by A. Vers
Chol’s lips tighten. He grips the sill and sticks his head out. “It’s clear.”
Nix glances at me and holds his hands together. “Up.”
I hesitate. Another loud boom rattles the door. I press my hand to one of Nix’s scalding shoulders and climb into his hands. He heaves upward.
Quick to snag the wooden rim, I pull myself through and drop, unsteadily, into the alley below. Chol peers at me as I turn around. He contorts, grabbing the frame and easing himself out back first before dropping to the old stone beside me. In seconds, Nix clamors halfway through.
He pauses, pushing against the Inn wall with a grunt. “Damn it. I’m caught.”
My eyes drift around him. “Nix. Your pack.”
He swears and ducks back inside. A heavy slam sounds, echoing out the window with a chorus of voices screaming, “Don’t move!”
I swear. “Hells.”
Chol rushes the wall. I slap my arm into his midsection, stopping him. I scan the alley. A low rubbish bin sits nearby. I run over and shove it closer with a grinding squeal. Palms pressed onto the thin metal, I leap up and dive toward the window.
Rolling onto the bed, I come up, already weaving under my breath.
Nix spins across from me, his armor gleaming in the firelight. With the cowl over his face, he is a dark being of menace. He punches into the sentinels with unrestrained force, eliciting grunts and masculine gasps. One guard grabs him by the pack, heaving hard enough the straps begin to split. I throw the orb in my hand.
It illuminates the guard’s face with blue fire and he screams. Stumbling backward, he clutches his face. But it’s the only opening the Hallow needs. Nix wrenches free, gaze meeting mine.
“Let’s go!” I scream.
I throw a volley of bright balls, filling the room with a glow like sunlight. The guards shield their eyes and turn away.
Nix runs across the space between us and clamors up beside me on the mattress, already moving to the open window.
I jump up and dive through after him.
The rim of the rubbish bin catches me in the side, knocking the wind out of me with a harsh ache. Warm fingers close over my arm, hauling me up. Chol pulls me out of the dim space at a dead sprint, Nix two steps ahead. His dark covered head casts around. But he never slows, never lets up. The cambion and I race after him down the street as angry shouts follow us out into the city.
Ѻ
After running until my side feels like it is going to split in two, Nix motions us into a dark alleyway between empty stores. He searches the space and turns to both of us. “We need to change our appearances while we have a chance.”
Chol drops his pack without preamble, and his hands fall to the bottom of his shirt.
I blink. “Umm… Chol? What are you doing?”
He tugs his shirt over his head.
Even in the dark his body is made with a precision that should not be possible on such a lean frame. He rakes his gaze over me with a smirk. “Changing. You going to join me or just watch?”
My lips part.
Nix scowls, grabs my arm, and tugs me to the back corner of the alley behind a stack of pallets. “You can change back here.”
I flush and just stand there. “Oh… Okay.”
He walks off, eyes on fire, back to Chol. I glance around at my little cubby before letting my bag fall to one broken crate. Rifling through my clothes, I begin to undress gingerly.
There is nothing to stand on but a piece of half rotted wood, and in the deepest shadows, something chatters and squeaks. Keeping my eyes on the shadows, I slowly slip my boots off.
Bad supernaturals are easy to handle. Rats…not so much.
After donning a pair of military-style black fatigues and a cropped black long sleeve shirt, I tug my boots on, take a deep breath, and walk back out.
Chol is hobbling into his own footwear, and Nix appears almost normal in jeans and a midnight shirt.
The Hallow looks me over. “I was hoping to garner less attention. Not more.”
I glance down at the high hem of my shirt, where the woven pattern stops just shy of my navel. “I didn’t grab as much as I thought.”
“And we were supposed to go through the convergence in Fent,” he says and scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I know.”
Chol beams next to him. “Personally, I like it.”
Nix and I ignore the cambion.
“We need to make ourselves scarce until the next shift change,” Nix says, stowing his blade in the sheath down his spine. He whirls his cloak about his frame before tugging it back on. Sans veil. And it’s odd not to see the cowl around his neck.
“The sentinels normally scour the city from east to west. So if we slip around the back streets and come back out near the depot, we may be able to evade them,” he continues.
“Okay.”
He looks at me. “What? No argument? No second guesses or stubborn streaks for me to appease?” Nix quips.
I raise a brow. “As much as I would love to argue--and I do love to argue…” He scowls, but I just smile. “One, you’re as stubborn as I am, so nice try on that. And two, I don’t know Emerald City. This is foreign territory to me, so feel free to not act like an ass and take the lead for now, okay?”
His mouth opens, closes, and then opens again. “Okay.”
My lips tremor as he echoes me. “Okay?”
He peers at me from under the fall of his nearly blood-red hair with a haughty cast to his features. “I can compromise.”
Chol’s jaw drops.
The Hallow falls out, and Chol jogs off after him. “Why won’t you ever compromise with me?”
Nix huffs. “Because you’re our charge, genius.” Ours. Not just his. My stomach flutters. “Your protection is more important to me than if you like my plans or not,” Nix continues.
Chol grumbles and falls back next to me. “You’ve been around for one damn day and he hasn’t killed you for standing up to him. Why?”
I peer at the prince. “Are you joking right now, or…”
He stops walking and just looks at me. “He’s a Hallow, Sayah. Do you really think he would listen to you if he chose not to?” His head shakes. “Nix does what he wants. Anytime, anywhere. But somehow in less than a day, you have pushed his hand at every turn and you’re still breathing. I just don’t get why.” Brows knitted, Chol trails along after his loyal guard while I pick my jaw up off the ground.
As much as I would like to argue, I can’t.
Nix is stubborn, frustrating, domineering, and deadly. If he didn’t like my plans or my telling him what to do…he would let me know. Possibly in a bad way.
And yet, he hasn’t.
Sure he’s grumbled about it every step, but he’ll listen to me.
Hells, I’m like the Hallow’s bloody damn conscience.
And as scary as that is, it just may be the one thing that keeps all of us alive until we reach the consulate.
Chapter 14
We wind up in a dive bar back in the shadier part of town near the depot. With the sentinels well away from here, we are all exhausted and damn near dead on our feet. And it’s all that is open in this dark part of town.
The ramshackle interior of the bar has seen better days. Then again, maybe it was always this way. It’s hard to tell in the gloom if the wood was always this decrepit, or if the cobwebs are merely decoration.
Patrons perch over stools near the low bar and drool, half-sprawled, over the tables. A few rickety steps lead the way up to a second floor rimmed in sectioned off cubbies. Several of them sport plump cushions on the floor, and I don’t want to know why.
One such cubicle holds three women and a man. Though that may be stretching it as they are all rather androgynous in shape and covered in pearly scales.
They pass around a narrow pipe that glows with a sickly yellow flame. One woman takes a long drag and exhales. A smoky dragon curls up from her lips, dispersing high in the beams above as we pass.
I take a wider step than normal t
o avoid a buckled place in the floor and duck under the overhang for a cordoned off booth farther in the shadows. The benches are stained wood, un-cushioned, and cold even through my clothes.
Chol squeezes in on one side while Nix drops gracefully on the other. They nudge the curtains across the front closed, and I lean into the bench, feet aching from running.
“We can rest here for a bit, let some of the traffic dwindle down,” Nix murmurs. His head falls back, bunching his hood and stretching his throat in one taut line. It’s the only outward display of his fatigue. Something I was beginning to believe he did not feel.
“Not sure how much resting is gonna happen,” Chol grumbles, shifting in obvious discomfort next to me. His tan skin is pale, a soft honey as opposed to the wondrous gold he came to Midnight with.
Nix opens one eye. “I told you we should—”
“No.” That one word is a bark of sound in the quiet of our booth.
The Hallow sits up fully, both gleaming irises fixed on his charge. “You’re being ridiculous.”
Chol scowls. “I won’t risk it. Not unless I have no choice.”
I look between them. Their tension has grown since we left the alley. Nix’s discontent hovers in the air, but Chol’s stubbornness is a fine undercurrent. The battling testosterone can be cut with a knife, and I need away from it.
Now.
Shoving at Chol, I start making my way to the edge of the booth. He scoots back all the way, letting me pass with a puzzled expression.
“I’m going to find a bathroom,” I mutter. “Once you two are done comparing equipment and zip back up, we need to find somewhere more protected to rest.”
Chol chokes behind me, but I ignore it and pull the curtains wide.
Five dark-clad shapes stand in the center of the dimly lit room on the first floor. Their bodies bristle with weapons and every single one of them sports half-healed bruises or bandages under their cloaks. And they are all gut-wrenchingly familiar.
I close the curtains back, heart hammering. “We have a new problem,” I breathe, turning around.
Nix eyes me then scoots close to the curtain and peers out. He goes rigid. “Damn assassins.”
I wisely keep my mouth shut.
He pulls the drapes tight and looks around, scanning for another way out. A few distant, startled voices flow over the din. He snares my arm and pushes me toward the very back of the booth behind the table. “Down,” he commands.
I drop low under the wood. Chol presses in on my side and Nix flows into a crouch beside us. He lifts me none too gently and plops me in their laps before shoving Chol’s head down with mine. With a fast swish, his cloak flows over the three of us just as the curtain beyond the table opens.
“I know I saw it move,” a disgruntled male voice says. “But it looks empty, boss.”
More steps near, and the sound of someone spitting fills my ears. “They can’t have gotten far. Check behind the benches and curtains.” The assassin leader’s voice is surly and laced in ice.
Nix stills, arms tight around me and Chol as two forms rustle and move beside us. The Prince stares into my eyes from inches away, the soft silver hue pulses with gold bursts like stars. A trickle of sweet scented fog rolls from him. I shake my head. The light glows brighter, and his whole frame shakes.
Shit.
I press my hands to his cheeks, forcing him to look at me. His expression is contorted, glamour flickering and fading before snapping back into place over and over. The change leaves my head dizzy and my body pliant. He’s losing control.
What was it he said to Nix last night? ‘I’ll worry about her anger and the hunger tomorrow’?
How many times has he used amour in the last twenty-four hours? Was it enough to drain him?
Now, with the hunters inches away, it’s going to break. And that may not be a bad thing.
With a quick shift over Nix’s lap, I lift up and kiss the Prince.
Chol stills.
I caress his face, feeling the light stubble and the hard lines beneath my fingertips. Urging him to focus on me. He goes boneless, body curving around mine and meeting me halfway. I let him take over. And he does, as only a cambion can.
Heat pours through me, filtering into the farthest corners of my body and running through my insides like a wave. Everything tingles and little zaps of electricity dance from his mouth to mine. He exhales softly over my lips, pulling away enough to feather the silken bottom swell back and forth.
My thighs press together and my hands dig harder into the sculpted lines of his face. Cookies and spice is everywhere, filling me until the golden cloud lifts me up and rocks me into a stupor of need and fire.
Distantly, arduous moans and commotion sounds farther in the pub. Angry shouts follow.
Someone swears above us, but I don’t care. With Chol’s mouth on mine, I don’t care about much of anything.
The curtains swish closed and retreating footsteps fade away.
Strong fingers close over a nerve at the base of my neck, leaving me sagging and compliant in the hard grip. Each press is hot, demanding my attention. And I give it.
We are pulled apart.
I stare at Chol from a foot away, eyelids heavy and body one large demanding need. My arms stretch out for him, reaching.
Someone snarls in my ear. “Don’t.”
Ice cold terror flows down my spine, and I turn in slow motion to find Nix very, very close. He holds both of us back, shoulders taut and a flush of color highlighting the curves of his cheekbones.
“Are you both insane?” he growls.
Chol sighs, holding his head like he’s as dizzy as I am. “I was losing it, Nix.”
The Hallow stiffens. “What?”
“Even with the cast, I could feel it. The amour was going to come out one way or another.” He peers sidelong at me. I tremble. “But it made the hunters leave.”
Nix swears. “I told you. You used too much last night. It’s just going to get worse unless—”
“I feed, I know,” Chol finishes, frustration threading into his voice. “You were right. I just didn’t…” His eyes flick to me again under the ebony sweep of his lashes.
A low exhale ruffles my hair and Nix releases me, one finger at a time. I spring up, or as much as I can in such a small space. Nix rolls to his feet in front of me and hauls Chol up beside him. The Hallow keeps his body between us as he tilts the prince’s face back.
I realize, with a bit of a start, they are exactly the same height.
“The glow isn’t fading. Can you walk?” Nix asks.
I peer into the Prince’s eyes, too, and find the gold stars still twinkling merrily.
Chol nods. “Should be able to. Just don’t let me run into anything, okay?” His smile would be believable if not for the feverish quality to his complexion and gaze.
I try to offer him my arm, but he takes a step back, almost hiding behind Nix.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea, right now, Say.” The nickname flows off his tongue, and I studiously ignore the wrenching it causes in my chest. “I would roll you like a tidal wave and take you over the table. Nix and the assassins be damned.” His words are stark with need and devoid of his normal teasing.
My heart pounds, but I ease back farther as Nix steers him towards the curtain.
“Sayah, we are going to have to double time it out. Can you keep up?”
I look at the Hallow and Chol’s ashen face. The prince will no longer meet my eyes, and I have a theory he was more honest just now than he planned. “Yes. Of course,” I say, straightening my shirt.
Nix nods. “Then on the count of three…” He grips the curtain with one hand and I grab the other side. “One.”
“Two…” I breathe.
“Three.”
We dive out of the booth and leap headlong over the rail. Our boots slam with a loud smack, but we are already running. A few shouts and cries echo in the dimness, and soon the call goes far and wide in the old bar. I push and
shove through the rowdy patrons, making a clear path for the men behind me.
Someone snatches at my clothes and hair, pulling me back. I duck low under the grasp and spin, contorting at the waist to slam my fist into a doughy mid-section.
Glancing up, Nix supports Chol with one arm while brandishing a sword with the other. He spies me as he crashes the pommel into the narrow nose of a man with pointy black ears.
“Go, Sayah,” he bellows.
I pivot as more patrons close in; the hunters tight behind them. Anxiety boils in my chest, but I grab Nix and Chol both by the collars of their shirts and disappear.
Chapter 15
We slam to a stop in the alley we were in hours before. Blocks from the bar and the assassins. Everything spins and little sparkles of light dance before my eyes, but the old stone and odd webbed panels are happily familiar. “Oh…whoa…” I mumble, reaching for the nearest wall as bile rushes up my throat.
Someone spits behind me and a masculine groan echoes into the pounding in my head. “Son of a bitch. What did you just do?” Nix’s voice is the shakiest I have ever heard it.
I try to peer at him, but everything sways sickeningly, and I just crash into the cool wall. “Fazed us.” I croak out.
“That was…the weirdest sensation…I have ever felt,” Chol grumbles, and another spit sounds. “Gods, it feels like my insides are moving.”
His description is pretty close. I take a few deep breaths, easing the nausea still battering me. “Breathe, it helps.”
“Breathe, my ass,” Nix swears. “I’m one foul stench from projectile—”
“Please don’t finish that statement,” I groan. “Please.”
Silence falls around me, and some of the spinning slows long enough for me to see.
Nix is propped against the wall opposite, arms around his waist. Chol is a foot away, back to us as he bends clean in half, hands on his knees and his blond hair bright in the dimness.
Nix opens one eye, brow narrowed like he can’t quite make out what he is looking at. “Is that a mimir ability?”
My face flushes and I glare at Chol as he turns around.
