. The ritual that the wizards had set up was right in front of the maneaters, but they had yet to catch the bait and walk into it.
I stood perfectly still and watched them—the wizards stepping into the ward, taunting the maneaters, trying to get them to move closer, until two of them finally did. They fought, but I couldn’t see the details very well. I was too far and it was dark, but I did see it when the third jumped over a dumpster and right over the wizard’s ward to land behind Sinea and the werewolf.
That was my cue. I looked at the human woman staring at me through the window, grabbed the railing and jumped onto the fire escape at the side of the building. If she decided to call in a man jumping off a building, I planned to be long gone by the time help arrived.
I tried to be careful, but it was almost impossible to jump without sound on the metal of the fire escape that was barely holding itself together. Lucky for me, all four of them were focused on the maneaters—and Sinea was already fighting the third that had escaped the ward. When I jumped to the second floor, I could see her face with perfect clarity. She was smiling, and there was a gleaming in her golden eyes that showed me just how much she enjoyed it.
The temptation to just sit there and watch her move was great—I could never get enough of the sight of her—but I also liked it when she was angry. I loved that look in her eyes, spitting fire, so much life buzzing inside them.
I waited for another few seconds for the maneater to jump farther away to escape her daggers and land right below the fire escape. Then, I made the jump from the second floor, hands outstretched so that I grabbed its head even before my feet hit the ground behind him. I twisted the decaying head to the side, and when the bone broke, I pulled it off his shoulders all the way. Not that hard to do considering most of it was already rotten.
The head remained in my hands as the body of the maneater fell on the ground by my feet. Sinea watched me, mouth wide open, all the excitement wiped from her face. Fury burned in her eyes, awaking the monster inside me from its sleep. Yes, I did like her angry. Very, very much.
“What the hell, Damian?!” she shouted at the top of her voice. Her friends were still fighting the last maneater inside the ward, but when they saw me, one of them—Kyle was his name—stepped out with his sword by his side and watched us. Thankfully, he didn’t approach.
“He was trying to kill you,” I said to Sinea, just like I had the other night. I dropped the head on the ground and wiped my hands against my jeans. I could change out of them later.
She walked over the maneater’s body and approached me, completely furious. I wondered if she’d try to kiss me now if we were alone, like she had at the Library. It had been too long since I tasted her lips.
“You have to stop doing this. This is my job, damn it!”
“I’m just trying to be helpful.”
“I don’t need your help. I don’t need your protection,” she said through gritted teeth, waving her daggers around.
“I never said you did.”
“So stop trying to protect me.”
I leaned closer to her face. “Never,” I whispered.
She stepped back with a sigh and put her daggers in their sheaths. “You’re enjoying this, I can tell. You love pissing me off.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
“Next time, I’m going to stab you through the heart. It’s going to be a bitch to heal from,” she warned me.
“So long as I get to kill your maneaters, I’ll be fine,” I said with a shrug.
The last maneater was dead on the ground, and now the three men stood outside the ward, watching us. The werewolf could hear us just fine. He looked right at me, and I at him. I didn’t usually dislike people without ever meeting them, but for him, I made an exception.
“Stop trying to intimidate my coworkers,” Sinea said. “I can’t believe I even have to say that.”
“I wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone.” She always thought I was—but I wasn’t. “But I need to talk to you. I’ve got news.”
Her eyes widened then, as if she just remembered the reason why I would be here, killing her maneaters.
She turned to her coworkers for a second and held up a finger before she started walking out of the alley and to the main street.
“What did you find?” she asked when we were a good distance away from the alley. The werewolf wouldn’t be able to hear us now.
“I don’t have the exact location, but they aren’t going to be able to do anything until the full moon. That’s two nights away,” I told her. “The location would need to be close to a big source of water, there’s a complicated ritual involved, and natural magic built up in the ground over time—possibly over a decade. And something else—something I don’t kno
w yet.”
“Maybe somewhere in the Shade, close to the river?”
“It’s a possibility, but I doubt they’ll want to be so close to the Guild. I don’t know, I’ll have to do some research first.”
She nodded. “In the meantime, we’ll try to find them. If they’re in Manhattan, there’s only so long they can hide.”
“The Guild will be looking, too. They’re already after Diane Devlin, and there’s a chance that they will know where it will happen, too,” I forced myself to say. “So it might be better if you stayed behind this time.”
For her safety. I still wanted her there—any reason that kept her close to me for as long as possible was good enough, but I didn’t want her to get in trouble. Especially after the meeting with Yutain.
“I’m not going to stay behind,” Sinea said.
“This is no longer your fight.” The soul Malin had summoned was gone. The Guild would have no reason to search her tomb for magic signals.
“I know that.”
“So stay.”
“No.”
I smiled. “Why?”
Instantly, her cheeks turned bright scarlet. “I don’t need to explain anything to you,” she said. “We started this together and that’s how we’ll finish it.”
“I like the sound of that.”
She grinned. “That’s if you promise to stay out of my job.”
My brows rose. “But those maneaters want to eat you.”
“And I can handle them,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. She wasn’t wearing anything red tonight, which was a shame. “So what’s it going to be?”
“I’ll agree, but I have a condition of my own. When this is over, you’ll have a drink with me.”
Her lips slightly parted. Then, she shook her head with a smile. “You’re trouble, Mister Vampire.”
I’d never heard anything sexier in my life. “Have a drink with me,” I whispered, trying my hardest to tame the need inside me.
“I’m not going to have a drink with you.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I’m going to have a proper dinner, and you can watch and drink your wine. There’s a lot of things we need to talk about,” she said, and again, her cheeks flushed. The blood rushing through her veins called to me like a Siren song, but biting her wasn’t the first thing on my mind.
“As long as it’s somewhere private.”
“My apartment is very private,” she offered.
“Then it’s a deal.”
I’d never been more impatient for the full moon to arrive in my life.
Chapter Sixteen
Sin Montero
We arrived at the Shade Library a little past noon. Jamie refused to even think about it, having just woken up, so it was just Malin and me.
The Library looked different in the daylight. There were windows atop the bookshelves that I was pretty sure hadn’t been there two nights ago, but they let in just enough sunlight to give everything in there a different color. There were a lot more people in there at this time, too.
I’d tried to find my card the night before when I planned to show the backroom to Malin, but it was no use. I had no idea if Malin was supposed to tell the librarian woman that we planned to visit the backroom. She didn’t say anything when she registered her, only threw me a confused look, wondering why I wasn’t showing her my own card. The man who’d been there last time hadn’t bothered to even look at me.
“She’s just helping me. We won’t be checking out any books,” Malin told the librarian when she saw her looking. I smiled innocently, grabbed Malin by the arm and took her toward the reading room.
I looked at everyone around us—at least twenty supernaturals, some sitting around the reading tables, some by the shelves. Were they supposed to know where we were going? Because somebody was probably going to see us disappear in the back.
Shit. I should have asked Damian for more specifics.
As it was, we walked fast with our heads down until we reached the end of the room, the beautiful statues of the women reaching out for one another, and the painting behind them. The sunlight gave life to the colors, and it looked even more beautiful than last time.
I risked a quick look behind us, just to see if anybody was close. They weren’t, but some of them had their eyes on us.
“This is so exciting!” Malin whispered when I stepped in between the statues and behind the one on the right and…
There was nothing but a white wall in front of me. I sighed.
“You can’t do this,” I said to the walls. “It’s not even for me—it’s for Malin.”
“Sin, what are you doing?”
“Just a second. The door’s this way, just give it a second.” I closed my eyes tightly and imagined it in detail in my mind. Come on, come on, come on…
“You mean, this way?”
Malin was standing behind the left statue, and behind her there was a narrow corridor, exactly the same as the one from last time.
Except last night, it had been on the right. I could swear it—I’d looked at the other side and there’d been nothing there. With a sigh, I followed Malin through it, giving one last look at the people in the reading room. Yeah, some of them could definitely see us, but what the hell. Damian never said it was a secret.
When we reached the end of the corridor, there was no dragon painted on the white wall. This time, it was a phoenix, orange feathers merging into flames, huge wings spread to the sides, its eyes as bright as the fire surrounding him. It looked just as real as the dragon had, even more so. I could swear I saw my reflection in his eyes.
“Oh, my goddess, look at that,” Malin whispered, touching the wing of the phoenix.
“The door should open any second now.” I pictured the library in my mind, remembering every detail—the darkness, the smell, the lights, the roof.
It didn’t work.
“Come on!” I said and was a second away from kicking the hell out of that wall. This was ridiculous. I’d seen the place, had been there just two nights ago. I knew it was there—so why wasn’t the Shade letting me through?
“Let me give it a little push.” Malin put both her hands on the wall, on the body of the phoenix. She closed her eyes and let out her magic, but at that point I was almost convinced that the Shade wasn’t going to let us through.
I stepped back and looked down the corridor to see if somebody had come after us. Nobody had.
Strange. If I’d seen someone disappear behind a statue in a Library, I’d have definitely been curious enough to go check it out.
Malin stepped back with a sharp intake of breath, and I looked at the wall just in time to see the wings of the phoenix spread higher. It moved its head, and again, I could see our reflection in his eyes. It was so much scarier than the dragon had been.
When the wall began to change into a wooden door, Malin laughed. I was just relieved.
And then shocked all over again when I pulled the door open.
The Library was no longer dark. It was bright—as if we were standing in an open field, and we could see the sun shining through the ceiling. I’d been so sure before that the ceiling had been painted to look like a night sky. Apparently, I’d been wrong. It hadn’t been a painting at all.
I walked deeper into the room, looking up at the vines coming from the corners of the ceiling. They hadn’t changed a bit, but the sky looked exactly like it did outside. Except the sun’s warmth didn’t seem to be able to reach in here. It was still cold.
And crowded.
There were six other people in the library that I could see, all sitting in separate desks, looking up at us as we entered. Mostly at Malin. She kept giggling and running from one shelf to the other, mesmerized by the books and the statues and the wood and the ceiling. Couldn’t blame her—I’d felt the same way two nights ago. I just hadn’t had an audience—except for Damian.
The thought of him from last night spilled warmth all over me. He knew how to push my b
uttons perfectly. And he knew how to make me forget why I was angry with him, just like that. Had I really invited him to my apartment?
I had, and I’d lie if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“This place is amazing!” Malin whispered, her smile so big, it must have hurt her cheeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t know it existed!”
“Hush,” I said, nodding at the men and women sitting at the desks. Half of them were giving us stinky looks. This was a library, after all.
“Right, right,” Malin said. “I’ll see you in a bit.” And she practically ran to the shelves behind the desks without another look my way.
Smiling, I made my way to the other side. I already had an idea of where I might be able to find books about Alpha Primes, but I went to the middle of the shelves from the other side. I was a nervous mess, and I didn’t want anyone to see what I was looking at. Thankfully, all the people who were there had taken up the desks at the end of the room, so when I reached the middle, nobody could see me, and I couldn’t see anyone.
I stepped between the rows of shelves, my eyes skimming through the titles. The smell of leather and old paper lingered in the air like magic. I walked slowly, taking in every title, but I must have been in the wrong row because I couldn’t find any of the books Damian and I had read two nights ago.
In the next row, I found the one I’d seen the night before. Common Misconceptions of Strength and Magic Levels. That sounded exactly like a book that would have information about Level Five supernaturals. Taking another look behind me just to make sure nobody was there, I reached out my hand to grab the book.
And somebody pulled it back from the shelf.
What the…
I leaned in to get a closer look, sure that somebody was messing with me, but all I saw was wood—the back of the shelf.
“Are you kidding me?” It wasn’t going to even let me read a book?