“The hard way.” Her grin faded and she got up from the table and moved to the glass barrier to look down on the rest of Crave. When she turned back to face me, again I was struck by how strangely familiar she looked.
“There’s something about you,” I murmured. “Something I…I can’t figure it out. I feel like I know you.”
“Is that what your gut tells you?” she asked. “You should listen to it. It’s telling you that you can trust me, that I want the best for you even though my methods might seem harsh. I know it’s a lot to grasp, but please try your best. You’re important to this, Samantha. More important than you even realize. You’re the center of it all. That’s why I needed to find you.”
“What do you mean, the center of it all?” I shook my head. “I just got dragged into this because Stephen kissed me.”
She looked weary suddenly, like she hadn’t slept in days. “You know that’s not true.”
She was right. There were no coincidences here.
“You’re the reason the other grays exist,” I said quietly. “You’re their leader—their boss. You’re the one in control here.”
“I am,” she said evenly. “So you can see why I need to know about your friend Bishop and that very special golden dagger Stephen told me he has in his possession. I know he’s looking for me—even now, at this very moment. If he finds me, he’ll kill me because he thinks he’s doing the right thing. But he’s not.”
My mouth went dry. I didn’t want her to know the truth about Bishop, but at the same time my gut was telling me that Natalie wasn’t simply the evil entity I’d expected her to be. There was more to this story, a vital seed of truth here, but the picture was still too blurry for me to see it clearly.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I finally said. “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.”
None that I was prepared to share right now, anyway.
She moved away from the glass barrier and approached me. “You’re protecting him.”
I shook my head.
“I understand why you’re confused. Frankly, I don’t really care about Bishop that much, other than concern about my own survival. All I care about now is you.”
“But why do you care about me?” I searched for deception in her expression, but I saw none. She moved away from me to sit back down at the table.
“Have you discovered your psychic gifts since Stephen kissed you?”
My breath caught. “How did you know that?”
“It’s part of what makes you so special. You have gifts—gifts you’ve had since you were first born, but you haven’t been able to access them until now. Your soul cut you off from them like a lid on a box. Now that lid is gone, isn’t it?”
Before I’d been kissed, I was totally normal. Stunningly normal. But now I wasn’t. And it wasn’t just the hunger and the chills. It was everything else. Kraven couldn’t figure out why I could do the things I could—the visions, seeing the searchlights, my zapping ability, reading the minds of angels and demons, helping Bishop regain his sanity. Was it all related?
“I don’t know,” is what I ended up saying. “Maybe.”
Natalie nodded as if satisfied with that answer—or at least that I wasn’t trying to deny it. “I need your help, Samantha.”
“With what?”
“Right now, there’s a barrier preventing myself or any other supernatural being from leaving the city limits. We’ve been trapped like defenseless mice for a cat to pick off for entertainment. I think you already know that.”
I hadn’t tested the barrier theory, but I didn’t think she was lying about it. “It’s a big city. There’s more than enough room to move around here. I’ve barely left Trinity my whole life.”
“We’re still imprisoned here. I don’t know what Bishop has told you about me, but he’s wrong. He’s the one you shouldn’t trust, Samantha. He’s our enemy. Your enemy. But he needs you. He’s using you for your gifts, isn’t he?”
The song playing below shifted to something with a harder bass thump. I felt it through the bottoms of the tight boots I wore. I’d been so focused on my strange conversation with Natalie that I’d barely felt how much my feet had started to hurt.
I didn’t like her accusing Bishop of using me, but I couldn’t say she was lying. Bishop was using me. He’d even admitted it, which was why he’d made the deal to restore my soul to even things up between us. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“It’s very simple.” She studied me carefully. “I need you to bring his golden dagger to me.”
My heart was pounding right out of my chest. “What for?”
“It’s powerful, magical. It’s the key to leaving this city. And your newfound gifts will allow you to use it to help save me—save us all—before he finds me and kills me.”
I just stared at her, in shock from what she’d asked of me. Steal Bishop’s dagger. Save her life. Or she was going to die. We all were.
Bishop had said he wanted to talk to her.
After all I’d seen, I wasn’t even slightly convinced it would end there.
“Think about everything I’ve told you,” Natalie said. “Think hard. It’s very important that you make the right choice now. I mean you no harm, Samantha. I only want you to realize your full potential. I can help you do just that. I know you can feel the truth in what I’ve told you. Believe in me, Samantha. I can help you more than he can. I can help you accept what you are rather than what you were. You’re better now in every way.”
I crossed my arms. I hadn’t even taken off my coat since I’d first arrived. My chest felt tight and I literally felt sick to my stomach from everything I’d heard from her. “I want to go now.”
She nodded. “I won’t try to stop you. I’m leaving now, too. Thank you for coming here and giving me a chance to talk to you. It means more to me than you know.”
I turned away from her, half expecting her to tackle me at the top of the stairs and demand that I bring her the dagger right now. But she didn’t. I grabbed hold of the railing as I started down the twisting stairs. A few seconds later, Carly was right behind me.
“Did that go okay?” she asked. “You look really pale. Paler than normal, which is a feat in itself.”
“Fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
I didn’t sound all that convincing, but considering how swollen my brain felt, it would have to do. I’d wanted answers—I’d gotten them, although I wasn’t sure how to deal with what I’d heard. I now had a whole lot of information to sort through.
“So what now?” she asked.
“Forget half-priced chicken wings. I just want to go home.”
“Okay, no problem. We’ll go.”
Part of me wanted to dismiss everything Natalie had told me, but I couldn’t. Despite who she was, she’d seemed so genuine. And there was that strong sense of familiarity about her that made me want to believe that she’d been mostly truthful with me just now.
What she’d said about my soul holding back the gifts I’d had since birth, like a lid on a box—she was right. It was like a puzzle piece snapping into place and showing me a little more of the mysterious picture underneath. But not quite enough to figure out what it actually was.
If she’d been telling the truth about that, was she telling the truth about how I shouldn’t trust Bishop? That he was actually my enemy?
As we left the club, I tried to ignore the frigid air that closed around me. The sky was clear and dotted with stars, and the moon hung low, lighting things up enough to see easily.
As we turned the corner to get to the parking lot, I suddenly found myself face-to-face with Bishop.
Chapter 15
I froze. After the conversation I’d just had with Natalie, he was the last person I was prepared to see right now. And yet, when my heart started beating faster, I knew it wasn’t just from surprise. I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. He was framed by moonlight and his gaze immediately locked with mine. His scent??
?warm, tempting, addictive—immediately affected me as if he’d just pulled me into his embrace.
Kraven stood next to him. Roth and Zach were nowhere to be seen. Believe me, the first thing I did after getting past the shock of seeing Bishop was to check the area for the demon who’d broken my neck last night.
“Hey, sweetness,” Kraven greeted me, his eyes sweeping the length of me with a leering edge. “Looking good tonight. I hope you didn’t get all hot just for little ol’ me.”
Ignoring the demon was becoming a habit.
Bishop didn’t say anything at all, which surprised me until I realized that he didn’t appear to be completely lucid. It had been a whole day since I’d last touched him to help take the crazy away. I wanted to touch him right now, even after my mind-jarring conversation with Natalie. I wanted so much to help him, to trust him.
But I forced myself to hang back.
He seemed to struggle to hold on to his concentration. His jaw was set as his gaze flicked to the club behind me before it narrowed into a glare. “Why, Samantha?”
“Why what?”
“He means ‘why are you here when it’s so horribly dangerous and he’s worried about his little girlfriend,’” Kraven paraphrased with a smirk. At Bishop’s sharp look, he shrugged. “Just trying to help.”
I shifted my feet. “Half-price chicken wings on Tuesdays. That’s why.”
Bishop laughed and the sound made me jump. His gaze twisted into me and suddenly it felt more threatening, almost like how he’d looked at me that night in the alley when he realized what I was.
Natalie’s warning about him being my enemy echoed in my mind.
“Shouldn’t be here,” he said in that broken-up, staccato way of his when he wasn’t completely lucid. “Not again. Bad things play here.”
“You told me to act normal. Coming here is normal.”
That earned me an even sourer look. He opened his mouth as if to argue, but closed it. The heat of his glare made my heart race even faster.
Kraven seemed happy to take over. “It’s naughty and you know it. We’re here to check the place out. We were here earlier today, too, but there wasn’t anything interesting to see.”
Of course they were. Even though Stephen had told Bishop the Source never came here, why would he believe that?
“Speaking of dangerous…” Kraven cocked his head, his attention now on Carly who was studying him back just as intently. “Looks like you’re not the only cute gray in the general vicinity.”
This wasn’t a double date in the making between the four of us. This was trouble. I had a free pass right now with Bishop and the others, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Carly.
“Who are you?” Carly asked Kraven. She didn’t seem either swayed or impressed by the two tall, good-looking guys facing us.
“Nobody you’d want to meet in a dark alley,” Kraven replied. “Trust me on that.”
She snorted. “You don’t look so scary to me.”
“You might be surprised.” Despite the lightness in Kraven’s tone, his glare spoke volumes. He wasn’t staring at a girl he really thought was cute, he was staring at someone he considered an enemy. A monster.
I would know, since that was exactly how he’d first stared at me. In fact, he still regarded me that way most of the time.
When he took a step forward, fists clenched, I stepped between them. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
He narrowed a look at me. “Get out of my way.”
“Not happening. You want her? You have to go through me.”
“Just because we’re making an exception for you doesn’t mean that extends to your friends, sweetness.”
“Carly’s not going to hurt anybody. She’s just like me.”
His expression darkened. “You’re not harmless, either, you just don’t realize it yet. It’s called denial and it won’t last much longer, no matter how much your boyfriend might like to think otherwise.”
I tried to shove him backward, but he didn’t budge. Then I tried to zap him. That also didn’t work. He had a wall up around him and I knew it would take me a while to find a crack in it. “Get away from us. I’m not in the mood for this tonight.”
“Leave her alone, Kraven,” Bishop growled.
“She’s the one doing the shoving.” He laughed. “Defending your little girlfriend? Isn’t that adorable.”
Bishop’s gaze had lost some of its previous madness. Either that or he was able to fake it pretty well now that he knew he had an audience.
“Don’t try me tonight,” he said evenly. “I’m really not in the mood.”
I eyed Bishop, uncertainty sweeping over me about absolutely everything to do with him. “So this wasn’t planned? You came here to try to find the Source? Were you going to try to find me, too? Or…” My mouth felt dry. “Or are you finished with me? I did what you wanted me to do and now I’m just another gray?”
He frowned, as if trying to focus on my voice. “Not just another gray. Special. Don’t know why. Wish it were different. Wish I didn’t…” He swore under his breath and rubbed his temples. “I hate this. All of it.”
I didn’t know what to make of his ramblings. Did he want me to just be another gray? Not special or different so I wouldn’t cause so many problems for him?
The thought that he wished for something like that made me cringe inside.
Kraven put an arm around Bishop’s shoulders and squeezed, but it was more of a mocking gesture than a supportive one. “Bishop’s been having a tough night. We’ve been dealing with some other important business with our two new BFFs. They’re out on patrol right now. Just one big happy family, aren’t we?”
“Let go of me,” Bishop said. “Or I’ll kill you.”
Kraven let go of him. “See? Fun, fun, fun.”
I looked at Bishop. “He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
His gaze snapped to mine. “Excuse me?”
I wanted him to deny it. I wanted him to say that Kraven was a big fat liar. Then my trust in him would be restored one hundred percent. “Is it true or not?”
Bishop sent a dark glare in Kraven’s direction.
The demon shrugged. “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was a big secret. Guess you might have second thoughts now about letting me walk your girlfriend home from now on. All sorts of fun information might come out in the open, thanks to her special little abilities.”
Bishop’s attention moved back to me and he searched my expression. “I didn’t tell you because it’s not important.”
“Not important?” My heart slammed against my chest. “Why would you possibly think that isn’t important? He’s your brother.”
“That was a long time ago. Things change.”
“What does that even mean? What’s your real name? I know his.”
“My name is Bishop. There’s no other name for me that matters anymore.” There was deep pain in his blue eyes for a split second before it vanished and he searched my gaze. It felt as if he could look right down to my soul—if I still had one.
“I want answers, Bishop,” I said as firmly as I could.
“I don’t have any for you. Not about this.”
He was seriously the most frustrating and secretive person I’d met in my entire life. Ever. And yet I still didn’t want to look away from him. I wanted to know everything—who he was, where he’d lived, when he’d lived, what his real name was. Because I now knew for sure that it wasn’t really Bishop.
“Sam,” Carly said. “Can we, like, leave? It’s freezing out here.”
“Tick tock,” Kraven said to Bishop. “Let’s get a move on. We check the club and then we have to get back out on patrol with Roth and Zach. Priorities, remember?”
Natalie had said she also planned to leave when I did. For all I knew, she was already gone.
Bishop hadn’t looked away from my face. That sliver of madness mixed with something else I couldn’t put a name to. He didn’t like that I’d found out his little secret—t
hat he’d been a human just like everybody else. And somehow he’d had a brother who turned out to be a demon.
Again, I wished I could read his mind.
And still, despite his strange and unpleasant behavior tonight, I had to keep my hands clenched at my sides to keep from reaching for him. The warmth coming from his body was so tempting that it effortlessly drew me closer to him. I wanted to believe in him so badly, even now that my previous trust had been shaken. It was like an ache burrowing deep into my chest.
“Are you going to hurt my friend?” I asked him softly.