“Tell Darci I’ll clean her clothes and return them then.”
Riley waved a hand dismissively. “That child has more clothes than she knows what to do with. I’m betting she won’t even miss them.”
And I was betting she would. Cashmere was expensive, and this sweater didn’t look old. “If anything else happens, I’ll let you know.”
“Good.” She walked around the table and dropped a kiss on my cheek. “In the meantime, be careful.”
“I will.” I waved a good-bye to Liander, then headed out.
The fickle Melbourne weather was playing its usual tricks, and the rain had returned. I slipped on my jacket and gloves, then raced down the stairs and jumped on my bike. I didn’t get much farther because the phone chose that moment to ring.
The ring tone said it was Mom. “Hey,” I said. “I was just about to drive over—”
“Ris,” she cut in, her voice harried and more than a little stressed, “you need to get to Coppin Street as soon as possible.”
“Why the hell—”
“Just go,” she said, “or Ilianna will die.”
ILIANNA? DIE?
I didn’t ask for details—the urgency in Mom’s voice was enough to convince me. I hung up and rang Ilianna, hoping like hell she’d answer, that it wasn’t already too late. Mom might have told me to go, but I’d be stupid not to at least try the easy option.
But her phone was either off or out of range—which was no doubt why Mom had told me to go.
Swearing softly, I shoved on my helmet and fired up the bike. The gates were barely open before I was through them. I rocketed up the streets, weaving in and out of traffic, pushing both the bike and my skills to their limits as I ignored traffic signals and left more than a few angry drivers in my wake.
Ilianna was the sister I’d never had. I wouldn’t lose her. I couldn’t.
Fear twisted through my gut but I tried to ignore it, concentrating on the road, on finding the best way through the traffic, on not stopping for anyone or anything.
The gods must have been on my side, because not one cop made an appearance, though I had no doubt—given the number of red-light cameras I ran—that a raft of fines would soon be making their way to my mailbox.
I turned left onto Abinger Street, my knee so close to the tarmac that it scraped a hole in Darci’s jeans and took off a layer of skin. One replacement pair to be ordered, I thought absently, gunning the engine and speeding down the street. It seemed to take forever to reach the next street. I took a right, the tires all but screaming as they left a layer of rubber behind. I didn’t slow until I neared the small single-fronted terrace that served as Mike’s office.
I couldn’t see Ilianna’s car parked anywhere near, so she was either inside already or still on her way. We lived close enough to Mike’s to walk, and the frequent bouts of rain wouldn’t have deterred Ilianna. She liked getting wet—it soothed the wildness in her soul, apparently.
I glanced at my watch. Mike never ran anywhere close to his appointment times, so we’d fallen into the habit of arriving ten minutes later than he told us. The appointment was at two, and it was barely that now. Ilianna wouldn’t be in there yet.
If she was walking, then she’d more than likely be cutting through the Mary Street lane and strolling across the park.
I spun the bike around, leaving another trail of rubber behind me, and gunned up to the park. I jumped up the curb and rode into the park itself, scattering pigeons and chewing up the lovely green grass.
But there was no one here.
I swore, dropped the bike, and ran for the lane at the back of the park.
And I smelled them—two of the shifters who’d attacked me earlier.
I slid to a stop, my heart going a million miles a minute as I scanned the laneway. Neither Ilianna nor the shifters were in sight, but the wind brought me the scent of both.
I clenched my fists but resisted the urge to charge in. I was downwind of the shifters, so although I was aware of them, they wouldn’t have yet realized I was near.
If I could take out at least one, the odds would be more even. And if it came down to us against them, Ilianna was a mare, and more than capable of using her teeth and feet to protect herself.
But even a mare can’t outrace a bullet.
Fear rose, sharper and harder, but I shoved it aside. Mom hadn’t said how she would die—just that she would if I didn’t get here. Well, I was here.
And Ilianna wasn’t going to die.
I reached to my left and grabbed the top of the fence, hauling myself onto it and balancing somewhat precariously.
And found the first shifter.
He was crouched on the roof of one of the buildings that backed up against the lane, his attention on the top end of the lane. The rich gold of his hair said it was the lion shifter, and the glint of silver in his hand told me he was armed.
Just like that inner voice had feared.
God, there were days I cursed being clairvoyant. It only added to the fear, and this situation was bad enough without intuition heaping more shit on top of it.
I scanned the rest of the rooftops and trees, but couldn’t spot the other shifter. His scent was coming from the left—the opposite side of the lane from the lion shifter—but that was about as defined as the location got.
I glanced at the ground, looking for a weapon. The small backyard was concrete and basically held nothing but rotting leaves from the nearby gum trees and a stack of bricks.
But they were better than nothing.
I jumped down lightly, took off my helmet, then picked up three. Spiders crawled out of the middle holes and I had to resist my instinctive urge to drop them. They were mainly daddy longlegs and harmless, but my skin still crawled as one of them scampered across my hand. I blew it off, resisted another instinctive urge to jump up and down on the thing, and made my way back to the fence instead.
But as I hit the top of it, Ilianna appeared down at the far end of the lane. The lion shifter raised his gun.
“Ilianna, run!” I screamed.
A gunshot rang out. Ilianna twisted sharply and I couldn’t see if she’d been hit or not. Fear churned my insides, but I raised the brick and threw it as hard as I could—just as the shifter spun around to face me. The brick missed, but so did his second shot—this one aimed at me.
Ilianna’s footsteps disappeared down the street—she was running, as mares were wont to do when faced with danger—and relief surged. Running meant she was alive—and just then, that was all I cared about.
A third shot ripped the air. The bullet burned past so close to my shoulder I felt the heat of it, but before he could fire again, I threw another brick. This one hit him full in the face. Blood spurted and he howled, his voice thick with pain and fury.
The second shifter appeared, leaping over the fence of the house a few properties down. He raced toward me rather than Ilianna, but any relief I might have felt disappeared as I stared at him.
His eyes were filled with destruction.
My destruction.
They might need to talk to me, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant, and I wasn’t going to live for very long afterward.
Would Azriel step in to save me if things got that bad? I didn’t know and, to be honest, I really didn’t want the situation to even reach that point.
I flexed my fingers and watched the shifter, ignoring the ever-increasing urge to run. Running was useless. His legs were already elongating—thickening—until they were almost twice the length of mine. He had speed in droves—more than I could muster up, even as a half-wolf.
His face was also changing as he ran, until it resembled something more canine than human. But his torso and his hands remained fully human. I guess a dog’s paws weren’t as dangerous as a human’s fists.
I waited, my knuckles almost white with my grip on the remaining brick, watching his eyes, waiting for his leap. I saw the fury deep in those brown depths and once again tried to ignore the inne
r voice that said I couldn’t do this, that it was better to run.
I’d been trained to fight. Now it was time to put that training to the full test. There were only two of them—it was probably the only opportunity I was going to get at these sort of odds and at getting any answers as to why these people were after me.
He leapt, teeth bared and a low growl rolling up his throat. I jumped from the fence and swiped sideways with the brick. He twisted in midair and the blow swooshed past his side, overbalancing me as I landed. He hit the top of the fence and leapt again, coming straight at me. I brushed my fingers against the concrete to steady myself then twisted around, flinging my arm up and using the brick as a ram. It smashed into his arm and bone snapped, the sound clearly audible above the steady growl of traffic coming from the nearby streets.
He howled—a furious, angry sound—and swung sideways with his other fist. I leaned back, but the blow still caught the edge of my chin, the power of it snapping my head back and dropping me onto my butt. He was on me in an instant, all teeth and hands and ferocity. I blocked several blows with my right arm, tried to ignore the pain of the ones that got through, and smashed the brick into his ribs. He howled again and jerked sideways. I bucked with my body, flinging him off me, then quickly scrambled to my feet. His hands caught the edge of my borrowed sweater and jerked me backward, into his arms.
“Now, my pretty, you are going to tell me what we need to know, or I’m going to enjoy tearing sweet chunks of flesh from your neck.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, “but I don’t talk very well under duress.”
I lashed back with a foot, but he jumped out of the way, his grip tightening against my neck and just about choking me.
“Nasty, nasty,” he whispered, his breath putrid as his lips brushed my neck. “For that, I might just have to provide a little taste of what happens to naughty little girls who attempt to castrate their betters.”
“As interesting as that sounds,” a deep, somewhat amused voice said behind us, “from where I’m standing, her neck actually looks rather fine just as it is. It would be a shame to mar it, don’t you think?”
The dog shifter spun, dragging me around with him, his chunky gold watchband tearing into my neck. The man who’d spoken was tall, broad-shouldered, and golden-haired. And his face … well, beautiful was the only way to describe it. Angels would surely have wept to achieve the same sort of perfection.
And that’s very much what he was—an angel.
Or at least he was the flesh-and-blood counterpart of a myth that ran through time and religion.
He was Aedh.
With that face, and with eyes such a vivid jade green and so filled with power it was almost impossible to stare at them without wincing, he could be nothing else.
Jade eyes, I thought. Not lilac like mine. Not my father.
He could also handle himself. The lion shifter was lying at his feet, his neck twisted at an odd angle. Such casual destruction sent a chill through my soul, but then, if this man was full Aedh, he probably didn’t hold human—or nonhuman—life with any sort of regard.
Not that these two deserved anyone’s regard.
“Who the fuck are you?” the dog shifter spat.
“I’m the man who’s going to kick your ass if you don’t release the lovely lady’s neck.”
His grip tightened, his watch cutting deeper into my skin. Blood began to trickle down my neck, and if I’d had the breath to curse, I would have.
The shifter backed up a step, dragging me with him. His attention was on the stranger more than me, and I knew there was never going to be a better time to break free.
I reached back, grabbed his gonads, and twisted—as hard as I could. He screamed, and his grip around my neck loosened reflexively. I broke free but didn’t release him, spinning around and punching him as hard as I could instead.
I released him then, and he dropped like a stone to the concrete. I blew out a relieved breath and glanced up at the Aedh. He was a good six inches taller than me and solidly built. And he didn’t have wings, which was decidedly odd. Given he was in flesh form, he should have.
“Thank you for the timely intervention.”
He gave me a slight bow, but the grin that teased his full lips was both sensual and amused. “I could hardly walk past and let those men accost such a beautiful woman, now, could I?” He glanced down at the shifter. “Would you like me to finish him off?”
Again that frisson of fear rolled through me, but I swiped it away. These men—as shifters who’d attacked another shifter with the clear intent to harm—would be lucky to last through the night once I called Uncle Rhoan. The Directorate had gotten harsher over recent years, and while death had once applied only to nonhumans who’d murdered, the increase in street violence had meant those boundaries had been eased in recent years. The trouble was, it hadn’t done a whole lot to reduce the aggressive tendencies of those on the streets.
“Thanks, but I need to question him.”
“Then permit me to at least break his leg. That way, you’ll be in no danger from him.” He hesitated, his gaze briefly sweeping me before rising to meet mine again. Amusement, and something else—something heated and primal—began to burn bright in those jade depths. The warmth of it flooded my senses, and the embers of need and desire stirred. He added, in tones that suddenly seemed a whole lot lower and sexier, “You can obviously handle yourself, but I’d hate to see you with bruises—or worse—when we go on our date.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I can’t remember hearing—or accepting—such an invitation.”
His smile grew, and mirth crinkled the corners of his bright eyes. It marred the perfection of his face, yet made him all the more appealing. “But is it not the human way to thank your savior by sharing a drink or a meal?”
“Ah, but I’m not human.”
“Neither am I,” he conceded, his warm and seductive tones nothing like I’d expected of an Aedh. At least, not a full Aedh. All the stories Uncle Quinn had told me about the full bloods had made me believe them to be cold and distant beings, but this man seemed about as far from an iceberg as you could get. “Yet it is a custom that—in this case—I’m eager to embrace.”
Something in the way he said that suggested he wanted to embrace a whole lot more than just a custom.
“You may have saved my life, but I can hardly go out with someone when I don’t even know his name.”
The shifter moaned and his fingers twitched. I stepped out of range and the stranger stepped forward, but I raised a hand to stop him. I could do my own dirty work.
Even if the thought made my stomach churn.
I raised a booted foot and—after taking a deep breath and thinking of Ilianna and what they might have done to her—stomped down on the bottom half of his leg. The force of the blow reverberated up my leg, but the snap of bone was clearly audible. The shifter twitched, but didn’t react any more than that. Hopefully, the break would keep him in the depths of unconsciousness a little bit longer.
I stepped back and met the stranger’s gaze again. Desire was sharper in his eyes, as was something else—something I couldn’t quite define. But seeing it made my nerves quiver, and I couldn’t decide whether it was a good sensation or bad.
“My name, lovely lady, is Lucian Dupont.” His gaze burned into mine, scorching every part of me. “And yours?”
“Risa.” My breath was caught somewhere deep in my throat and the word came out low and breathy. “Risa Jones.”
“Then, Risa Jones, there is a lovely little restaurant called Wintergreen in Carlton. Shall we say tonight, at eight?”
I licked my suddenly dry lips and managed to nod.
He smiled and gave me another bow. It was an oddly old-fashioned movement, and yet extremely sexy. “Until tonight then.”
He walked away. I watched him, enjoying the economical and yet oddly powerful way he moved. It was only once he’d disappeared around the corner that I remembered how to breathe properly aga
in.
And suddenly I had to wonder how much of what I’d felt was real, and how much of it might have been enhanced by the Aedh. They might be cold and clinical beings, but I’d gotten the impression from Mom that they could—when they wanted—be as sexually alluring as any wolf.
Although from what I understood, that only happened when the Aedh was nearing the end of his long life span and needed to breed. Lucian certainly hadn’t looked ready to die. Far from it.
But I hadn’t felt anything untoward caressing my senses, and surely I would have. I had felt the sexual energy—the need and desire burning off him—but that had in no way been designed to seduce or coerce.
Besides, he’d invited me to dinner, not a roll in the sack. Although part of me was totally hoping a roll in the sack ensued at some point in the near future.
And maybe satisfying my more basic need—as Ilianna would call it—would stop my stupid hormones from hungering after the reaper the next time he showed up.
The thought of him had me looking over my shoulder, but there was nothing and no one there. Or at least visible.
Part of me wished he was.
I dug my phone out of the pocket and called Uncle Rhoan.
“Risa,” he said, his gray eyes—the image of Riley’s—showing surprise even on the phone’s small vid-screen. “What’s happened?”
“Two shifters attacked me. One’s dead and the other is—”
“I’ve got your location,” he cut in instantly. “I’m not far away. Hang tough.”
He disconnected and I had to smile. I might never have had a dad, but I had Rhoan and Liander and Quinn, and I really didn’t need any other fathers in my life. Especially not one who was planning to wreck the very fabric of life here on earth.
The shifter groaned again. I put my phone away then walked across to pick up the brick I’d dropped. As my fingers wrapped around it, the shifter jerked and tried to get to his feet. Either he hadn’t felt the break or he was still partially out of it, but the sudden movement ripped a scream from his throat.