My heart thumped too hard in my chest, like maybe I wanted this to happen. Maybe I wanted to kiss his soft, inviting lips.
“Lie back,” he ordered.
I swallowed and did as he asked, struggling to take my eyes off him.
He ran his hands up my thighs and around my hips, dipping them into my waist, and then placed a knee on either side of me and crawled up until we were eye to eye. His tail wrapped around my ankle, holding firm.
His wings lay open, cocooning us inside this small moment in time. His breathing matched mine, his lips so close I just had to lift my head to seal the kiss that was surely coming. I wanted this, wanted him. I had wondered about it for years, since I’d grown into my body and started looking at males differently. I’d bedded a few of the staff in my early teens, mostly as a distraction. But Rafe was untouchable, the forbidden, and therein lay the sweet irony. To touch him, to run my hands over lean muscle and smooth skin, to tip his head up, to taste the line of his jaw, to tease my tongue in and draw the real him out. None of it was real. All of it was his demonic seduction, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy him. This was the perfect excuse to take that forbidden last step.
“You must never let them see you, the real you,” I heard Gerome tell me from long ago. “And never love them, Lynher.” He’d seemed so sad then. “The Dark Ones will never love you in return.”
Rafe and I had made a deal. This meant nothing.
His eyes searched mine, and the moment stretched, both of us caught between action and inaction. I’d imagined him grinning. I’d thought he’d be a tease and impossibly arrogant now that he’d gotten his wish. But there was none of that on his face or in his body, just a tight hint of anger or maybe frustration. As I watched, the color in his eyes darkened, eaten by his expanding pupils, and the truth of him simmered to the surface. Lilith’s errand runner, now so much more.
“Rest,” he said, breathing in as he pushed away.
I propped myself up on my elbows and watched him stalk to the dresser. He spread his hands on its surface and bowed his head. His wings shuddered and pulled closed, sealing their oily colors inside. His tail lashed, a sure sign he was angry. I didn’t understand. I’d been ready for him, more than ready.
“What is this? You make a deal and then you don’t want me?”
“It’s not that,” he hissed and looked up at our reflections. His mismatched eyes were black, wholly consumed. “A day and a night. That was our agreement.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t argue, Lynher. Not on this.” Then he was gone, sparks raining in his wake.
* * *
Day and night came and went, and I slept through it, grateful for the space Rafe had given me, if troubled by his strange behavior. I’d assumed he’d return to collect on our deal, but when dawn came around again and he still hadn’t come, he’d forfeited his chance, leaving me suspicious and curiously bereft. Had he bargained for the day and night to make sure I rested? Why would he do such a thing when he’d had the opportunity to have me in all ways, like he’d always wanted. His actions didn’t fit him. The Rafe I’d grown up with would never have missed an opportunity to bed anything, but this new Rafe was more complicated.
I ate breakfast with Kensey, eyeing the closed shutters, wondering if they’d ever open again. He didn’t mention Rafe, and I didn’t mention how Etienne was fae. Maybe we’d get to that, but not yet. I told him everything that had happened with Jack, even the moment he’d saved me from Caine, at what must have been a huge cost to himself. Kensey didn’t trust it but agreed my actions in trapping the overseer had been the right thing to do.
“Jack said some things…” I swirled a silver spoon in my tepid coffee and wrapped my fingers around the mug. I’d struggled to get warm since returning from the outside. “…about Gerome.”
Kensey’s chewing slowed. “What things?”
“Gerome was good, right?”
“He raised us, didn’t he? And I know for sure you were a pain in the ass—” I threw a napkin at my brother. He caught it and laughed. “That overseer was trying to twist you around to his thinking. He wanted you and this station for the queen.” Kensey poked his tongue into his cheek. “Did you believe him?”
“No, of course not.”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.” He downed his syrupy coffee. “While you were away and I was going out of my mind, news came in. The vampires have pulled out of England,” he said around mouthfuls of pancake and syrup. “And there’s movement on the West Coast. They’re withdrawing their advance and pulling out of some European territory.”
“Any idea why?” I picked at my bacon, feeling full and well rested for the first time in forever.
“None. But if they’re giving up land, it must be good. They never give up land. Maybe they’ve overreached? Whatever the reason, it has to be good news for us.”
“Maybe.” Vampires on the move was never good news, and the feeling of that thing outside the station, trying to boil its way inside… That thing—their queen—was no normal vampire.
I said my goodbyes to Kensey and headed into Night while it slept, stepping back into my role. It felt better to be back in my boots and dress now that I’d had time to recover my wits. Etienne was waiting for me. I reeled off instructions for the evening and felt the comfort of the role fall back onto my shoulders.
Everything would be all right.
I unlocked my library door, and Etienne followed me inside, reciting his list of tasks for the day.
A cane rested against my desk, its silver top reflecting the light from the doorway.
For a terrible, heart-stopping moment, I knew Jack had returned and looked for him in the shadows. But he couldn’t be here. It wasn’t possible.
I clicked my fingers, and the lamps spluttered to life, chasing away the dark.
He wasn’t here. I even checked under the desk, feeling partly foolish but mostly aware that someone had been here.
“Isn’t that Ja—”
I picked up the damn thing before Etienne could say the name and brought it down over my knee, snapping it clean in two, then tossed the two pieces onto my desk. “Now it’s firewood.”
Etienne eyed the two pieces like they were snakes. “I’ll er… I’ll dispose of it, shall I?”
“Incinerate it, and when the shutters open, I’m tossing the ashes onto the tracks.”
When had Jack had it last? In the ballroom? I couldn’t recall, but I didn’t think so. Perhaps someone had found it and placed it here. But how had they gotten inside my room?
Something else caught my eye in the floor-standing mirror across the room. It reflected Etienne and me, as it should, but there was something wrong with its picture, something off-kilter.
As I approached, the clear outline of a handprint appeared in its center. Using my sleeve, I tried to wipe it away, but the mark stayed. I tried again, rubbing harder. The handprint didn’t budge.
“What is it?” Etienne asked.
Leaning so close my breath misted the mirror’s surface, I frowned at the handprint. “It’s on the other side of the glass.”
“That’s… not possible. Is it?”
“Etienne…” I straightened. “Cover every mirror in the entire station. Every room, every floor. Collect all the hand mirrors, pocket mirrors, all of them. Get it done. I can trust you with this?”
“Yes, naturally, but…” He pulled his glare from the mirror. “What does it mean, ma’am?”
I tentatively pressed my hand against the imprint. Ice nipped at my palm, trying to freeze my skin to its surface. It burned cold. “Someone is trying to come through.”
The shutters behind the mirror threw themselves open, startling me into reaching for my knife. Milky moonlight poured in and over the mirror and Etienne, spreading its icy touch throughout my library. There was no blackness boiling out there, no terrible queen about to smash the glass and claim us all, just starlight and…
That couldn’t be right.
I drifted closer to the window. Etienne approached too and drew in a breath. Beyond the glass, countless moon-licked rooftops climbed toward the sky. Great domes jutted from those angular peaks, some topped with bent and rusted crosses, their arches and elaborate carvings all cracked and crumbling. Stone gargoyles stood sentinel on the corners of marble facades. The buildings were barren and ruined, half tumbled into empty streets, but they were not the same buildings I’d looked upon my entire life.
This wasn’t my view, and from the architecture, it wasn’t even my continent.
“So beautiful…” Etienne whispered, moonlight turning his face ghostly pale. “Where are we?”
“I have no idea.”
* * *
To be continued in Night Scourge, Daybreaker #2 -
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What to read next by Pippa DaCosta
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* * *
More fae in space?
Read the Messenger Chronicles
More urban fantasy fae?
Read The London Fae series
More demons?
Read the Veil Series
More anti-hero fantasy action?
Read the Soul Eater series
More gritty sci-fi?
Read the 1000 Revolution series
More dark fantasy?
Read The Heartstone Thief
Twilight Seeker: Daybreaker #1 Page 22
