by Bella Klaus
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Istabelle hung up, and I stared at the phone.
Valentine slung an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get you to the safe house.”
Gulping, I glanced from left to right. “You don’t think they’ve tracked me down, do you?”
“Anything is possible,” he muttered. “There are enough tech-wizards and witches working for the Council to track a person through their phone.”
Valentine raised a hand at an approaching taxi, only for it to continue past and turn right into Paddington Station.
“Damn it,” he hissed.
“I think there’s a rule that says they can’t pick people up from within a few feet of a taxi rank,” I said. “We’re going to have to go into Paddington Station.”
“Come on.” The arm around my shoulder lowered to my waist. Instead of rushing back through Praed Street, he continued down the road, glaring intently into the traffic.
“What are you doing?” I stared into his determined features.
“Catching us a cab,” he said in a voice of steel. “We can hardly run back to the villa.”
I gulped. Hadn’t he heard what I just said?
The entire journey back to Notting Hill would have taken minutes using his vampire speed, but even members of the Supernatural Council were forbidden to exercise their power in view of humans and, more importantly, in view of all the surveillance cameras they installed through the streets.
Up ahead and across the road, a black cab approached with its orange light glowing. Valentine stopped walking to raise his hand, this time staring directly into the cab. The vehicle made a U-turn and stopped in the bus lane.
I gulped, shuddering at some of the penalties the Supernatural Council dished out to those who threatened the secrecy of Logris. A pair of vampires at the academy went out on a school trip to the Jurassic Coast and decided to stay the night and pick up human girls.
After using their fledgling powers on a pair of veterinary students to bite their necks, the Council decided to remove their fangs. It had happened two years before I’d met Valentine. As their king, that punishment would have been his decision.
Valentine opened the door and gestured for me to get inside. I lowered myself into the black cab’s back seat and waited for him to sit next to me.
When the cab pulled out of the bus lane, I leaned into him and whispered, “What did you do?”
“Just a little charm and persuasion.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side.
My entire body melted. It had been years since Valentine—or any man—had held me like I was precious.
“Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill,” Valentine said to the driver.
Anyone watching his actions on close-circuit television would just see an extremely handsome man hailing a cab. He hadn’t done anything to flout the laws of the Supernatural Council. Besides, it probably wouldn’t matter. Valentine was their vampire representative.
The taxi turned down Westbourne Terrace, a leafy, four-lane road bordered by tall, Georgian townhouses rendered in white stucco. This part of the road would have made for a beautiful, romantic walk with the sunlight filtering through the trees.
I shook off those thoughts and focused on the people in black who had tracked me down to the crystal shop. Anyone with access to my records would have known I was apprenticing under Istabelle, but why so many and why did they pretend they were working for Valentine?
My throat dried. I would bet my entire collection of black tourmaline that they were colleagues of the shadow mage who had met his end at the teeth of Macavity.
At the end of Westbourne Terrace, the taxi took a right and drove down Bayswater Road, which ran along Hyde Park.
I placed a hand on Valentine’s muscular thigh. “Are you sure the villa is safe?”
“The houses in that development have been in my possession since they were built in the eighteen-hundreds,” he murmured back. “During their construction, some witches in my employment tied the wards to my life force. Whenever I want, I can lock every living being out.”
“Of all the houses?” I pictured all the people unfortunate enough to have purchased a house on that road being kicked out of their own home.
“I can select which house I want to secure,” he said with a confident smile.
“What about magical objects?”
He raised a brow. “Like fire and shadows?”
I nodded.
“The house will eject anything attached to the magic of anyone other than myself and my nominated guests. You will be completely safe while you bring forth your power.”
“And if I accidentally set it on fire or make something else overheat?”
Valentine chuckled. “Everything is fireproof.” He pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Your aunt even stopped by the villa after you left Logris to place your hair into ward stones she buried deep within the earth. Nothing you can do to the house would damage it. Trust me. I’ve thought of everything.”
I wasn’t quite sure about that and a few questions lingered in my mind. If nobody could stop me from developing into a fire mage or some other kind of wielder of fire, who would stop me from going mad with power?
My eyes fluttered shut as the taxi drove us through the streets of London. Maybe I was thinking about this the wrong way. Magic was just a tool that was neither good nor bad. Everything depended on the intentions of its user. If a maniac gained the power to wield flames, they would use it just as Kresnik had.
All my life, I’d just wanted to be the same as everyone else—magical, and not someone anyone could consider a broodmare. But the price for such illegal magic was too harsh. I couldn’t spend my entire life being chased by the Supernatural Council’s enforcers.
“What happens if the precautions you took don’t work, and I turn into something terrible?” I asked.
Valentine flashed me a grin. “If you make it through the transformation without getting yourself caught or killed by the enforcers, you will no longer need my protection.”
Chapter Fifteen
What did he just say? I twisted around in the taxi’s leather seat and stared at Valentine’s perfect profile of high cheekbones, a beautifully straight nose and parted lips. One of his violet eyes rotated to meet my gaze, and he raised his brows in question.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
He turned his head and frowned. “Mera?”
“You’re going to let me transform into a…” I raced through my mind for the correct words.
Kresnik sounded like a monster, an anomaly, a supernatural freak. There was no way I would become any of those, even if I ended up developing the same power as the man who had taken control of Valentine’s father.
“So, I’m going to turn into a fire mage and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it?” I asked.
Valentine exhaled a sigh and took my hand. “Your aunt has spent the past three years thinking of ways to reverse your development and halt it altogether. Did you ever eat her special homemade chocolates?”
“Of course.” I frowned. “Did she put something in them?”
“Nullweed mostly, to suppress your magical development. It’s a common practice among parents wanting to delay their children’s development for betrothals or political alliances.”
I stared out of the taxi’s window, watching the traffic whizz by Hyde Park. There were fewer red double-deckers on the road, and more regular cars traveled among the black cabs and open-top hop-on-hop-off tourist busses. By now, the sun had disappeared behind white fluffy clouds, casting Bayswater Road in a November gloom.
We’d learned about nullweed in the academy, and some of my classmates had been taking it from birth because an important person they’d been betrothed to was either a decade younger or hadn’t yet been born.
Back in my younger years in Logris, such practices were commonplace, and it was only when I’d come to live in the human world that I realized that supp
ressing children’s development was barbaric. People weren’t bonsai trees that needed pruning.
The thought that Aunt Arianna doctored her weekly box of chocolates with such a substance made my heart sink. It was no wonder she told me not to share it with anyone else.
“Mera?” Valentine squeezed my hand.
“I’m fine,” I replied with a sigh. “She just wanted to protect me. I get it.”
“Then why the frown?”
“She should have told—” I stopped myself before I could finish that sentence. “She probably did and I lost that knowledge in the mind control.”
Valentine nodded. “Whoever tampered with your memory also didn’t want you to know about your power.”
“I thought it was strange that I didn’t get any chocolates this month,” I muttered. “Do you think it was that shadow assassin?”
“It’s possible,” Valentine replied. “If they discovered what your aunt put in the chocolates, withholding them for a few weeks would remove the nullweed suppressing your magic. It would also trigger your development.”
I nodded. There was no point in raging at anyone. Except for whoever was working behind the scenes to sabotage Valentine’s and Aunt Arianna’s efforts to hide my power from the Supernatural Council.
The knowledge that Macavity had killed the assassin was no longer a comfort because a bunch of enforcers had tracked me down to the crystal shop. What if they found traces of the dead man?
The taxi turned right at Notting Hill Gate Station, which at this time of the afternoon was crowded with people moving to and from Portobello Market. As we passed a bakery with glossy pastries in its display, my stomach rumbled. We hadn’t eaten since the hot tub.
“You can’t go to work tomorrow,” Valentine said, his voice grave.
My gaze dropped to my lap. He was right. The flare of power that had heated the water and boiled Beatrice was probably the first of many. Maybe the next time, I would erupt in flames and hurt a human.
For everyone’s safety, I needed to stay hidden. “I know.”
Something he said earlier plagued my mind. “What did you mean when you said I wouldn’t need any protection?”
Valentine’s eyes glimmered. I would have thought the expression was admiration, but after hearing about what Kresnik had done to his family, he might have been looking at me with apprehension.
“Fire wielders are the most powerful of all supernaturals,” he replied. “Kresnik’s power was unusual and immense. Nobody in written history has animated the dead with such lifelike precision, but supernatural flames can burn through magic and have a destructive power that rivals volcanic explosions.”
“Walking nuclear bombs?” I muttered.
“Once you’ve reached maturity, it will take a small army to kill you,” he murmured. “The Council will then convene to decide if attacking a peaceful fire wielder is worth the potential casualties, and I will vote against going to war.”
I stared at his profile, my chest filling with awe. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you’re part of that group of elders.”
Valentine chuckled, the sound tickling my ears.
The driver pulled in outside the white villa, and Valentine pulled out a credit card and held its chip to the passenger section’s card reader. After tapping the display to add a tip, he thanked the driver for a pleasant ride.
The taxi’s interior dropped a few degrees in temperature, and I turned my gaze back to the window. Outside, the clouds darkened, looking like it might rain. Goose pimples prickled across my skin, even with the tracksuit top and woolen coat.
Maybe it was a deep supernatural dread seizing my body or a reluctance to embark on this next stage of my life. Maybe something terrible was waiting for us at our destination.
As Valentine reached for the door, I grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Is anything wrong?”
“All the heat has been sucked out of the cab.”
Valentine frowned. “You sense something?”
I nodded, not needing to explain. In the three years we’d been together, we’d spoken at length about my ability to sense magic. Valentine found it fascinating and would often take me to far-flung places around the Supernatural World just so I could describe how a person felt.
He’d said it was like looking at the world through a different pair of eyes. I might lose that insight once I came into my power.
“Let me go out first, alright?” he said.
“Alright,” I whispered.
Valentine opened the door and stepped out into the street. He turned back to me with a gentle smile. “Are you ready?”
My throat dried. I gulped over and over, staring at the villa looming ten feet behind him. It was only a few steps away, but those short iron gates now looked like the walls to a prison. With one thought, Valentine could lock everyone out. I knew how wards worked. With that same thought, he could also lock me in and keep me there until he decided to release me or he lost his life.
Right now, I felt like the ugly duckling about to transform into a raptor. Once I stepped through those doors, I’d probably endure days or weeks or months of pain and emerge the kind of creature everyone would hate and fear.
It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. This development was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, my voice already weary.
He offered me his hand and helped me out into the street.
As I stepped onto the curb, something cold snaked around my ankle, leaching the warmth from my foot. My heart jumped into the back of my throat. It tugged, making me stumble forward.
“Valentine,” I said with a gasp.
In the blink of an eye, he scooped me into his arms and ran through the gap in the villa’s metal fence. It hadn’t quite been vampire speed, but fast enough to outrun a gold-medal sprinter.
“You’re safe within the villa’s wards.” He paused at the doorstep. “What happened?”
“It felt like a shadow,” I said.
Valentine spun around, and we both glanced down the street. Humans dressed for autumn walked past on their way to the stops and bars of Notting Hill, paying us no attention. Traffic wound around our black cab, which still remained parked outside the villa. We had left the door open, and the driver walked around to close it.
My gaze dropped to the curb. A thick, tentacle-like shadow stretched from beneath the taxi to the villa’s threshold, forming the shape of a T alongside the metal railings separating us from the street.
“Look at the ground,” I whispered.
Valentine snarled through his teeth. “Don’t worry. Whatever that is, it can’t pass the wards.”
Turning us around, he pushed open the front door and carried me over the threshold of the villa. Warm air engulfed my body, melting away a layer of tension. I rested my head against his broad chest and sighed.
The old Mera from three years ago might have fluttered at the symbolism of Valentine’s gesture, but that girl had never been hunted by an assassin or wanted by enforcers of the Supernatural Council.
A quick glance through the gap in the open door told me that the shadow was still trying to find its way inside. It lengthened, thickened, and rose off the ground the way Macavity did when begging for treats.
I could still feel the absence of heat from where that shadow grabbed my ankle. The wretched thing reminded me of a two-dimensional slug, leaving a trail of slime along my flesh.
Valentine kicked the door closed and carried me across the hallway and up the curving staircase. “Are you alright?”
“Thanks,” I murmured. “That thing must have followed us from the hospital.”
“They must have been monitoring you for longer than I thought,” Valentine muttered under his breath. “Either that or someone working in the hospital contacted the enforcers about a suspected supernatural injury.”
“That happens?” I asked.
Valentine st
epped into the living room and approached the crackling fire. “Low-level enforcers work in human law enforcement and the health service. They’re our most effective way to catch supernaturals who come to the human world to cause harm.”
The heat of my heavy garments, the warm villa, the open fire, and Valentine’s body made my skin itch, and sweat gathered on my brow. He still clutched me to his chest as though I was something precious, and the tip of his nose ran down my neck. A deep hum reverberated in Valentine’s chest, making him feel like a cat who had caught its prey.
I cleared my throat. “Thanks for carrying me through the wards. You can put me down now.”
Valentine’s lips grazed my neck, sending tingles racing across my skin. “Have I told you recently how wonderful you smell?”
“Ummm.” My pulse quickened, my nipples tightened, and I squirmed on his lap. “Valentine?”
“Inamorata.”
His deep voice resonated through my body and settled at the most sensitive spot between my legs. What on earth was he doing? We had a shadow assassin, shadow curse, or whatever that thing was, lurking outside the house. We needed to call someone to get rid of it, not hole up in the villa sniffing each other’s necks.
I placed a hand on his hard chest to give him a shove, and his rapid heartbeat thudded against my palm. My mouth dropped open, and my gaze met his smoldering violet eyes, which radiated an intense and naked hunger. All the moisture left my throat. Did I really have such an effect on him?
“Valentine,” I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. “We should be fighting what’s out there—”
“My wards are old and absolute,” he said in a deep, melodic voice that curled around my senses like a cat. “No one will enter.”
“Alright.” My tongue darted out to lick my dry lips, and his eyes tracked the movement.
I gulped. The Valentine who had courted me had always shown restraint and had never been so openly passionate. Maybe it was because of our three years of absence. Maybe I would have felt the same intensity of desire if that shadow thing hadn’t wrapped around my ankle and tried to drag me under the taxi.
