Bred in the Bone #3
She didn’t want to allow herself to have a feeling about Julian kissing another girl, because Julian kissing another girl was unfathomable. It could not be fathomed because it could not be true.
Julian wouldn’t cheat on her. He wouldn’t lie to her, either, not even about a small thing like where he was going.
She trusted him. When they had been parabatai, she had trusted him with her life.
Afterward, she had trusted him with her heart and her soul.
He had never let her down. If anything, she was sometimes frightened by his willingness to put himself in danger to protect her.
But Julian does lie. That small, annoying voice was back.
And yes, she wanted to tell it, Jules was clever, a plotter, someone who could be ruthless.
But not with her, not with his family. He had his own code of honor, and he would never break it.
That belief was the bedrock of Emma’s faith in the world, in herself, in other people.
And besides, cheating was so petty. Petty and small. Julian didn’t lie about petty, small, despicable things. When he created deceptions, they were big, meant to win wars or protect his family.
But Diana was perceptive. If she said she’d seen Julian kissing a girl, then that was what she’d seen. That didn’t mean there wasn’t some explanation, but all the explanations made Emma nervous: a faerie potion, a spell, a demon’s influence.
She went over and over the last few days in her mind, trying to remember if Julian had been distant, if he’d been hiding things, been scared or troubled.
But Julian could act like he had nothing to hide even when he was hiding an earth-shattering secret.
Those beautiful blue-green eyes she loved could turn to opaque sea glass in a moment, hiding everything he felt. Even from Emma.
She hung tight to Diana’s waist as the horse took a precipitous dive toward Sunset Boulevard—a long, winding strip that crossed most of Los Angeles, cutting from the beach to the inner city.
This area, not far from most of the movie studios that formed the heart of the entertainment industry, was mostly bars and famous nightclubs where big musical acts played: the Whisky a Go Go, the Roxy, the Viper Room.
Not that Emma could have identified any of the bands: It was impossible not to know some things about mundane culture when you were surrounded by it, but the granular aspects escaped her.
They pulled up short just in time, and landed with an unexpectedly gentle thump in a parking lot next to a huge square building from which loud dance music pumped. A long line of mundanes snaked out the front door and down the street.
Gwyn landed beside them. “Will you require our assistance, young Emma?” he said, as Emma hopped down from Diana’s horse and stretched.
“I don’t think you should go in by yourself,” said Diana, but Emma shook her head.
“Sorry, Diana. I think it’s better if I do.”
Diana fussed, but Gwyn was unexpectedly on her side. “It is Emma’s matter of the heart, Diana, not ours. But we will wait for you, Emma. It is after all my calling to gather the bodies from the battlefields, and—” He gave Emma an appraising look. “I sense a storm brewing.”
“I’m not going to kill Julian,” Emma said crossly, then paused. “I might have to kill someone else, though. Maybe several someone elses. It depends what’s going on.”
It took a little reassurance, but Gwyn and Diana finally agreed to take off and let Emma deal with the situation inside alone. Diana, anxious, urged Emma to text her, “whatever ends up happening.”
You think we’re going to break up, that’s what you think is happening, Emma thought, but she kept a blank look plastered on her face and nodded, promising Diana she would definitely text.
She had the feeling this was the sort of situation where having powerful faeries thunder in might only make things worse.
Emma watched them sail away into the sky, and felt—despite the brave face she’d put on—very alone.
Alone in a crowd of mundanes. All of them in ridiculously short skirts, high heels, shiny suits.
Emma suspected that if she wasn’t glamoured, they’d probably be more taken aback by her boring T-shirt and jeans than by her deadly ancestral sword.
Emma reached back and touched Cortana, just to reassure herself it was there. It was an old habit, something she did without thinking when she was scared.
That was when Emma registered the name on the nightclub, outlined in swooping pink neon: psychopomp.
She didn’t throw up at the sight of it, but she wanted to. She stopped dead for a moment, even as the line of mundanes waiting to get into Psychopomp surged around her like a river. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.
She’d been here before, sort of. The same club existed in Thule.
In Thule, this block of Sunset was infested with demons and Endarkened, lit only by the bloodred moon.
But here it was, the same low building with the same name: Psychopomp.
Home base, in Thule, to a Sebastian who had managed to take over the world and turn it into a smoldering, demon-haunted ruin that he ruled from the velvet-covered VIP section of this very nightclub.
It made no sense. She and Julian stayed away from anywhere in LA that reminded them of Thule.
It was too much, thinking about what they’d seen in that other place—and what had happened to the Thule versions of the people they loved.
And about that other Livvy, who lived on in Thule, who fought on—as far as they knew.
News didn’t travel back and forth between worlds.
Why would Julian come here, of all places? Emma’s panic notched up. What if he was somehow trying to get back to Thule, or to find out what was going on there? She remembered what he’d said on the roof, about his dreams—nightmares, really—that Livvy in Thule needed him, needed his help…
She had to get to Jules.
—
She pushed her way past the crowd, some of whom turned and blinked, confused at having been shoved by an invisible force. Emma didn’t care—let them wonder. She slid past the bouncer at the door and dashed inside.
The Psychopomp of Thule had been decked out to look like a serial killer’s paradise.
Dead bodies suspended in ice under the floor, chandeliers made of human hands.
This Psychopomp was utterly different. Lots of neon, lots of hot pink.
Gigantic inflatable unicorns suspended over the dance floor, a pool-sized ball pit with a writhing mass of giggling clubbers at its center.
If Emma recalled correctly, the same pit in Thule had been full of demons. It was a definite mindfuck.
She could understand how Diana and Gwyn had ended up here. There was a certain Faerie aesthetic at work, and the dancers, whirling on the lit-up floor with their eyes closed, bodies swaying blindly to the music, resembled faerie revelers—
And among them was Julian.
She recognized him from across the dance floor, even though she couldn’t see his face.
She couldn’t see his face because he was leaning close to the blond girl he was dancing with.
If you could call it dancing—they were at the center of the crowd, pressed together, their bodies moving in time.
The girl was wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie, which stood out in contrast to the glittery bubblegum-pink decor that surrounded her.
It was all so wrong, Emma could barely register what she was seeing.
That can’t be Julian. But when he raised his hand to run his fingers through the girl’s pale hair, the bracelet around his wrist glinted in the neon light—the sea-glass bracelet that Emma had given him—and all Emma’s doubts evaporated.
She was barely aware of shoving her way across the dance floor, weaving in between the close-packed bodies.
Julian wasn’t glamoured, obviously—Emma saw some of the mundanes shoot appreciative glances in his direction.
She didn’t blame them. He was gorgeous, the T-shirt under his gear jacket hugging his muscular torso, his dark-chocolate hair half in his eyes, and even though he said he couldn’t dance, he could definitely move.
Years of training your body did that; he seemed to almost ripple against the girl he was dancing with, their bodies swaying together in a way that would have been hot if it didn’t make Emma want to throw up.
It felt like forever, but it was probably only a few seconds and Emma was there, right next to them, Julian and the blond girl. They were oblivious, foreheads nearly touching, as though they were murmuring secrets to each other.
“JULIAN,” Emma said loudly, and they both started, turning toward her. “What the hell—”
Julian jerked in shock, turning toward Emma, his face going pale. The blond girl whipped her head around, her lips parting in astonishment.
Emma gasped.
She was looking at the face she saw in the mirror every day.
Herself, down to the tiny freckle next to her right eyebrow.
Utter shock blanked her mind—for only a second, but a second was all it took.
The Other Emma moved like lightning, spinning away from Jules, her hand out.
There was a blinding crack and pain shot through Emma; the force of the blow sent her sprawling.
“Emma! Emma!” Jules was on his knees, leaning over her, his blue-green eyes wide with panic. Above him, the bright lights hanging over the dance floor seemed to sway and blur. “Emma, sweetheart—”
Emma could taste blood in her mouth; her ears were ringing. She grabbed hold of Julian’s wrist, hissing, “Jules, quick, help me up.”