"You're right." He raised a hand and I tensed, but all he did was drag it through his mass of waving curls. "I'm here, because like I said last night, I know there are ancients in New Orleans. That's why I'm here. I'm hunting them."
Out of everything I was expecting him to say that didn't even cause a blip on the radar.
Ren grinned again, and this time it was real. "I can tell by that what the fuck look on your face that you don't believe me. That's okay. I guess. But the look is about to get even more extreme."
I braced myself.
"What I'm about to tell you is something that many would kill to keep a secret. And the only reason why I'm telling you is because we're sort of stuck together for the next couple of days, and I cannot afford to waste time by keeping you in the dark. I have a job to do." The mischievous and almost charming grin made a brief appearance. "Plus, it helps that everyone thinks you're crazy now. Even if you did repeat what I'm about to tell you, no one would believe you. That's got bonus points written all over it."
My eyes narrowed. "Gee. Thanks."
"You're welcome," he replied blithely. "I belong to the Elite, an organization within the Order. No one outside of the Elite knows about us. We put the secret in Secret Squirrel."
I shook my head slowly. "You . . . I've never heard of such a thing."
"Like I said, you wouldn't. Neither would your fearless leader David." Raising his arms above his head, he stretched and the shirt he wore rose, exposing what turned out to be a tantalizing glimpse of his lower stomach. Pants hanging low, I got an eyeful of those side muscles near the hips, the ones that formed the vee. Then he put his arms down. "Look, I'm starving. Have you eaten today?"
Goodness, he switched topics as fast as Tink. It was disconcerting. "I haven't eaten anything since this afternoon." Not counting the pralines. That didn't count as food.
"There's this place a few blocks down that I passed that looked good, so we should get some food. You don't have to change. I'm loving this getup." His step forward was measured, as if he half expected me to throw the stake at him. "Come grab something to eat with me, and I'll tell you what I know, Ivy. I know a lot. And you can tell me exactly what happened Wednesday night."
Half of me knew I needed to tell him no and kick him out of my place. Probably even call David, and report everything that Ren was saying, but . . . he was right. David had said he'd talk to the other sects, but after tonight I was convinced he didn't really believe me. And I know what I saw Wednesday night. I wasn't going crazy or overreacting. That fae had done things only an ancient could, and if there was a chance Ren wasn't crazy, and everything he was saying was true, I needed to know.
I flipped the stake in my hand and said, "Okay."
Chapter Six
While I was still wary of Ren, going out to eat was a safer bet than hanging around in my apartment. Banging pots and the sound of cooking was a call that Tink could not refuse. The brownie would make himself known, and I wouldn't risk that. So I kept Ren in my bedroom while I quickly threw on a pair of jeans, snapped a bra in place under the tank top, and added a loose three-quarter-sleeve shirt.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Well, my hair. It was doing its own thing, curls going everywhere, and I didn't even attempt to try to tame them into submission. I let them fly. Whatever.
I grabbed an extra iron stake from my dresser and secured it to the inside of my boot. Although I wasn't hunting, I didn't want to get caught unprepared.
On the way out, I saw Tink peeking out from behind the couch, and he still had his war paint on, looking like a demented pixie. It took every ounce of self-control not to laugh. As Ren walked outside, I sent Tink a thumbs up, and he responded by doing something inappropriate with his hand. Obviously he didn't like that I was going out with Ren.
The temps had dropped, and even though it was late, the hole in the wall diner Ren was talking about only had a few booths open. The place smelled good—like food and not a septic system, which is how a lot of places tended to smell. I'd eaten here a few times in the past and the food was good, so Ren was lucky being a newbie to the town and picking a place to eat where you probably wouldn't get listeria.
We sat down in a booth near the door, the exhausted looking waitress quickly filling our requests—coffee for Ren and a coke for me. "I'll give you two a couple minutes," she said, nodding at the grease-stained paper menus resting on a clean table in front of us before spinning around and tackling another set of customers in a nearby booth.
Ren glanced at the menu as he grabbed the white caddy and started pulling out the packets of sugar. "Awesome. They're serving breakfast." He ripped a packet open and dumped the sugar in his coffee. "I could go for some grits. What about you?"
"Breakfast does sound good," I said, and watched as he emptied a second packet into the coffee. "I guess I could eat some gravy and biscuits. And bacon."
"Extra crispy bacon." A third packet went into the coffee. "Bacon tastes different here than in Colorado. That might sound stupid, but it's true."
"No, you're right. It does. I guess it's just the way they fry it."
He glanced up, and even in the horrible fluorescent lights, his skin still looked golden, as if it were kissed by the sun. I hated to even think about what I looked like or what color of red my hair was in this lighting. "So, you're not from here?"
I shook my head as I picked at the edges of the menu and he moved on to the fourth packet of sugar. "I'm from Virginia."
"That's where you were born?"
"Yeah. You born and raised in Colorado?" I asked.
"Just outside of Denver." He emptied the fifth packet into his coffee.
Sitting back, I arched a brow as he picked up the sixth packet of sugar. "Do you want some extra coffee with your sugar?"
He gave me a quick grin. "I like things sweet."
"I can tell," I murmured, and I glanced up as the waitress reappeared. She took our orders then rushed off like the devil was snapping at her heels. "So, you going to tell me about this thing called the Elite?"
"I just need my first gulp of caffeine." He lifted the cup and took a hefty swallow. The sound he made afterwards actually made the muscles in my lower body tense. It was such a deep, throaty groan that warmth crept into my cheeks. "Ah, that is so much better," he said.
Then he winked.
"You are…" I shook my head. There were no words. I kept my voice low so we weren't overheard. "Tell me about the Elite."
He took another sip and thankfully didn't sound like he was having an orgasm afterward. "The Elite have existed since the beginning of the Order, and they've handled different things throughout history. Remember the Knights Templar? They branched off from the Elite"
"You're joking."
"When I joke, I'm usually funnier than that. But back to the point of this, the Elite has been in operation for a long ass time, and just like the Order, the members of the Elite are generational. It runs in the family."
I glanced over as the door opened and two college-aged girls stumbled in, looking like New Orleans chewed them up and spit them out. "Okay. Let's say, hypothetically, I believe you. The Elite hunt ancients?"
"We hunt the fae like everyone else, but we are trained to handle the ancients," he explained, cradling his hands around his cup of coffee. He had nice fingers, long and elegant. I could picture him strumming a guitar. I had no idea why I was thinking of his fingers. "Did you manage to stab that fae?" he asked quietly.
My stomach flopped at the memory. "I did, but it didn't do anything to him. He pulled it out and tossed it aside. I told David, but he . . ."
"He probably said he'd contact the other sects, right? I'm not talking shit about David. He seems like a good guy, but most of the Order is unaware of the ancients still being here. He probably thinks you didn't stab him."
"If people in the Order—people like you—know that they are, why wouldn't it be common knowledge? Not knowing is dangerous. Obviously." I gestured to myself. "We nee
d to know what we're dealing with, and not having that knowledge has us at a disadvantage."
And it also made other Order members think I was crazy.
"I get what you're saying." He leaned forward. "But the ancients are rare, Ivy. The fact you ran into one is damn near unbelievable. They don't engage the Order. They stay hidden and surrounded by their own kind. When I say we hunt them, we literally have to hunt them down. There's no reason to have people panic when the likelihood of them ever running into one is nearly nonexistent."
I didn't agree, because obviously I proved someone could just stumble across an ancient, but I wasn't going to spend the entire time arguing with him. "How can you kill one?"
"Iron doesn't work."
My jaw dropped. "What?"
"Iron doesn't work," he repeated, then leaned back as the waitress delivered our food. Gravy steamed off my plate, and the scent was downright enticing, but my appetite had taken a big hit.
Ren grabbed the remaining packets of sugar and dumped them in his pile of lumpy looking grits. "There's no sending them back to the Otherworld. The only thing you can do is kill them, and there's one thing that will do that. A stake fashioned from a thorn tree that grows in the Otherworld is virtually a bullet to the brain."
"From a tree that grows . . . in the Otherworld?"
He nodded as he scooped up a mouthful of grits. "Yeah, so you can imagine getting that shit isn't easy. The weapons one can use against the ancients are limited, but the thorn stake works just like iron does. But as you know, ancients are far more dangerous and skilled."
I picked up a piece of bacon. "They can conjure things."
"Yes. As long as they have touched something, they can pretty much recreate it. They can also invade people's dreams, and they can move things around just like normal fae can. They're powerful, Ivy, and you're damn lucky that you got away from one of them with just a flesh wound."
I didn't need him to tell me I was lucky. Facing down an ancient, a fae, or even a human with a gun usually didn't end well, no matter how awesome you thought you were. "And you have one of these weapons?"
"Of course." He ate politely and cleanly, despite the fact I'd only eaten two slices of bacon and almost all of his grits were gone. "And before you ask, yes I've killed ancients before. Four of them, and no, it was not easy. I have the scars to prove that, and yes, if you ask nicely, I might be convinced to show them to you later." He glanced up through thick lashes. "You going to eat? Your food is getting cold."
I looked down at my biscuits and gravy and absently picked up a fork. "Why do you think the ancient is here?"
"It's always been here. That's the thing. There aren't many, but there are enough ancients that were in this realm when the doors were sealed. The right question is why was it engaging with you? Like I said, ancients are like . . . mob bosses. Fucking dangerous, but they don't get involved unless they have to. The fact this one was out on the street and hunted you down means something."
The savory gravy turned to sawdust in my mouth. "Hunted me down?"
"That's the only plausible explanation. No one in the Elite—no one, Ivy—has heard of an ancient seeking out a member of the Order. Hell, can you think of a time when a fae has hunted down an Order member?"
Yes, I could think of a time when a fae had hunted down members. It rarely happened, but it had. Three years ago.
"This is a big deal." Pushing his empty bowl aside, he attacked his plate of bacon. "The question is why?"
Only half of my biscuit was gone, but I was done. My thoughts spun with what Ren had told me. He could be lying—could be completely delusional, but I know what I saw. That wasn't a normal fae, and David had even confirmed that ancients had those abilities. Deep down, my instinct told me Ren wasn't lying. Just like it had told me that Tink was harmless.
And my instincts had told me not to meet Shaun that night, but I hadn't listened to them then.
Something occurred to me. "Maybe it wasn't just hunting me. Maybe it was hunting Order members in general. We've lost three of them since May. That's not entirely abnormal—the deaths, but these were good and skilled members."
"If they're hunting members, we need to know why."
"And this is why you were sent here? Because of an ancient being in New Orleans?" I asked after the waitress refilled our drinks.
Ren eyed me for a moment. "We've been tracking movement of the fae. At least a hundred have left the west and ended up here or in surrounding cities, but I bet you haven't seen an increase."
Thinking on it, I shook my head. "There's always a lot here, so it might be hard to recognize that there's an increase."
"These fae are laying low. They're up to something." He paused, tilting his head to the side. "And we know there's a gateway to the Otherworld in New Orleans."
I leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table. "How do you know that? Only a few know where the gates are and who guards them."
A blasé look crossed Ren's handsome face. "I'm a part of the Elite. We know what city the gates are in, but we don't know the exact location or who guards them."
Only the guards knew where the gates were, and maybe the sect leaders. It was a safety precaution once the Order discovered that the fae only knew the location of the gate they came through but not any of the others. Many decades ago, a member of the Order had been caught without protection and was tortured into giving away the location. The doors were sealed, but they could be reopened, and shit would get real bad real fast if that happened.
"You don't happen to guard the gate, do you?" he asked. "Because that would make my job so much easier, because I have a feeling the ancients are also looking for the gates."
I snorted. Yep. I snorted like a little piglet. "Uh, no. And I have no idea where it is either."
A burst of laughter came from the table the two girls sat at, drawing my attention. Their faces were flushed, and one looked like she was laughing so hard she was about to pee herself. Two guys had joined them. One of them had an arm draped along the red cushioned booth, his arm behind the girl who was laughing the loudest.
"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be one of them?" Ren asked.
My attention snapped back to him. The question ricocheted through me. I slipped my hands off the table and I leaned against the seat, as if I could somehow put distance between the question and me. "No."
Glancing over at the happyland table, Ren propped his forearms up and leaned toward me like he was about to share the biggest secret. "Sometimes I do. Can't help it. Those four people over there? They can't even comprehend some of the shit we've seen and have had to do. They're lucky. We never had a chance to be them. We were born into this."
"But . . . but our job is so important. We're making a difference . . ." I stopped myself because I sounded like a recruitment video.
"I'm not saying that we aren't. Just pointing out the fact that those four over there will probably live long, happy lives," he replied, meeting my gaze. "Doubtful that any of us will."
That was a damn sad truth I didn't want to dwell on. "So you're here to find the gate?"
"And to figure out what the fae are up to." Ren tapped his hands off the table. "You know what's coming up, right?"
Of course I did. "The fall equinox."
"The gates are always weaker during the equinox and the solstice," he said, saying what I already knew. "They could be gearing up for something to do with them."
"This can't be the first time that they're planning something," I pointed out.
"It's not. We've just always been able to stop them."
I stared at him blankly as his words floated around in my head. Here I thought I was in the know, being that I was in a secret organization, but apparently, I didn't know everything.
"Do you believe me now?" he asked, reaching for the plate my bacon was on.
Snapping forward, I caught his hand around the wrist before he got a hold of my bacon. "I might believe you, but that doesn't mean you can steal
my bacon."
Those full lips split in a grin. Our gazes locked, and the tumbling sensation in my belly resurfaced. I could see how easy it would be to fall into the green depths of those gorgeous eyes or be wooed by the charm he seemed to wear like a second skin. His grin spread into a smile, revealing his dimples. And that dipping feeling in my stomach turned into something richer, fiercer.
I dropped his hand, grabbed a slice of bacon, and shoved it in my mouth. I didn't have any use for swoon-inducing guys.
Ren sat back, his eyes seeming to glimmer as he watched me. "When you get done eating, I want to show you something I think you need to see."