Dark Allure

by Imogen Sera

  "It was so weird, Eve. The house was empty, and it was all shut up like no one had been there in months. The neighbors said that it had been empty since autumn. But I could see through the windows that it was the same house you'd been sending me pictures of.

  "We ended up breaking in. Petra didn't want to, but I convinced her, and we searched the whole house. There was nothing that said you had been there. But I remembered you telling me about the noise, and it started in the middle of the night, so we stayed the night. And we heard it, too. We stayed up waiting for something, and we heard it, and I just knew that we had to follow it, so we followed it down to that water, and... I don't know. I woke up on the beach here."

  I frown. "Petra wasn't with you? That means she's still at home, then. I'm sure she's worried about you, but she's fine."

  She snaps her head to turn to me and there's fury on her face. "Petra was with me. I woke up on the beach right next to her, and she was still asleep, but she was alive. And I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to leave her to look for help, but I couldn't move her. So I just sat with her and waited for her to wake up. But then it got all weird and dark, and she was just gone. I looked away for like ten seconds and she was gone."

  "We'll find her, Allie. I promise we will. Az knows everything that happens here, and he can..." I trail off.

  Because maybe he does know, and maybe he doesn't give a shit. I don't understand why I wash up on the beach and he takes care of me and Allie washes up there and is thrown in a dungeon. I don't know anything, and I really wish he was awake and I could yell at him about it.

  She nods, and I get the impression she doesn't believe me. I don't think that I would either if I were in her place.

  After she's done bathing and dressed and fed, she curls up on the couch with a wary look at Az and my tenth assurance that he won't wake until tonight. She's asleep almost as soon as she lays down, though, and I wonder if she got any sleep at all in her cell.

  I look around the room, exhausted and trying to make a decision. There are two empty chairs that I could try to sleep in, or I could think about finding an empty bedroom, but then I might be gone when Allie wakes up.

  With a sigh, I climb into Az's bed. I'm not really happy about it, but there's room for me and I've been up the entire night and all I want to do is sleep.

  He's in the same position he was when he went to sleep, and his slowly rising and falling chest is his only movement.

  I lean close to his face, put my mouth right by his ear, and whisper, "You are such an ass."

  And then I briefly press my lips against his neck and roll away.

  Chapter 24

  Az'ralon

  Eve is unhappy with me. That's the first thing I know. It's not just the fact that she's not in our bed, and it's not just the glare that she's aiming at me, and it's not just the fact that she's sitting next to my prisoner. My former prisoner, apparently. Taking all three at once, it's easy to see why Eve looks like she wants to kill me.

  "What the fuck, Az?" she hisses, her arms folded across her chest. The woman--my prisoner--is giving me a withering look, and I have to restrain myself from separating them. Eve must know her to have brought her up here, because Eve isn't stupid enough to let any prisoner go just because they happen to be human.

  I hope.

  I look over the woman, deciding whether or not I'll let her live. She didn't take the opportunity to hurt Eve while I was sleeping, which is a good sign. There's a tension in her shoulders and her hands, but I don't get the sense that she'll be making any aggressive movements toward Eve.

  I let out a slow breath and try to calm myself. "Do you know this person?" I ask Eve.

  She gives me an outraged look and wraps her arm around the woman's shoulder. "This person is Allie. My best friend, who I'm pretty sure I've told you about like a dozen times."

  Well, fuck. I didn't know her name, although I'm sure Nox has learned it by now after his unending questioning of her. Fuck.

  Eve stands to face me and closes the space between us. She turns her face up to mine, and I have to stop myself from touching her because it will only anger her further. But oh, how I want to.

  "I'm only still here to tell you what an unbelievable asshole you are. I'm not stupid, Az, and if you'd just fucking told me that you found someone washed up on the beach it would have saved Allie a whole lot of trauma. But apparently you don't trust me, and you don't think I'm capable of helping to figure this shit out."

  I shouldn't be focused on the color of her cheeks and I shouldn't be enjoying the glare she's giving me. But the way that she looks when she's angry makes me want to chase her.

  "Allie and I are staying in a different bedroom," she says. "And you're going to find her sister. You'll have lots of time without me here distracting you."

  Her eyebrows are raised in a challenge. "Eve," I say, my voice low and dangerous. I take a step toward her and she doesn't flinch.

  "Az," she says, trying and failing to match my tone.

  I'm simultaneously annoyed and thrilled that she's not at all worried about my threat.

  "I'll look into her sister," I say. "But Nox will need information, and he hasn't gotten any from her yet."

  Eve turns her chin up and blocks my view of her friend. "Allie will tell you exactly what happened. Once. And then you can't press her for more, and you can't lock her up. And when this is sorted out, you're going to pay her restitution."

  I let out a surprised laugh, but Eve is just glaring at me. Fuck, I want her, especially when she's like this. "We'll discuss this later."

  "Yes," she says. "Later. Because right now, I'm going away from you."

  And then she does, dragging her friend out behind her. I don't like her leaving, but I do like her trying to boss me around.

  I swear and run my hand over my face. This isn't what I was expecting to wake up to. I want to throttle Eve for leaving the room when I made her promise she wouldn't, but all I really feel is relief that she's still alright.

  I go outside where I find Nox looking frantic, huddled with Ronan in front of the soldiers. He raises his head upon seeing me, and I can't tell if he's relieved or terrified.

  "She's gone, Az," he says. His hair looks like he's been running his hands through it over and over. "Allie--the prisoner--is gone."

  I frown at his use of her name, and when I glance at Ronan, he's frowning too. "She's somewhere up on the third floor," I say, gesturing up to the castle. "And I'm not very pleased with her. She stole my roommate from me. Apparently they're friends."

  I expect Nox to be furious at this, but he just looks relieved.

  "Her sister is missing, though. I assumed she was full of shit, but Eve says--"

  "You're taking all of this on Eve's word?" asks Nox.

  I shouldn't hit him, but I really fucking want to hit something right now. "That's not your business," I growl. "You're taking it on my word, and that should be all that fucking matters to you."

  He meets my gaze with an icy one of his own, until he finally sighs and nods.

  "Ronan," I say, "you can cover more ground than any of us. Would you take a sweep along the shoreline and look for any signs of her?"

  He hesitates. "Is this so important right now? I thought we were focusing on the Council of Seven."

  "I think that the Council is the exact reason she needs to be found. I don't need any rogue fucking humans wandering around on my land."

  Ronan doesn't say anything else, but he begins to smolder. The smell is always what I notice first, before I see his flesh and muscle burning. Without the helm, he goes straight past his contained form, burning until he's entirely a cloud of ash and smoke.

  "That fucking creeps me out," says Nox, once the dark cloud has swept off the cliff side. He shoots me a sideways look. "Does it not bother you?"

  "It's beginning to."

  Chapter 25

  Eve

  Allie is back to being Allie. She has a permanent glare on her face as I take her ar
ound Namesti Square, frowning at every shop and making snarky comments about everything she sees. She's worried about Petra, of course, because she brings her up frequently, but I think she's relieved that they actually believe her now and that Petra's actively being looked for.

  She spent all morning telling everything to Ronan, of all people. He scares the crap out of me, but to be fair, I don't think much scares Allie. Especially because she spent the entire time there glaring at and purposely antagonizing Az and Nox.

  Apparently, the house I was staying in is owned by a member of the Council, and there's some kind of magic holding open a gateway between this world and ours. Magic is also the reason that the house looked like I had never been there. I'm not entirely sure why the Council chose me specifically for this, but it seems like Allie and Petra's coming here was entirely an accident.

  I spent the entire time ignoring Az, which was hard to do, because all I wanted was to rub up against him and have him tuck me under his arm. But I'm mad at him.

  It's nice to have normal Allie back, even if she is unapologetically bitchy. Which is her word, not mine. I don't think she's bitchy, I just think she's the best person in the world to people-watch with. And are there a lot of people to watch here.

  "These dresses are stupid," she says, pulling at the top of hers again. "But at least I'm not wearing a toilet seat on my head like that guy."

  The clothing is different down here. Some of it is so normal that it wouldn't look out of place at all at home--just normal looking shirts and pants and skirts. The toga style dresses and skirts are some class-based thing, I think, because not a single street vendor and very few of the customers wear them. And the rest is a strange mishmash of nudity, cloth draped in ways I never thought it could be, and ridiculous hats, most of which are cut specifically to accommodate horns.

  The guy in question is a deep gray color, with a face that reminds me vaguely of a bull. He's at least as big as Az and steam comes from his oversized nostrils every time he breathes. He's pretty scary looking. His hat totally looks like a toilet seat, though, and I giggle and pinch her arm. "How about we only make fun of people who can't kill us without trying?"

  She shrugs. "So nobody? That's no fun."

  But then she's quiet again as we walk along, and I stop at a little stall with rugs. I find a small, plush one that would be perfect for just outside of Az's hot spring tub, and then I remember that I'm not in the room anymore. I put it back with a sigh.

  Allie looks far away, and I know that she's thinking about Petra. I want to kick myself for bringing up how dangerous some of these demons are. Allie and I are remarkably safe wandering around here, because I've been out enough times with Az that everyone knows I'm not to be bothered. Allie is safe because she's with me. But Petra is just...somewhere, and we don't know if she's alone or if she's even alive.

  "You have to try some of this food," I say, linking my arm with hers and pulling her off toward the food stalls. "I'm a spicy wuss, but you're going to love it."

  "Ooh," she says, momentarily distracted. Allie loves all things food, which somehow makes it more unfair that she's so tall and willowy and I'm so average height and not remotely willowy. She started making cooking videos to post online, and after less than a year she was making enough to quit her job as a receptionist and do it full time. She's still not making much, but she loves it and it makes her happier than anything else in all the time I've known her.

  So food is the perfect thing to distract her. I hope the strange little woman with the black fangs is there, with her fragrant and way too spicy meat simmered in broth. She'll love it, and it's the perfect thing to distract her.

  She's excited by the smell, and I'm excited by the fact that she seems fairly relaxed as we sit at one of the long tables. We're not alone, there are tons of people here, but there's room for us to sit on the end by ourselves, and we're pretty much treated like we're invisible. It's a nice change of pace.

  There's a lively conversation going on at the opposite end of our table, but it's too far away for me to hear exactly what it's about. Several demons are leaned in, though, in deep thought, and I finally realize that they're talking and laughing about humans.

  "I heard they eat their own waste," says a purple colored woman who looks a lot like Az.

  Another voice chimes in, deep and charming and vaguely familiar. "I heard they eat their own young."

  A ridiculous gasp goes up, and I want to charge down there and knock these jerks down. But that's probably not the best idea, so I aim a glare in their direction. A few that are closer to me seem to notice it, and upon realizing who I am--and more importantly, I suppose, who really likes me--leave their spots and wander off into the market.

  I glance across the table to see if Allie's heard.

  And I assume she has, because she's already marching down to the center of the stupid little crowd.

  "You unbelievable, worthless asshole," she hisses. "You're supposed to be looking for my sister."

  That pretty much breaks up the group, and as I move toward her, I can see whose voice was so familiar. It's Nox, looking caught somewhere between being ashamed and pissed. "You don't know what I'm fucking doing, you stupid little girl."

  She puts her hands on her hips and gives him the scariest look I've ever seen. "It's pretty obvious."

  "Yes," he hisses. "I'm obviously sitting here, enjoying stupid gossip with morons instead of doing what exactly what my lord commanded me to do."

  "Well I can fucking see," says Allie, "and it's clear that you were doing exactly that."

  His jaw steels. "Well if you can see, maybe you should open your eyes and--"

  "Let's go back to the castle," I say to Allie, interrupting Nox. I turn to him. "You don't get to be a jerk to Allie. You've done enough to her."

  Allie doesn't look back the entire walk, but when I glance over my shoulder, Nox is watching us intently.

  Chapter 26

  Az'ralon

  I'm poking into every little cave along the beach, annoyed at Eve and annoyed at myself. We've been searching fruitlessly for days, and Eve's been ignoring me entirely. I want to pick her up and lock her in my room, but more than that, I want her to know that she's mine. That she can throw a fit and be angry, but that she'll come back to me every time. So I need to do this delicately.

  I do believe that we are actually missing Allie's sister. I didn't really believe it at first, I assumed that only Allie had made the crossing. But Nox found a single boot that was human made, several miles north of the spot on the beach where Allie was picked up. And then a soldier found some dried blood on a rock--red blood, not black, as ours is.

  I haven't told Eve about the blood yet. It wasn't much, and besides, it would only worry her until we know more.

  We've been concentrating our search efforts around those areas, and if I have to look inside another fucking cave, I'm going to murder the next person I see. I want to be dismantling the Council, or coaxing Eve back to my side.

  She's not at dinner, and since that's the only time I see her since she decided to stay in a room with her obnoxious friend, I'm distracted the entire time. I almost don't notice the way that Allie slips out of the room before even ten minutes have passed, or that Nox doesn't even let an entire minute go by before he leaves, too. I'd be more interested in that if every fiber of my being weren't thrumming with nervous energy at being away from my Eve.

  I leave not long after Nox does and head straight for the room that Eve has usurped for her own. She's supposed to be usurping my room.

  Eve is lying on her side in bed, facing away from the door. She has the blanket pulled up over her shoulder and her hair is a tangled mass behind her, and I want to put my mouth on her shoulder and run my claws through her hair and pull her against me.

  And she's apparently not asleep, because when I shut the door behind me, she says, "You're back quick. You okay, Az?"

  "Eve," I say.

  She sits up quickly and turns to face me. S
he aims a glare at me, but not before I can see the miserable look in the lines of her face. As if her swollen red eyes weren't obvious enough.

  "Eve," I say again, and I cross the room to sit on the bed next to her. "Talk to me, love."

  She pulls her knees in front of her and lays her cheek against one. "I don't want to talk to you."

  "Then I'll talk," I say, laying my head back on the pillow and wrapping my tail around her ankle.

  She shoots me an outraged look, and I just smile lazily in response.

  "I miss you. I don't feel right when you're not with me. It feels like--like I'm missing a limb. You've been here a month and I can't even remember what life was like before you. I imagine it was bleak."

  Eve looks at me for a long moment and then sighs. "I've never told you about my mom," she says. Her voice waves just a bit. "I never knew my dad; I don't think she did either. But she always had new boyfriends, and we pretty much always lived with one or another. I would have to change schools and leave my friends behind and as soon as I was settling into a new school, we would move again."

  She unwraps my tail from her ankle but holds it in her hand as she lies back against her pillow.

  "That was how I met Allie, actually. She was my stepsister for six weeks. I guess Petra was too, but she was staying at her mom's for the summer so I never even met her back then. Allie was great, but my mom got bored with Allie's dad, like she always did, and moved on to the next guy before she even filed for divorce. And then I got old enough that my mom didn't want me staying with her anymore, and I never graduated high school because we moved so much that I didn't have all of the credits I needed, which meant it was basically impossible to get a job. So I managed to find work house sitting, moving around from place to place to watch people's houses while they're gone.

  "I've never had a home, Az. I've never felt like I belonged anywhere. I've always wanted a place that was for me, that was just mine. And...I was starting to feel like this could be that for me. But then you were all weird and keeping secrets and imprisoning my best friend and Ronan hates me and apparently Nox just hates humans in general and Ayelet is going to hate me because I haven't even seen her for a week and I don't know who I am here without you--"