Chapter 3
Quinn
It was clear from the moment Rollick’s private jet arrived in L.A. that the demon really didn’t want anyone knowing that he’d brought me back to the city with him. First, he made me wait on the plane while he checked out the car he’d had brought to the tarmac and the surrounding area. Apparently he didn’t trust any of his underlings all that much. Or maybe he was being extra cautious now that three of them had recently turned on him.
As soon as he’d vanished near the doorway, I turned to the three men I trusted. My heart leapt with relief all over again taking in Torrent and Lance, looking not particularly worse for wear. We’d managed to find them fairly quickly on the streets of Jacksonville with Crag helping with the search, and they’d escaped the onslaught of enemy shadowkind with no major injuries.
I hadn’t been able to express my relief all that thoroughly yet, because Rollick had kept us apart and in view during the flight. He’d insisted that I sit at one end of the cushy leather seating area and his three former employees stayed at the other while he lounged in the middle of the space, periodically glowering at them.
All three of the shadowkind men moved to join me where I was waiting near the door, and I immediately motioned them even closer. Lance hooked one hand around my elbow, careful as usual not to let his ever-present claws do more than graze my skin. Normally his touch sent tingles through my body, but right now my insides were too knotted up to feel anything except anxious.
“Tricksy, tricksy,” the dragon shifter muttered, his violet eyes even wilder than usual beneath the fall of his erratic dark brown curls. He cocked his head, and I couldn’t stop my gaze from shooting to the new scar that marred the smooth, golden-brown skin at the crook of his neck. A scar he’d gotten during the battle earlier this morning—he hadn’t made it out completely unharmed. “We could make a run for it while he’s distracted.”
He glanced over at Crag, who’d come up behind him and set a hand on my shoulder. The gargoyle was back in human-like form, nothing hinting at his true nature other than the rocky jut of his jaw, but his otherwise bronze-toned face had taken on a grayish cast to match it. I didn’t think he’d fully healed from his own wounds, although it was hard to tell how badly his wings were doing with them invisibly tucked away.
The gargoyle ran his other hand over the sheen of black hair on his skull and ducked his head. “I’m not sure of how far or well I could fly yet.”
We all looked toward Torrent, the de facto leader of the trio, who’d come up at my other side. Seeing how drawn his pale face was beneath his scruffy dark red hair, I swallowed hard and reached out cautiously to slide my arm around his torso, just above the spot where his two supporting tentacles emerged from his waist. I’d have hugged him more tightly if I hadn’t wanted to give him enough distance that the silver-and-iron vest I was still wearing wouldn’t touch even his clothes.
My growing understanding with Torrent had been a lot more tumultuous than my connection with Lance and Crag. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to the choices I’d made.
“I think we should wait this out and see how it goes,” I said before he could speak. “We’re safe under the deal I made for ten days at least. If we go against it, who knows what he’ll do to any of us. Crag needs time to recover, and it could be a good thing to find out what Rollick knows about my heart. It seems like he realized there might be something important about it before any other shadowkind did, considering he sent the three of you to watch over me way before I got attacked.”
Torrent gazed down at me with his pensive sea-green eyes. “I agree,” he said. “There’s too much we don’t understand about this situation. It’ll be easier to determine how to tackle our enemies while we have fewer of them—and access to Rollick’s resources. He can’t break the deal he made. When the ten days are up, we’ll be much more prepared for whatever we need to do.”
He raised his hand to my shoulder and leaned over to brush a kiss to the top of my head that brought a larger lump to my throat even as it reassured me that he wasn’t pissed off with me. All the same, I felt the need to say, “I’m sorry. It seemed like the best out of a bunch of bad options. I didn’t even know if you were still alive… or if you would be for very much longer if I didn’t make a deal with him, now that he knows you all tricked him.”
“It makes sense,” the tentacled man said. “I wasn’t there, but I don’t think I’d have wanted you to choose differently.” He frowned in the direction of the door. “He’s been good to me in the past. He’s more generous and fair-minded than the majority of shadowkind I’ve met, even if that isn’t saying a lot by your human standards. The fact that he offered the deal at all… Maybe we did simply misunderstand his intentions.”
He didn’t sound as if he totally believed that was true, but I was glad he thought it was possible.
“If he asks anything of you that you feel is unreasonable, do what you can to get out of it and get to us before he can turn on you,” he added firmly.
Before I could say anything else, Rollick blinked into being in front of the door. He waved his hand in my direction. “Quinn, come with me. The three of you, assuming you’re sticking around, make your way through the shadows and don’t show yourselves until we reach my private rooms in the hotel.”
Lance let out a little growl, but when both Rollick and Torrent shot him a warning glance, he pecked my cheek and grudgingly faded into the shadows. The other two men did the same. Clutching the strap of my messenger bag where it was slung across my chest, I tramped down the plane’s boarding stairs.
The silver sedan waiting outside looked a lot like the one Rollick had driven in Jacksonville. He motioned for me to get into the back. I found an oversized suede purse sitting in the middle of the seat.
“Put everything in there on,” the demon told me as he started the engine. “Mortals are always snapping photos and plastering them all over the internet. The last thing we need is one of the beings who’s got his sights on you spotting you in an image from the hotel.”
When I unzipped the purse, I understood what he meant. Inside was a knee-length, high-collared silk dress with a billowy cut that I could tell would fit over the vest to disguise it, a wig of long black hair, a make-up bag, and a pair of sunglasses with large, round panes that would hide half of my face.
“Am I going to have to be going incognito the whole time I’m at this hotel of yours?” I asked as I quickly tugged the dress over my vest, the tank top I had on underneath, and my jean shorts.
“You’ll be staying in my private suite,” Rollick said. “Once you’re settled in, there won’t be anyone around to see you who shouldn’t. You’ll even be able to take off your very creative anti-shadowkind armor without any beings sensing your presence. I had the building constructed with a layer of silver and iron a few floors below the penthouse to discourage uninvited visitors and ensure no one could exert unwelcome influence on my living space or my guests.”
“You thought of everything,” I muttered.
He chuckled lightly. “I haven’t stayed alive and well for as long as I have by leaving my fate to chance.”
I studied the back of his head, the short fawn-brown hair framing his ears with just the slightest trace of a curl. “How long have you been alive?” I knew from past conversations that Torrent had been in existence for several hundred years, and I’d gathered that Crag and Lance both had at least a couple of centuries under their belts. There wasn’t much that killed shadowkind other than being pulverized by another monster.
“Long enough to have watched nearly every civilization your kind has created rise and fall,” Rollick said, as languidly as ever. “Get yourself together now. It’s your life we’re protecting here.”
Right. I peered at myself in the little mirror that came with the make-up palette and dabbed on red lipstick when we were stopped at a streetlight. Then I smudged on some bronzer to give my skin more of an olive tone. There didn’t seem to be much point in bothering with my eyes when they’d be concealed behind the sunglasses anyway. It wasn’t my typical style for my occasional nights out, but I wasn’t looking to find a quick hook-up today.
I managed to get the unfamiliar wig cap over my long hair and tugged the wig over that. When I looked at the mirror again, I barely recognized myself. That seemed like a good sign.
As I put the supplies away, I turned my gaze to the world beyond the window. For a few minutes, all I could do was stare.
We’d driven into the city proper. In some ways, Los Angeles wasn’t that different from Jacksonville. Palm trees stood here and there along the streets; the roads were clogged with cars rumbling and periodically honking at each other.
On the other hand, everything was so much bigger. The skyscrapers loomed taller, and there seemed to be a gazillion of them. The streets were wider. I felt abruptly very small.
But even as the intimidated part of me shrank back a little, the architect-in-training took the sights in with an expanding sense of awe. Imagine designing a soaring high-rise to stand among these giants. Would I be able to come up with something that would strike the same awe I felt in people who were used to living someplace like this?
My fingers itched for my sketchpad. I almost pulled it out of my messenger bag to see what I could come up with on the fly, but taking full stock of my surroundings seemed more important. I wouldn’t be able to become any kind of architect if I ended up a prisoner of shadowkind—or a worse sort of victim—for however much longer my borrowed heart would keep beating.
I thought I spotted a sign for a nearby train station. There was a police station… not that cops were likely to be much help against shadowkind attackers.
The buildings were starting to look increasingly posh. I saw more and more people on the sidewalks snapping pictures with their phones and consulting the street signs—tourists. I’d have been following our route on my own phone’s map if Rollick hadn’t demanded I hand it over the second I’d accepted his deal. I guessed it made sense that he didn’t want there to be any chance that I’d give away my location, but its loss left me even more uneasy.
It wasn’t much longer before Rollick pulled the sedan into a driveway outside a tall, white-washed hotel with vivid purple trim. He drove past the curved section out front and over to a secluded side door that looked like it’d be mostly used for deliveries, where he parked to the side of the lane.
“The door will be unlocked,” he said. “Go in and follow the hall until you can first take a right. You’ll find an elevator there. Get on, and once you’re inside, I’ll enter the code to get us to the right floor. I’ll be with you the whole time in the shadows.”
I wasn’t sure if that information was supposed to reassure me or threaten me, but I wasn’t inclined to argue anyway. I was in this situation now, wherever it led me.
Clutching my messenger bag, I eased out of the car into the sweltering summer heat and hurried over to the door. It didn’t look like there was much of anyone around here to notice me anyway, but Rollick was clearly being extra careful. I slipped inside and couldn’t help sighing as a blast of air conditioning washed away the heat.
Forward and then to the right, he’d said. I hurried onward over a hall runner that was thick and velvety even in the maintenance part of the hotel. Muffled voices carried from up ahead. I passed what must have been a kitchen area where dishes were clinking and savory cooking smells wafting from beneath the door.
My mouth started to water. I’d had a snack in my bag to pass for breakfast, but it hadn’t been all that substantial, and it was almost lunchtime.
When I reached the next hall, where a solid door stood between me and the front section of the hotel, I turned right as instructed. The elevator was just a few steps farther. It opened immediately when I pressed the button. I stepped on, jabbed the Door Closed button, and flinched when Rollick popped into being next to me.
“So jumpy,” he said in a lightly teasing voice, and leaned past me to flick his fingers over the display next to the door. He angled his body so I couldn’t see the code he’d entered. Was it a general code or only required to go up to his special rooms, not to return to the public floors? If I managed to get back to the elevator, maybe I’d be able to get out of the building if I needed to.
When the demon pulled back, his arm brushed mine, but he stepped to the side to give me a little space. “No need to worry. I think you’ll find your new accommodations very adequate.”
The elevator rushed upward, and my stomach dropped. It pinged and opened to a small vestibule.
“My office,” Rollick said, indicating the door across from us. “You won’t bother with anything in there.” He led me over to a small staircase, the door to it opening at a press of his thumb against a digital pane. I wasn’t opening that on my own without cutting off the digit to bring along.
The private staircase only descended one floor. We emerged through the next door into a suite as grand and luxurious as I’d expected from the demon.
The deep maroon carpet hugged my feet. Black leather sofas and armchairs stood in a cluster by a gas fireplace. A vast flatscreen TV stood in a tall entertainment unit near the corner. Built-in ebony bookshelves filled the opposite wall, packed with a diverse assortment of volumes from aged linen spines to garish modern paperbacks. A scent that was both sweet and faintly smoky laced the air.
At the far end of the living room, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto a broad terrace with a view of the ocean beyond. There were doors in the walls on either side of the stretch of windows, both of them open. Peeking past one, I found a bathroom as big as my bedroom at home, with a huge jacuzzi tub as well as a glass shower stall and double sinks, everything mottled black-and-gray marble.
Across from the bathroom lay a bedroom with an immense bed I had to think was some size larger than a king surrounded by an ebony wardrobe, vanity, and small matching desk.
I halted in the doorway between the living area and the bedroom, my skin prickling. “This is where you live. Where am I supposed to sleep and everything?”
Rollick propped himself casually against the back of one of the armchairs and aimed one of his warm grins at me, as if we were friends having a companionable discussion. “You have free run of these rooms, including the terrace—it’s totally private. I don’t need to use any of the facilities here.”
Right, because shadowkind didn’t require sleep any more than they did food.
“If I feel the need to indulge other urges of mine, I can do so elsewhere,” he added, his grin widening. “If you’re not interested in enjoying those benefits of my attention too, that is.”
Did he mean—oh. My face flared, and I hugged myself instinctively. “Um, no, I think I’ll pass, thanks.” Sure, he was possibly the hottest guy I’d ever seen, but he was also a potentially murderous demon who’d been threatening to bash one of my actual monstrous lovers into oblivion earlier today. I did have standards.
I’d only just finished speaking when all three of my lovers wavered into being near the door. However they’d traveled here, it hadn’t taken them much longer than Rollick’s driving. Lance started toward me at once, his gaze intent on me and a smile flashing across his ferally gorgeous face, but Rollick held up his hand.
“Hold on,” he said. “We need to discuss what I’m going to do with the three of you.”
My spine stiffened. “You swore not to hurt them.”
The demon shot me a baleful glance. “I do remember that.” He patted his arm where the small sigil still showed faintly, pink against his tanned skin, and turned to the three shadowkind men. “Let’s be clear: I’m not happy with any of you over your little rebellion. But I suppose the worst you did was follow my orders too well when it came to protecting her. That and your long history of service are the only reasons I haven’t yet decided to eviscerate you.”
Torrent’s mouth tightened, and Crag appeared to suppress a wince, but the gargoyle spoke up anyway. “We’d like to continue protecting Quinn, if?—”
Rollick waved whatever else Crag would have said away. “Yes, yes, I’m sure you would. But I think you’re enraptured enough as it is. A little distance to clear your heads would do you some good.”
“We’re not just letting you take her—” Lance started to hiss.
Rollick snapped his fingers. “That’s not what I’m saying. You want to be useful to the mortal? Wonderful. Then our ends are aligned. I want to know everything you can find out about who the beings after her are and how we can foil their plans. And finding that out requires you be out there, not hanging all over her in here.”
Lance shifted on his feet, but he couldn’t seem to come up with a firm argument against the request. Rollick had played his cards well, I had to admit. I suspected that knowing they were working toward my long-term safety was the only thing that would have kept the three men from insisting on staying near me.
“It’s okay,” I said, even though my lungs constricted around the words. “I’ll be all right. I want to know how we can defeat those monsters too. That matters more than… just about anything.” As much as I was aching for the comfort of their arms around me.
My gaze slid to Rollick. “What about me? You wanted me for some reason. What am I supposed to be doing while I’m here?”
Rollick met my gaze with an unconcerned expression. “I haven’t made a definite decision yet. I don’t believe in committing to action without seeing what I’m working with.” His dark blue eyes skimmed down over my body, making me feel abruptly naked despite the three layers of clothing I had on.
I hugged myself tighter. “Can I get my phone back? And my computer—I need to give my parents some kind of story, and if I could keep up with my classwork—” Torrent had thought to take my school backpack with him from the car when he and Lance had dodged the attacking beasts, not wanting them to find any clues about my full identity, though Rollick had confiscated that item too.
The demon gave his head a slow shake. “I’ll bring up your other bag, but I’m holding on to your devices. No contact with the outside world. These rooms are your entire world for the time being.”
“I need the alarm on my phone to make sure I’m taking my pills on time.”
Rollick studied me for a moment and then reached into his pocket. He pulled out the phone and flicked open the small compartment at the base. “Fine. Then I’ll take out the SIM card so it’s basically just an alarm clock. You can forget about getting the WIFI password.”
Oh, come on. An automatic protest tumbled from my mouth. “But?—”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Do you really want to see what’ll happen to your family or your schoolmates if the fiends after you catch on to those connections?”
My voice died in my throat. No, I didn’t. We didn’t know how much the other shadowkind had figured out about who I was beyond the energy my heart gave off, but Rollick had managed to determine my full name and address. The more I interacted with anyone outside of the four men in front of me, the more likely I’d put everyone I cared about in danger.
I closed my eyes and girded myself, tamping down the niggling anxiety. I’d already given my parents a story that’d cover my absence for a week or two. If I fell a couple of weeks behind in my classes, I could make that up when I got back. The important thing was making sure I could go back eventually.
“Okay,” I said. “For now. Open to further negotiation later.”
Rollick chuckled softly, the sound sending a quiver over my skin that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Negotiation is one of my favorite pastimes. I look forward to your counter-offer.” He handed over the partly disabled phone and nodded to the room around us. “Make yourself at home. I have to inform my disgraced employees of their first missions.”
Then the four of them vanished, leaving me alone and adrift.