by Skye Malone
I wonder if he feels the same way about me.
A sting of pain threatens to penetrate my calm, and I push the thought away fast. That’s not my problem, not right now.
The thudding of the music gets louder, drowning out any hope of hearing myself think, and I’m grateful. Mist hits me before I leave the hall, already emanating from the crowd of people on the gallery overlooking the dance floor. My steps falter at the sudden influx of energy, but I regroup fast. The fog takes the edge off as always, though. The trembling that’s plagued me for the past several hours is already starting to fade.
I head for the stairs and the dance floor. People bump into me, brushing my arms, my sides. Mist comes with the contact, flooding me with energy. I can feel myself standing straighter. Relaxing, like all my muscles are growing more limber.
The crowd is so thick that the dance floor seems to merge with the stairway and the press of bodies makes the air warm. I slip between the dancers, trying to let my mind relax like my muscles. A quick glance back confirms that Sorcha and Ulric have taken up positions at the edge of the room. Their gazes sweep the crowd, lighting on me briefly and then moving on. I turn away. They can’t be my concern right now either.
I have to get this over with first.
A deep breath fills my lungs, carrying energy and mist and magic with it. I sway to the music, my attention more on the people around me than my own body. And in only a moment, I spot a guy watching me. He’s tall, with brownish hair, though the color is difficult to distinguish under the dazzling, spinning lights. He comes toward me and flashes a grin when he gets close. I smile back and move nearer to him too.
His hands take my hips. He’s not a bad dancer, though I’m not really a qualified judge. I’ve been to a club a handful of times in my life, counting this. He could be terrible for all I know.
But that’s not really the point.
He pulls me up against him, pressing his body to mine. I haven’t used any magic on him yet. I’m not sure I want to. I know what Rafael said; I can’t really force anyone.
But I don’t want to risk hurting him.
His hands move to my ass, and I can read the opportunism in his eyes. He’s testing to see if I’ll push him away.
I make myself smile instead.
He grins. His hands grip me and the woodsy scent of his body spray surrounds me.
I wish I was with Amar.
Quickly, I turn my face away, forcing my body to keep dancing and hoping that in the dazzling blur of the lights, this guy didn’t catch any change in my expression. I order myself to stay focused and I cast a fast glance to the stairs, debating whether he’d come back with me to the storage room already or if I should give this a bit more time.
Kyle grins at me from the base of the stairway.
I gasp, freezing completely.
The crowd moves, blocking my view for only a heartbeat, and then Kyle’s gone. I look around frantically, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The dance floor is nothing but shadows and brief flashes of faces in the hot, swirling lights. I turn, searching for Sorcha or Ulric.
I can’t find them anywhere.
“Hey!” the guy yells over the music. I glance back to him and see the confusion on his face. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t even know where to begin. “I—”
Someone slams into me from behind, propelling me against the guy I was dancing with. Lights flash in my eyes and smoke alarms start blaring like the fires of hell have broken out in the middle of the dance floor.
But the sound doesn’t last. The lights cut out and so does the noise. Black and cold take the place of everything. My feet can’t find the ground. Mist slices at me, frigid and lashing out like whips of ice to flay me alive. I can’t even scream at the agony. The darkness seems dense. Savage, like it’s fighting to keep me from leaving the club. It clogs my throat, my nose, gagging me. It fills my ears with a roar like a jet engine about to explode.
And then it’s all gone. I crash to my hands and knees on concrete, and new pain shoots through my limbs at the impact. Smells of oil and gasoline hit me like a fist and I choke.
A shrieking, gurgling sound comes from my right. I look toward it, my whole body shaking like I received a jolt from a cattle prod.
My dance partner is on the ground. He’s lying on his side, staring at me, his body curled into a fetal position. His hands have seized up into claws, and foam and spittle are frothing from his mouth. He’s lurching like he’s being shocked and with every spasm, he makes that horrible noise again.
“Well, that’s unpleasant.”
I look up.
Kyle regards the guy briefly and then turns to me with a grin. “Hi Cait. Nice to see you again.”
The guy from the club starts thrashing and screaming. I scramble backward.
“God,” Kyle comments with disgust.
Metal flashes at the corner of my eye and then a burst of sound shatters the world.
The guy lurches hard. Something wet splatters my face. He sags to the ground.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move.
“Much better.”
My mouth opens, but no sound emerges. Blood is seeping from beneath the guy, staining his green t-shirt and spreading across the concrete to encroach on his hair—which is rust-colored, I realize, not brown like I’d thought at the club. My mistake.
I can’t take my eyes from him.
“Alright, then,” Kyle says.
“Wha…” I don’t recognize my own voice. “What—”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have made it. Humans die from shadow-crossing unprotected, even without being shoved past all the defenses around that roach motel where you were hiding.” He chuckles. “So how ya been, Cait?”
I want to scream.
Kyle sighs. “Get her up, would you? This is pathetic.”
Hands grab me and haul me upright. My wide eyes manage to turn from the guy on the ground to the man holding me. He’s got to weigh three hundred pounds and he’s easily a foot taller than I am, with a snake tattooed in strangely metallic ink on his neck. Other people surround us, a dozen at least. They regard me expressionlessly while one of them tucks a gun away beneath his jacket.
I look back toward Kyle. He’s still grinning like this is some great joke.
Reality is creeping back, though. Awareness of my body and the space around me. And with it comes rage. Cold, burning rage.
“What do you want?” I growl.
“Oh, look at that. She’s being brave now.” He smirks. “We want your help, Cait. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t work for fucking Linden. Get that through your head, asshole.”
Kyle makes a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, yeah, we figured that out. But that doesn’t change much for Josephine’s little girl, now does it?”
My stomach turns to lead. I fight to keep from showing any sign.
“Quite the revelation about your demon ancestry, isn’t it? Too bad I never met your mom. You and I could have had this discussion ages ago and been saved a lot of trouble.”
“What do you want?” I repeat, my voice tightly controlled.
“To find somebody. A Touched who… well, let’s just say they’re different than the rest. Special, sort of like you.”
“Go screw yourself.”
He laughs.
“You tell your boss Lucretia she can shove it too. I’m not—”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” he assures me dryly. “But here’s the thing, Cait… I don’t work for Volgert.”
I freeze.
“Well,” he hedges. “Technically I do, and up until a certain Legacy asshole started making deals and fucking up my plans to be the incubi in charge of finding that Touched—and thus the one in control of them—I was happy to keep everyone believing that. But then, that’s the point with coups. They look like one thing when they’re actually not.” His brow twitches up. “Sort of like your friend Amar.”
I stop breathing.
“See, I
may not know exactly what he can do, but that doesn’t really bother me, because I do know he’s made another bargain with that nostalgic old relic, Lucretia, all for the soppy little reason of keeping you safe. Hell, he’s even given up his independence to seal the deal for your protection. And now he’s gotten himself into a terribly vulnerable position and he doesn’t have a clue.” His grin returns. “Be a shame if something happened as a result.”
Kyle chuckles when I don’t respond. “Here’s how it’s going to go: you find the Touched. You help my people bring them back to me. And you don’t tell anyone about it, or you get to watch me kill Amar and feed his body to a wood chipper. How’s that sound?”
Quivers start in my belly, radiating up through my chest.
A satisfied smile twists Kyle’s face. “You suck as a demon, you know. Human as hell. And him… damn, I would’ve expected better. Guess he’s not the paragon of a Legacy that he pretends to be.”
“You—” My gaze darts around, skipping across the parking garage where we’re standing. A yellow door to my right bears a sign about stairs. A large exit ramp of broken concrete stretches ahead of me, leading who knows where. “People will be looking for me. You can’t just—”
“Who? Those furry wastes of space you called bodyguards? Yeah, we took care of them. You’re on your own, Cait.”
My shivers get stronger. I can’t believe him. I don’t want to believe him. I hardly know Sorcha and Ulric but I… dammit, I like them.
The snake-tattooed monster holding me gives a small snort.
My gaze snaps to him. Static shoots over my body before I even register the impulse.
He grunts. A shimmer ripples through his skin, bright and metallic like the human color of his flesh is only an illusion. He glances down at me, and for a moment, his eyes are orbs of steel.
“Ow,” he growls, more anger than pain in his tone.
I wince when his grip clenches harder on my arm.
“Clock’s ticking, Cait,” Kyle says. “You run, you fight, Amar dies. So what’s it going to be?”
I look back to him. I can’t do this. I won’t. But after what happened to Ruby, I don’t doubt for a second that this bastard won’t try to hurt Amar.
I don’t even trust that Kyle won’t hurt him regardless of what I say.
He grins like he can see what I’m thinking. “Human as hell,” he repeats. “You take one step out this door without me and I’ll have your boyfriend dead faster than you can say—”
All the shadows seem to shift at once, and suddenly Katsuro and two dozen others are there. The yellow door to the stairwell bursts from its hinges and Ram barrels through the opening, the guy called Tank and three other enormous people on his heels.
“No!” Kyle rages.
One of Kyle’s people rushes toward Katsuro. It’s a mistake. Katsuro moves so fast, the air seems to blur around him and suddenly, the other man is on the ground at Katsuro’s back with blood pouring from a gaping wound at his neck. With barely a pause, Katsuro swipes the blood from his hand and then turns, his pitch black eyes radiating a threat to all the others in front of him. Motioning quickly, he directs his people toward the guy holding me.
Fury snarls across Kyle’s face. He lunges for me. I try to retreat, but the monster holding me is too strong.
Another one of Katsuro’s people gets there first, slamming into Kyle and sending him flying.
Air ripples around Kyle. He rolls in midair and lands in a cloud of dust without any evidence of injury. He throws a hand out immediately and lightning arcs from his fingertips, striking the guy who attacked him. The demon falls.
“Get the girl!” Kyle shouts. “Don’t let them take her!”
Several more of Katsuro’s people race at him. Kyle scans them fast and his conclusion is clear. He bolts across a thin line of shadow on the ground and disappears.
The rest of his people rush at me.
Katsuro’s people intercept them. Screams break out. I gasp, trying to look away as blood hits the walls.
The guy holding me has other plans.
Wrenching me around, he starts for the rear of the parking garage and another bright yellow door I can see in the distance there. I try to slow him, digging my heels into the rough concrete, stumbling to keep from being dragged when that doesn’t work. My hand claws at his fingers.
I’d stand a better chance of breaking steel.
Tank and Ram race past us and circle fast, blocking our path. The snake-tattooed guy skids to a stop, yanking me to his side. He’s bigger than the two of them, I realize. Slower, maybe, but so huge that I’m suddenly afraid for the other two trolls.
Ram doesn’t seem to care. He grins, his metal teeth glinting in the light. “Drop her or die.”
A growl rumbles from the tattooed man. He hauls me around, keeping me between him and Ram. I choke on the pain of my muscles grinding against my bones.
“Alright,” Ram says.
He charges toward me.
The tattooed guy roars. His grip shifts and suddenly, I’m flying, my whole body hurled sideways.
Someone snags me before I hit the ground. For a heartbeat, I stare at the concrete only inches from my face, a scream trapped in my throat. Quivering with shock, I manage to twist my head to the side and look back at the person holding me.
Katsuro smiles, sharp fangs edging over his lip. “Hello Cait.”
Electricity crackles through the air and slams into a nearby wall in a shower of sparks and ballistic concrete. My gaze snaps over. Ram and Tank have the other troll. He doesn’t look like he’ll get up again. But several of Kyle’s people are racing toward us. Magic crackles around them.
And then Katsuro is moving again. In a swift motion, he lifts me and sets me upright. “Time to go.”
He pulls me backward and the world vanishes into a blur of shadows.
Everything returns in a rush. The mist and darkness give way to an alley beside a busy street, and the sound of a horn honking startles me, as does the laughter that follows. I can’t see what caused it all. My gaze darts around, landing on the worn bricks on either side of me and the narrow view of a brightly lit storefront across the street, but I don’t recognize anything from this angle. We aren’t near Temptation, I can tell. But I’m not sure where we are.
“This way.” Katsuro pulls me toward a metal door tucked deeper in the shadows of the alleyway.
I plant my feet, stopping our advance. “What—where are we?”
“Close to safety, but not there yet.”
I cast another glance toward the road. The shadows are sharp here, I notice, drawn in sheer lines by the sides of the building and the bright street lamps. Funny how that simple fact seems so threatening.
But this isn’t good either. Yeah, Katsuro and his people basically saved my life, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a danger to me too. They seem determined to make use of whatever it is I can theoretically do, same as Kyle.
And for pretty much the same reason.
Katsuro looks back when he realizes I haven’t followed. “Those demons could still find us here. We must get out of sight.”
“I need to get in touch with Amar.”
Even if I have no idea how to do that.
I push the thought aside. I do know where to find Brett, and that’ll be enough. “Kyle threatened to kill Amar if I refused to do what he wanted. He said Amar was in danger and didn’t even know it.” I can see the unwillingness in Katsuro’s expression. “Please, I have to get back to Temptation and warn—”
“Has he told you what he is?” Katsuro cuts in.
I falter. “What?”
“Amar. Has he told you?”
I stare at him while my mind flashes back to Kyle, to Ram, to everyone who keeps hinting at Amar being some horrible thing. But unlike everybody else, there’s no contempt or alarm in Katsuro’s eyes. There’s only an intensity like the question is a matter of life or death.
And before I can even speak, he seems to read the answe
r on my face.
“Do you trust either of them then?” Katsuro presses.
“Trust either of—”
“Do you believe this Kyle person will do as he says, or that Amar is trustworthy?”
Chills creep over me. He thinks I can tell what’s true with this power everyone says I have. But it doesn’t matter. About this one thing, at least, I know I’m right, regardless. “Yes.” I nod. “On both counts, yes.”
Katsuro grimaces. “Very well.” He strides past me to the line of shadow on the concrete. “Are you familiar with what is necessary for shadow-crossing on your own?”
I hesitate and then shake my head. Without a word, he extends a hand to me. Gingerly, I wrap my fingers around his, working not to react to how cool and inhuman they feel. We step forward. The alley disappears.
Sirens are the first thing I hear when we return to the normal world. Quickly, I jog to the exit of this new alley and peek around the corner.
Flashing lights nearly blind me. Down the street from us, cop cars and three ambulances surround the front entrance to Temptation, clearing space like they’re trying to keep everyone away. A crowd has formed beyond official-looking barricades, but in the glare, I can’t make out any faces I recognize.
Which doesn’t mean much. God, I hope Kyle hasn’t come back here as well.
“The humans believe it was a bomb.” Katsuro stops beside me. “The demons shredded through thick layers of defense to take you out of there as they did. The backlash was intense. Several of their number were killed.”
“How do you—”
“I had agents there as well. They reported the situation to me the moment you were taken.”
I stare at him but he doesn’t look my way, his gaze fixed on the crowds like he’s searching for someone. “Who are you?”
He doesn’t take his focus from the road. “That remains a rather complicated question.”
