by Kelly Meding
“Sure, until someone else decides to take over where Tovin left off.”
I sped up my pace, unable to outrun the stench of the bonfire that was raging out of sight. “There’s always been someone trying to unite the species against us, Wyatt.”
“Before Tovin, no one ever actually got them to do it. Especially the goblins, who are notorious for not playing well with others.”
I didn’t want to admit that he had a good point. Saying it would give his point power, and I was sick of others lording power over me. Sick of being spun around, manipulated, and used. The Triads had done it, Wyatt had done it, and Tovin had done it. No more.
“Hey, look at me.”
He grabbed my left wrist. My stomach clenched. I pivoted, twisting my wrist at the same time, then ducked and spun around behind him, effectively bending his arm backward and up against his own back.
“Do not grab me,” I said in his ear.
“I’m sorry.”
I let go and stepped back, breathing hard for no good reason. Not like that little defensive move had winded me. No, it was the damned adrenaline pumping through me. My heart hammered as my body caught up to my brain. His grabbing my wrist should not have caused such a reaction. Of course, maybe it wasn’t my reaction at all.
I had a lot of Chalice Frost to sort through while my brain acclimated to her residual memories. Taking permanent residence in a dead woman’s body was going to require some getting used to. Especially a woman dead by her own hand. My entire life was about not giving up no matter the agony or overwhelming odds. Chalice had killed herself rather than face the figurative demons fueling her depression. I knew now it was rooted in her undiscovered Gift, but she hadn’t. She just gave up.
I wanted nothing to do with it. But did embracing her attraction to Wyatt mean embracing her fatal weakness, too? If I couldn’t have one without the other … it wasn’t in me to give up. Not the me that was Evy Stone.
“I really don’t want to talk about this, Wyatt,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about Tovin, or the Fey Council, the goblins, the Bloods, or anything else that isn’t related to me getting some time off from this unholy shit storm called my second life.”
“You can’t ignore it forever, Evy,” he said as he turned to face me.
“I’m not planning to ignore it forever. Just for the immediate future.”
“You also going to ignore Chalice for the immediate future?”
“Kind of tough to do now, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with the details of what happened when I died.”
I looked at the ground, wishing he’d stop saying that. Stop talking about dying so casually—it was my routine, not his. Maybe Wyatt’s death had broken the resurrection deal and allowed me to live, but the healing crystal I’d accepted from an elderly gnome named Horzt almost hadn’t worked. We’d almost lost.
A single finger touched the bottom of my chin and pressed. I let him raise my head high enough to stare right into his coal black eyes. Full of curiosity and pain and life. And deep down, probably so as not to scare me, love. Not the platonic love of a Handler for his longtime Hunter but the love of a man who’d willingly exchanged his soul to give me a second chance at life.
The kind of love I wanted to return and couldn’t. At least, not physically. Not until I reconciled Chalice’s past with my own. “You really want to know what happened when you died?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“My heart shattered in my chest. Metaphorically. Happy now?”
He made a strangled sound in his throat, caught between a gasp and a cry.
“About five seconds later,” I continued, “I saw a blinding gray light, had about a thousand different memories flash through my mind, felt a hundred unfamiliar sensations all over my body, and nearly combusted when I realized how powerful my connection to the Break had become.”
My new body’s Gift of teleportation had been strengthened by this connection, in turn strengthening me. In the instant Chalice and I finally became one entity, my perspective had changed. My senses had altered. The world wasn’t quite the same shade as it had been two hours ago. I didn’t know what sort of residual “self” remained behind when a body died, but bits of Chalice had made themselves at home in my brain.
“You saw her memories?” Wyatt asked.
“Some of them, I think, but it’s not like how I remember my life. More like emotions and sensations attached to events. Growing up and feeling like an outsider, how she felt about Alex.”
God, what about Alex? Chalice’s best friend had given his life to help me. I knew nothing about his family, his job, his friends. People in his life would be wondering where he’d disappeared to. They’d want answers. I certainly couldn’t tell them he’d been turned into a half-breed vampire, and that I’d shot him in the head to put him out of his misery.
Grief tightened my throat. My eyes watered. I bit the inside of my cheek—no more tears. I had to keep it together.
Wyatt’s hand drifted to my shoulder and squeezed. I reached up, twined my fingers with his, and smiled.
“We should keep going,” I said. “It’s still a long walk back.”
I knew him well enough to see how much he held back—the things he wanted to say or do, and didn’t. “Okay,” he said.
We reached the main road and continued along the shoulder. No cars passed this early in the morning, and we arrived at our hidden (stolen) car a few minutes later. The gas station was just waking up, its neon “Open” sign blazing orange in the window. I smelled bitter coffee—the kind you buy only when no other option presents itself and it’s down to overbrewed sludge or falling asleep at the wheel.
My stomach grumbled. Too bad. We were both slathered in blood—human and other. The clerk would call the police before we got five steps inside the door.
“We’ll have to ditch this car soon,” I said once we were back on the road to the city. The guy we stole it from should be waking up soon—if he hadn’t already—and reporting the incident. Regular cops knew nothing about the Triads, and I didn’t like the idea of spending the day in a holding cell.
“We also need to figure out where we’re going,” Wyatt said. “A motel’s a good idea, but we need food and fresh clothes.”
“What about the were-cat’s apartment? The one we stayed in a few days ago?”
He shook his head, slowing the car for an approaching intersection. We were coming out of the forest, into the outskirts of the city, and the road expanded into four lanes. “He’ll be back in town today.”
“Damn.” It was my best idea. “I don’t suppose they kept our old place on Cottage?”
“It was the first place the Triads ransacked when you went rogue.”
Figured. The two-bedroom apartment on Cottage Place was a hole, but it had been home for the last four years. I’d inherited the closet-sized single room from the dead Hunter I replaced, while Jesse and Ash bunked in the moderately larger second room. It was big enough for sleeping in and close enough to Mercy’s Lot for convenience hunting. I hadn’t been back since the night before my partners were killed. It never seemed necessary. I had no personal possessions to collect, nothing sentimental to mourn.
Maybe it was why I kept the cross necklace close. I reached into my back pocket and pulled it out. A smudge of blood darkened one corner of the silver cross, but the words etched on the back—“Love Always, Alex”—were still visible. A little piece of her and a little piece of him.
“It’s a safe place to rest for a while,” Wyatt said.
My head snapped sideways. He was right, and I hated it. I didn’t want to go back to the apartment Alex and Chalice had shared; I just didn’t see much of a choice. The Triads knew about it, but now that we were on their side again, we didn’t have to worry about a sneak attack. Kelsa knew me as Chalice, but she was dead—no reason to think the goblins had a clue. Isleen and her Bloods had no reason to attack us.
“What if Alex told the Halfies who he was?” I asked as I put on the necklace. “They could know about the apartment.”
“Most of them are dead, Evy.”
“The patio door is busted out.”
“Then we won’t stay long. But frankly, it’s our best option.”
“Fine.”
The city passed by in a familiar blur. South into Mercy’s Lot, then west on the Wharton Street Bridge, and into the nicer neighborhoods of Parkside East. I directed him to the correct block, more out of some strange instinct than actual memory. Chalice knew this place; it was part of her. The first time I was here, three days ago, I’d felt uneasy in the clean, wealthy surroundings. Coming back today felt natural. Like home.
I pointed out the building when we passed—just another apartment complex with clean walls, decorated balconies, and underground parking structures. Wyatt drove around the block and down an alley between the freestanding buildings. He parked near a row of Dumpsters. We wiped the car down before we exited.
“We’re going to attract some attention,” I said. The neighborhood was waking up around us, more and more cars emerging onto the road for their commute into the city. I joined him in front of the parked car.
Wyatt looked at his shirt, one sleeve dirty white and the other dark red. “Maybe we’ll start a trend.”
“Or a panic. Her apartment’s a block away, on the fifth floor.”
“You could—”
“I’m not teleporting us.”
“You may have to anyway, once we get to the door.”
I tilted my head. “And why’s that?”
“Do you have keys?”
My hands went to my pockets. I hadn’t had Chalice’s keys since … Well, I wasn’t sure. Two days ago, when I returned to her apartment to ask Alex for help, I let myself in with her keys. After that? “I must have put them down in the apartment. Shit.” I spun and slammed my heel against the car’s fender. It scuffed but didn’t dent. I didn’t feel any better for it.
“It’s not the car’s fault, Evy.”
“It’s nobody’s fault, right? It just happened.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell—?”
Metal screamed and squealed. Glass shattered, tinkled to the ground, and pinged off nearby metal. Rubber popped; air hissed. Bits of debris hit my left arm and cheek. Wyatt grunted and we fell sideways, away from the noise. Pavement scraped my other elbow.
Something heavy had landed on the car. I looked up at a male figure, semi-backlit by the lightening morning sky. He stood on the sunken roof of the car, back straight and arms by his sides. Tall, lean, and muscular, in jeans and shoes and nothing else. I stared, my mouth falling open as two new shadows fell across us.
Shadows cast by his twelve-foot wingspan.
Chapter Two
7:02 A.M.
First instinct screamed, “Gargoyle!” Common sense shot it down immediately. He was out in sunlight, with no sign of crackling or scent of scorching, and any gargoyle that short would be laughed out of its species. No, the winged man looming over us was something new and different.
I hated new and different.
The creature didn’t advance, but I never took my eyes off him. “Wyatt?” I asked.
“Never better,” he replied.
“Wyatt Truman?” the stranger said. I expected a bigger voice, something godlike to go with the strange angel wings. His was raspy, like someone who’d just inhaled a lot of smoke, and a little sharp. Not quite high-pitched, but definitely a few octaves above average.
The air behind me shifted. Could have been Wyatt standing; I wasn’t turning away to verify. “Yes,” Wyatt said.
I took stock of my meager weapons. I’d ditched the gun back at Olsmill. Still had one knife in the ankle sheath, just a quick reach away—
“Are you Evangeline Stone?”
My foot jerked. With the backlight going on, I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or not. “Depends on who’s asking and why,” I said. Using both hands for support, I carefully pulled my legs beneath me, planted my feet, and stood, taking care not to startle him. Until I knew what he wanted and how he knew our names, he was Handle with Care. Wyatt shifted to my left flank.
“You don’t look like Danika described you.”
Air caught in my throat, and my thoughts slammed to a halt. A gentle girl from a gentle race of shape-shifters, the young were-falcon had been killed during an ill-advised Triad raid on their colony. A raid intended to capture me—only I’d already turned tail and run. And in one of the worst brass decisions ever made, the apartment complex housing the were-colony had been burned to the ground, killing over three hundred Owlkins. Danika was another of many friends I’d lost in the last week of my life.
“Danika’s dead,” I said.
The stranger nodded. “And I grieve for her, as I’ve grieved for the rest of my people.”
“You’re an Owlkin?” Not possible. They shifted from human to bird form. I’d never seen or heard of an Owlkin—or any other were, for that matter—who could half morph.
“Disappointed?”
I glared, my cheeks heating. “No, surprised. For a second there, I thought I’d stepped into some cheesy B movie and angels were falling from the sky.”
He had the gall to laugh—a joyous sound I should have found irritating. Instead, it made me want to smile. “Then I’m sorry for my entrance,” he said. “Surprise is usually the best way to get honest reactions from people.”
“Well,” Wyatt said, “my honest reaction is anger. Did you really have to crush that car?”
The Owlkin looked down. “I guess I didn’t think that one through.” He leapt from the car, landing on the concrete as gracefully as a ballet dancer. Air whipped around us from his brown and gray wings, which he tucked in closer to his back. “My name is Phineas el Chimal.”
Close up, I saw a chiseled face to go along with his toned body. Sharp cheekbones and a narrow nose; round, heavily lashed eyes of the clearest royal blue I’d ever seen; smooth skin without a hint of stubble, even though his hair was coffee brown. He looked like a predatory bird; I thought of the osprey I’d seen last night, flying through a city it had no right to live near.
“Evy,” I said.
He smiled, showing off rows of small, perfect teeth. “Phin.”
“Could we possibly take this indoors?” Wyatt asked. “The sun’s up, and two blood-soaked people and a guy with wings standing next to a smashed car are bound to attract attention. And we’ve worked damned hard the last ten years to avoid just that.”
Phin bared his teeth—definitely not smiling this time. “You think burning Sunset Terrace to the ground wasn’t going to attract attention?”
“I wasn’t involved in that.” Wyatt’s voice had gone low, quiet. Dangerous.
“Your people were.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
They weren’t within arm’s reach, but I stepped between them anyway. “I thought we were going inside?” I said.
“You’re going to scare someone if you walk in the front door looking like you do,” Phin said.
Look who’s talking, wing-man. “You got a better plan?”
“Which building?”
I pointed over my shoulder. “Fifth floor, east-side alley, I think. The balcony door got smashed in a few days ago, and I doubt it’s been fixed yet. You going to meet us there?”
Phin tilted his head like a curious bird. “I thought I’d give you both a ride up.”
“You can carry us both?” Wyatt asked.
“Certainly.” And at Wyatt’s baleful look, he added, “I can take you one at a time if you prefer.”
“I prefer.”
“Can we just go?” I asked. The longer we stood in the alley, the more sets of eyes I imagined on us. Watching and wondering, maybe snapping pictures with their cell phones. Gremlins excel at electronic interference, but if they don’t catch a download early, it can spread like wildfire.
Anothe
r of those instances of unwanted attention the Triads work so hard to prevent. Not that flying up to the balcony via Angel Express Airways was less noticeable.
“Ladies first?” Phin asked.
I looked at Wyatt. He quirked an eyebrow, his skepticism palpable. I didn’t suspect Phin would whisk me off and drop me from a great height. If he’d wanted us dead, I was certain we’d never have seen him coming. So I winked at Wyatt and turned back to Phin. “How do we do this?”
“Could you remove that first?” Phin asked, pointing at my throat.
I touched the necklace, about to ask why, when I remembered it was silver. A single touch could give him a painful rash. I unhooked the clasp and tucked it into my pocket without a word.
Phin smiled. “Thank you. Now cross your arms over your breasts and tuck your hands beneath your arms tight for support.”
The positioning was a little awkward; however, I saw where he was going with it. He stepped around behind me and pressed close. A few extra inches put his chin by my ear. Perfectly smooth arms looped around my stomach and braced just below my own crossed arms. For all the muscle and sinew, he seemed oddly soft, as though half of his mass were air.
I’d known other shape-shifters, been friendly with the Owlkins for years, and yet everything about Phineas surprised me. This was the first time I’d been held so closely by one, felt such a difference in a body that moved and looked—sans wings—just like mine.
His massive wings beat the air, swirling it around us like the backwash of a rocket launch. We lifted up, as smoothly as if on a wire, straight into the sky. Every muscle in my body clenched. I wanted to reach down and grab his arms, secure myself to something solid now that I was dangling thirty feet off the ground. But I didn’t and was able to keep my eyes on the apartment wall ahead of us, thankful for so many drawn blinds and closed curtains.
He exhaled hard near my ear. I felt his heart beat through my back, faster than a human’s. Power rippled through his body—strength unlike anything I’d seen in a were. No wonder we didn’t know about this half-shifted form.
Chalice’s patio loomed. One half of the sliding glass door was shattered, part of the frame busted out, remnants of a two-day-old battle. No one had boarded it up, which made sense if no one but the Triads had been inside in the last couple of days. They wouldn’t have cared enough to bother.
