Our trip back to Louisiana happened as quick as the trip to Zephyr’s house—in an instant.
He held out a hand to pull me through the Mirror of Truth. Like the painting that was actually a portal in his office, nothing changed when I passed through except I was now in Shreveport, Louisiana, instead of at Zephyr’s estate in Canada. Gemma followed behind us as a werewolf, tongue hanging out of her mouth like a Labrador.
I let go of his slender fingers and adjusted the backpack on my shoulders, glancing down at the mirror propped against the tire of Vee’s Audi. Thankfully, no one else was around to see us magically emerge. “Why didn’t you tell me the Mirror of Truth was a portal?”
Zephyr bent down and picked up the mirror. “I had planned on using the mirror one month from our agreement to surprise you. Telling you about that function would’ve ruined my surprise.”
I closed my eyes and took in a slow breath through my nostrils. Impossible. Zephyr was impossible.
He held up the Mirror of Truth. “I told you the mirrors had many interesting abilities, Matilda Ashby.”
“Abilities you refused to tell me,” I said and ran my sweaty hands down the front of my pants. I’d changed from my ripped dress into my ugly, shapeless tactical pants and a black T-shirt. The few minutes I’d used in the bathroom revealed a puckered scar beneath my collarbone and a matching one on my back. Something that would’ve sent me into a doom spiral a year ago didn’t bother me at all now. “Can you make items into portals too? Or was that power limited to your ancestors?”
Zephyr straightened his suit jacket. He’d glamoured his ears to look human instead of keeping his natural pointed ones. Even though he still looked beautiful in an otherworldly way, he could pass as human. “Only certain fae have the knowledge to create magical artifacts that can transport living beings. My family was responsible for creating the paths from our home to Earth, ergo I possess that knowledge as well.”
“So why stay on Earth if you can go back home?”
“Those in charge back home decided to limit how many fae were allowed to travel to Earth. With the rapid progress of technology, letting too many changelings or fae across became a risk…so they say.” He rolled his eyes. “They wanted to restrict my magic—my freedom—and I would not allow it. Instead, I left.”
That did not surprise me.
“As interesting as that all is,” I said and gestured to Gemma with both of my hands. “How in the world are we going to get through town with a werewolf?”
Zephyr motioned for me to turn around with a whirl of his finger. I complied, and he unzipped the backpack.
The only blades Zephyr possessed at his estate were swords. Since I needed one to fight any zombies that appeared, we chose a short sword to better accommodate my spindly arms. We’d strapped the sword to my back behind the bag to try and hide the blade beneath it and my ponytail. The thing was ridiculously uncomfortable against my spine.
“It’s simple, really.” Zephyr rummaged through the bag. “Humans are largely inept—”
“Seriously?”
“And”—something heavy lifted from the pack—“they have a tendency to believe the easiest explanation a vast majority of the time.”
His words made my chest ache. Samson had said something similar when he tossed Officer Farrell from my balcony last August. He said people would assume a suicide because that was the easiest conclusion to come too. He wasn’t wrong.
Good lord. If Nero killed Samson, I’d never forgive myself.
The zipper closing on the backpack brought me back to the present and Zephyr’s rambling. “We will wrap this rope around the wolf’s neck in lieu of a leash.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s why you insisted on bringing the rope? There is no way people will believe Gemma is simply a dog. Have you actually looked at her?”
“They will believe it.” Zephyr held out the rope to me. “Tie it on. She might bite me.”
Even though I knew Gemma wouldn’t bite Zephyr, I tied the rope loosely around her neck without protest. She nervously paced, nose to the ground, burnished bronze fur glowing in the streetlight. I held the other end and looked ahead. This was it. We had to find them. “Lead the way, Gemma.”
Gemma pulled us back toward the private casino, right into a group of teens. As Zephyr predicted, not even one looked twice.
He smirked. “Told you so.”
“Those were teenagers. They were all on their cell phones.” I scowled when Gemma led me into a pothole when we crossed the street. “Someone is going to notice sooner or later.”
When the casino came into our line of sight, Gemma stopped. She stuck her nose in the air and pushed back on her paws.
“Huh.” Too bad she couldn’t talk as a wolf. Knowing why she stopped would be nice. “Why’d you stop, Gemma?”
Zephyr grabbed my elbow. “Police.”
I narrowed my eyes at the casino. The faint pulse of red-and-blue lights on the building’s exterior made my palms sweat. “Let’s not go there.”
Gemma turned around and looked at me. While she was a wolf and couldn’t speak, I had the distinct impression I’d gotten on her nerves for implying she would lead us there in the first place.
“I know, I’m sorry. Lead the way.”
Gemma thrusted her head toward the nearest crosswalk. I pushed the button and waited, willing the light to change with my eyeballs. Samson was counting on us. Couldn’t it turn faster?
“If Vee was as far gone as you implied, they probably stayed close.” Zephyr tensed beside me. “If Nero is ingesting souls, he would not risk her dying before he could take it.”
The light changed, and Gemma led us across the street. Cars slowed at the traffic lights, but thanks to Gemma’s speed, we crossed in a light jog anyway. “Unless they have your crazy healing blood, I guess then it wouldn’t matter.”
Zephyr snorted. “Unless those necromancers are harboring vampires, I doubt they have any healing blood on supply.”
Gemma leading us down the sidewalk at a breakneck pace kept me from saying something too offensive. “You’re a vampire?”
“Do not insult me.” Zephyr grimaced, lips curled in displeasure. “While I am not a vampire, the fae like me are responsible for the existence of vampires. They would lure humans, feed on them, and then relinquish them back into your world as monsters. It is part of the reason that my benevolent leaders prohibited me from using my magic any longer.”
I was so, so sorry I asked.
Gemma, thankfully, didn’t stop in her task of tracking our kidnapped companions. She led us down a side street, the increasing dark and imminent doom lingering between us crushing me without mercy. Would we find them in time? While I refused to give up, the possibility that we wouldn’t gnawed on me.
“Yo!” A guy stopped a few yards ahead of us and bent over at the waist. His gaze was, predictably, on the massive wolf on the end of my rope. “What kind of dog is this? I ain’t never seen one like it.”
Zephyr preened, victory glittering in his smile. “Oh, I’m so glad you asked.”
I knew Gemma was close when her light canter turned into a straight gallop. My arm, fully extended, strained beneath the unrelenting pull of the rope. My boots slammed against the concrete sidewalk in a dead sprint, a measured thump-thump that matched the furious beat of my heart and jostling of my backpack against my shoulders. We’d escaped, survived, and searched in less than an hour. Hopefully, that was fast enough. I refused to believe they were dead.
“What’s the plan?” I asked, words punctuated with deep, strangled breaths.
“It depends on what we encounter and who is at risk, if they are still alive.” Zephyr didn’t even sound winded. How unfair. “If what you suspect is, indeed, how this uncooperative cambion feels, I doubt he will kill the werewolf. If he hopes to combat Frank after his father predictably spurns him, he will need connections. Delivering the werewolf to his old pack to face their justice will establish those connections.”
“Which leaves Sam and Vee.”
“Vee is the most at risk.”
While I wanted Samson safe, I knew Zephyr was right. Vee had, at the bare minimum, a broken leg and nose. She was also conscious, or she had been the last time I’d seen her. Samson wasn’t a threat unconscious, nor was he injured or dying, which meant Nero would likely suck Vee’s soul out first to prevent accidentally losing it.
Zephyr glared at the horizon, like it had everything to do with our horrible evening. “I can teleport to her and get us to my estate.”
“How? She doesn’t have one of your portal objects, so you can’t.”
“You assume.”
My mind went back to our time at Zephyr’s house. They had spent time alone together. Had he given her one of his magicked objects then? No, Vee wouldn’t have kept anything he gave her. Maybe he—
“Oh my God.” If I weren’t struggling to keep up with Gemma, I would’ve gaped. “That’s what you did to Vee before we left your house. You did…well, something to her hand.”
“My magic is not limited to inanimate objects,” he said offhandedly, like he didn’t confess to magically attaching himself to Vee. “After I get to her, I’ll use this”—he lifted his left wrist and tapped the watch latched around it as we jogged—“to get us home.”
“You did that to Vee without her consent.”
“Yes, I did. I tried to get her to accept an object in exchange for your cambion instead, like I did with you, and she refused. I knew she wouldn’t stay out of harm’s way, and I made a decision. One that will save her foul-mouthed behind today, I might add.”
The last part of his statement barely infiltrated the fog that swept over my mind. Zephyr had given Vee the very same choice as he’d given me—take an object from him in exchange for Samson—and she refused. In fact, she encouraged me to make a deal with Zephyr instead, knowing what he offered her.
Samson would be devastated.
Zephyr kept his even pace beside me, oxfords stepping in tandem with my boots. “We need to get your cambions out of his vicinity. Focus on putting distance between Nero and them. Necromancers are very difficult to kill, so I propose we don’t even try. Live to fight another day.”
Despite the urge to ask more questions about Vee refusing his deal, I swallowed them. My questions wouldn’t matter if they all died. “So…get in, get them out, and leave the necromancers alive?”
“Yes.”
The thought of letting Nero live so he could continue tormenting us was a bitter pill to swallow. But Zephyr’s arrogance spoke to how seriously he believed this was the best choice. If a fae who thought so highly of himself didn’t believe in his abilities enough to kill Nero and get us all out alive, I needed to heed that.
Gemma slowed down, and the burn in my chest receded. She’d pulled us into a parking lot in front of a construction site. By the looks of the architecture, a future apartment building. “Why are you helping me anyway?”
Zephyr raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Reasons that do not involve you.”
Anything else I wanted to say was put on the figurative back burner when Gemma turned around to look at us. “Is this the place?”
Gemma’s head dipped in affirmation.
The wind rolled along my cheeks as I surveyed the building. It wasn’t wide so much as tall, and behind the scaffolding was detailed stonework that reminded me of an English castle. Windows hadn’t been put in yet, the holes instead blocked with plywood and plastic wrap.
Zephyr put his hand between my shoulder blades and lightly pushed. “Perhaps we should go around to the back. Fewer eyes.”
The apartments sprawled the entire length of the block. We passed a few more clusters of people, but none of them noticed us in any meaningful way. One woman swaying beneath the influence of alcohol or drugs—or both—gave Gemma a pat on the head and told Zephyr and me what a beautiful dog we had. He returned the compliment with a smug smile, and I knew I’d never hear the end of it should we both survive this rescue mission.
Zephyr elbowed me when we finally reached the back of the new construction. “I told you. Humans are imbeciles.”
Instead of fighting with him, I focused on our surroundings. The back of the apartments was surrounded by a chain link fence and several signs about the legalities of breaking and entering. Right beside one of those signs, incidentally, was a section of cut chain link falling back from the fence like a banana peel. “There.”
He motioned me forward. “After you, Miss Ashby.”
Gemma went through the hole first, head whipping side to side as she stepped into the construction site. The moon lit the way through the mounds of cinderblocks, wood, and dirt. A bulldozer and a large crane gave us decent cover from the street, which hopefully kept well-meaning law enforcement away long enough for us to get our friends back.
Er…my friends. Zephyr’s…frenemies. Or something.
Gemma stopped walking, and I followed her line of sight. Parked beneath the cover of a partially erect carport—a white van, a couple of trucks, and a sleek BMW. Blood was smeared along the van door. Five thin lines, like fingers. Considering Samson had knocked himself out and Cliff was probably still immobilized from the silver pole, I hoped that blood belonged to Vee. If it did, it meant she was fighting to be free.
Zephyr stopped beside me, following my gaze to the vehicles. “It appears the wolf found them.”
“What now? You going to pop in there and take Vee?”
“No. That would spell the end for the other two as he would not risk me coming back to take them. I imagine you could not live with that outcome.”
Of course I couldn’t. I pursed my lips in thought and untied the rope from Gemma’s neck. It slipped from my fingers and fell into the dirt. “Then what do you suggest? Planning ambushes isn’t my area of expertise.”
“Actually, you have more experience fighting this particular foe.” Zephyr cocked his head, dark hair falling along his brow. “What do you think we should do?”
My stomach clenched anxiously. I didn’t need to be making any battle plans. “I’m a stupid human, remember?”
“A stupid human who knows our adversary more than I could hope to.” His sculpted eyebrows inched up his forehead. “Humans are foolish because they lack experience in dealing with beings such as myself and are therefore inadequate in making sound decisions because we have been, and always will be, everywhere.”
“Exactly—”
“But you have experience here. You know our foe.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, not letting me break eye contact. “You are equipped to handle this situation.”
The weight of my self-doubt almost broke me completely under his intense stare. I sighed and tried to shrug his hand off. I failed. “Why do you care about this, Zephyr? I’m a human. You’ve already made it clear that I don’t matter.”
“Humans, in the grand scheme of things, do not matter,” he said, like it should make me feel better. It didn’t. “But you, Miss Ashby, have made a deal to see me once a month for the rest of your life. I will not suffer the presence of a weakling for the next seventy or so years.”
I snorted. “Bold of you to assume I’ll live that long.”
The corner of his lips curled. “After this mess is over, that love-sick cambion you rescued from my evil clutches is going to dote on you for the rest of your life. But if you will not fight for that future—your future—who will?”
His words immobilized me. Ever since Hudson tried to murder me, I’d let life happen to me. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I floated along, waiting for a sign that I belonged somewhere, anywhere. That there was a place in the world for Matilda Ashby, human heiress who knew about monsters.
The only time I ever acted without thinking of the consequences was for Samson. The only time I threw caution to the wind, that I put myself in danger, was for him. And he’d done the same thing for me. I might not fit in anywhere. I might not be able to look at the human world doe-eyed and innocent like I did before my kill contract. I might not have the strength to take out monsters, own a favorite gun, or have secret mind powers. But despite everything, I knew what I wanted.
I wanted a future with Samson, and I was going to go get him back.