Chapter 12

Chance prowled around Elodie’s pristine white living room, staring out into the night and the quiet street where she lived, not thrilled to have ended up here a second time. He hadn’t even wanted to come here the first time.

Everything had happened so fast, they hadn’t gotten an opportunity to slow down until now.

She’d been a shivering ice cube of a woman almost as soon as their feet had left the ground. Sirens did better in Mediterranean environs, which was why so few made their homes in colder climates. Elodie was the only siren that he knew of to make her home in this city. After a heated argument, during which she’d only grown colder in his arms while he flew, he’d agreed to take her back to her place.

“We need to get out of the city,” he’d said, already tipping his wings to leave the fastest direction out.

“No.” Elodie’s voice had held the kind of stubbornness he’d heard before. “My place.”

“Hell no.” Even now, he grimaced at the tension coiling in his muscles. “He has to know where you live,” he’d argued.

“We’ll have to take that risk. I need clothes.”

Chance had scowled down into her beautiful, argumentative, upturned face. “What if he even wants you to go there? It could be a trap.”

“I need clothes, and we need to regroup.”

Chance had opened his mouth to argue but then she’d given a full body shiver, and it had finally penetrated his thick skull that she was risking exposure.

Fuck.

“I’ll find you a warm place to hide and go get you clothes.” Preferably out of the city, but even then, he hadn’t thought she’d make it that far.

Then Elodie had laid her hand on his chest, the move so trustingly intimate that he actually held his breath. Those big brown eyes had been fathomlessly trusting on his, and he’d felt himself melting.

“My apartment is two minutes from here,” she’d said quietly, reasonably. “And I’m a monster. If he comes, I can handle him.”

Chance hadn’t put up much of a fight after that. He’d shaken his head. Even standing here now, he still didn’t like it.

“I’ll be fast,” she’d wheedled. “In an out.”

Fuck. He blown out a harsh breath. “Gods save me from a determined siren.”

Gods he was a sucker for her, just like every other male on the planet.

Once they’d gotten to her place, she’d showered to get some body heat going, then dressed. By the time she emerged, Delilah and Alasdair had teleported in to meet them.

After hearing the description of Cretan’s holographic illusion, Delilah and Alasdair had exchanged a speaking glance only mates could share. One that said they had a pretty good idea of who was behind that particular issue.

A witch. Holograms were magic.

Which lined up with Elodie’s first thought when she’d seen it earlier. But the pair actually had an idea of a specific witch.

“Only so many witches associate with minotaurs,” Delilah had said dryly.

True. Supernaturals tended to avoid the hotheaded, narcissistic creatures whose asshole setting was eleven on the dial.

Elodie had insisted on going with them to speak to the witch they suspected. And Chance insisted on going with Elodie, blaming the arrow’s effects on his need to stay close to her. She’d side-eyed him but hadn’t objected.

They hadn’t found the witch though. Delilah had taken them several places to no avail, before finally returning them to Elodie’s for the night. Which had set off another argument between Elodie and Chance with her insistence that being on her home turf gave them the advantage. The only reason he’d agreed to it was Delilah.

“I’ll spell the apartment, so that nothing can get in,” Delilah had offered. “But nothing can get out either.”

“See.” Elodie waved at her friend. “All settled.”

There’d been something in her expression…something he couldn’t pin down…that had sent unease into his belly, but there was no way to argue with both women. So he’d agreed.

And now here he stood. Waiting.

The spell involved going around to every window and door and locking them shut. Then Delilah had spelled it from the outside, not that he could tell. Elodie had said she needed to take another shower then, because she wasn’t all the way warm and disappeared on him. He could still hear the sound of the running water, but it had been a while.

And Chance needed an outlet for all this unresolved energy.

He’d left Elodie on her own this morning to face the minotaur hunting her. What the fuck had he been thinking? What if Cretan had actually been there? What if that damn bull had hurt her?

He stalked through her bedroom, frowning at her drawers thrown open and closet strewn with clothes. He knocked on the bathroom door, but no answer came.

“Elodie?”

Another knock. Another call. Still no answer.

What if she’d passed out or something in the shower? Hit her head? Anxiety added another layer to the fear and self-blame he was already wrestling with, turning to weight in his gut. Screw being a gentleman. He burst into the room to find the shower running…and the room empty.

“What the fuck?” He whirled and jerked to a halt at the sight of the small window, just the size for a petite woman like Elodie to fit through, wide open.

He ran to it and stuck his head outside, waving his arm around. Sure enough, Delilah’s spell wasn’t working on this, and the fire escape was right outside.

He jerked back into the apartment, smacking the back of his head as he did. “Damn it.”

The trouble was he didn’t know if she’d been taken or had gone out on her own. Either way, he had no idea where to even start looking. Which left him with only one option. Glaring at the offending window, he pulled out his cell phone and called Delilah.

“She’s safe,” she answered.

Relief huffed out of him on a sharp breath, but on the next inhale was replaced with anger. “What the fuck, Delilah?”

“She needed to feed.”

Feed? He would have made her something to eat if she was hungry. “So you gave her an escape hatch?”

“She was worried about hurting you.”

Which might have pulled him up short if he wasn’t so damn pissed. “Where’d she go?”

“I have a tracker on her. She’s safe. In fact, she’s already marked her target.”

Target?

Realization pierced his anger like an arrow through his chest. This was a different kind of hunger his siren was dealing with. One he couldn’t help sate. Fuck. Of course. She’d been hunting when he’d shot them both with his arrow.

At least Elodie had bothered to get help so she could feed as safely as possible. But the fact that she felt as if she had to hide this from him… He thought they’d made more progress than that. That she trusted him. He shook his head, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. “What do I do?” he asked Delilah.

“Wait there. She’ll be home soon.”

“I hate waiting,” he muttered.

Delilah’s chuckle was genuinely amused. How could she be laughing right now? But when she spoke, she wasn’t laughing. “When she gets home, she’ll need two things, and two things only.”

“Which are?”

“A shower and help getting to sleep. Sirens like Elodie—the rare few who feel guilt—don’t sleep well after kills, even though the act drains them physically.” Delilah paused. “Good luck,” she said before hanging up.

After a beat, Chance slipped his phone into his pocket, turned off the water, then stood there, debating his next move. Listen to Delilah and wait, or try to find his siren somewhere in Manhattan?

Not exactly a choice.

* * *

Elodie didn’t know what she expected when she returned home. The cynical part of her semi-expected Chance to be in the living room nursing a beer, oblivious to her disappearance. She’d managed to hunt and feed in under an hour after all. But she knew that wasn’t the case when she found the shower turned off and the bathroom door busted open. He’d broken it off its hinges.

Not a good sign.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to will herself to meet the confrontation she knew was coming. A kill always left her strangely depleted, exhausted, and at the same time so wired she never could settle. But she owed Chance an apology.

She leaned around the door to peek into her room. “Chance?”

Her bedside light flicked on and Chance rose from where he’d been sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared at her unblinking for a long moment, and she found herself wishing that she could see his damn aura. Was he angry? Disappointed? Disgusted?

“That didn’t take long,” he finally said.

She hesitated.

“Delilah told me where you went. I called her.”

Elodie winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d let me go alone otherwise.”

“You’re right.” The growl in his voice and the way his hands were clenched at his sides…he was definitely angry. “I would have insisted on going with you.”

Exactly what she’d been afraid of. She never wanted him to see her like that. Not ever. It would change the way he looked at her from then on.

Chance ran a hand through his hair, standing it up on end. “We’ll talk about trusting me more tomorrow.”

Elodie frowned. Was her exhausted mind hearing wrong? “And tonight?”

He searched her gaze. “Delilah said you’d want a shower and maybe some help getting to sleep. I can help with that much, at least.”

Unexpected tears burned at the back of Elodie’s eyes. “You want to help me sleep after I just killed a man?”

“Did he deserve it?”

An older man who apparently had a thing for teenaged girls. The younger the better. He’d seduce them, then discard them when he’d had his fill, often leaving them pregnant or their confidence so in tatters their relationships would never be whole after that. How many lives had he ruined before she stopped him? She didn’t want to think about it. The important part was he was stopped.

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought.” Chance crossed the room and stepped over the door to crowd right into her space, taking her face in his hands. “The shower is to clean off his scent?”

Chance Eroson might just be her undoing. How could he have guessed that? “His everything.”

He nodded. “How about we replace it with something better?”

Him. He didn’t need to say it. She heard it just fine in his voice.

“I was thinking we might shower together.” He grinned suddenly, every inch the irresistible charmer she’d first met. “I hear an orgasm is great to help a body unwind and find sleep. But only if it will help.”

Usually when Elodie came home from a kill, she felt dirty and unworthy and wrong. She didn’t want to see anyone else for days. Not until she’d showered a thousand times and finally slept soundly.

She had never, not once in her two hundred years, thought she’d smile after one. But she found herself doing just that, though it felt weary on her face. “It’s certainly worth a try.”