Chapter 21
Layla dreamed of Elise again. Even when she woke up, she still felt her fingers, soft as ever, on her face, and her voice whispering a sweet goodbye into her ear.
She wore an outfit that took to the night.
Swathed in black garments, she looked more like one of Layla’s clan mates than the elite Saint heiress Layla had known her entire life.
Still, Elise was a picture of true beauty without even trying.
She had pulled her curls back into a golden hair clip, though a few tendrils hung by her sharp cheekbones and stuck in the gentle shine of her plump lips.
It was a large turnaround from her usual dreams of the Saint heiress, where blood drenched her dying body like a veil.
For once, Layla could touch her without causing her demise and hold her without having to say goodbye.
The dream elevated her mood more than she cared to admit; the months of sleeping with only nightmares had been so long, Layla had forgotten what it felt like to dream peacefully.
She was eager to join the commotion in the living room early that morning if it meant she got to see Elise alive and well in the flesh. But when Layla left her bedroom and found only Jamie and Sterling arguing over guns, all earlier contentment was chased away with a quickness.
“Where is Elise?” she demanded, cutting right through their heated tiff.
Jamie pulled back first, though he maintained his scowl at Sterling. “She left to…complete a task.”
Layla’s heart rate picked up. Already, her mind filled with all the terrible things that could have been happening to Elise in that moment.
If last night’s announcement on the radio about them all being wanted by the police was not enough to fear, then images of the beast that lurked beneath Harlem’s streets, waiting for a glimpse of darkness to strike, popped into her head next.
“Why did no one tell me she was leaving?”
Sterling shoved a gun into his chest holster, grumbling, “I wasn’t aware you owned her.”
Rage consumed her. Snarling, Layla lunged for him, her hands going around his throat.
Without his Saint guns and his Saint bullets, he might as well have been just another man taking up space under this roof.
Layla had nothing preventing her from shutting him up permanently now, even if it cost her all the work she had done over the past few months to keep herself calm.
Right as her fingers closed around his throat, Jamie’s arms plucked her from the air and hauled her back against his chest.
“Enough. Both of you. We’re supposed to be working together. Now is not the time for petty fights,” Jamie ordered.
Layla strained in his arms hard enough to make him pant with the effort of keeping her contained. Somehow he managed to maintain his hold on her, and he didn’t let her go until she went still, silently promising her commitment to his word.
The former Saint member lifted a brow. “She’s planning a blood mission, just so you know. If she’s willing to die for you, you should know how to stop her. I have never seen such an unbalanced relationship otherwise. She deserves so much better than you.”
Jamie ran his fingers through his hair, restyling the pieces that had been knocked free by Layla’s struggle.
“Are you serious? I just calmed her down and you’re going to say that?
” He turned a gentler look to Layla, who had begun to vibrate with anger.
“She said goodbye to you this morning. So maybe if you really—”
She was out of the living room and back in her bedroom before he could even finish his sentence.
Layla leaned over the bed, remembering just where she had seen Elise in her dream.
She should have known her unconscious state had been too good to be true.
It took all of three seconds for Layla to trace Elise’s scent and then find Karine’s mixed in with it.
The older reaper’s essence was faint, but it was there.
And that was enough for Layla to tear out of the room with the intention of starting a hunt.
“How dare you not tell me she had seen Karine. You don’t know how dangerous she is,” Layla seethed as she shoved her feet into her boots and failed miserably at every attempt to curb the thoughts of Elise walking into a reaper bloodbath just to prove herself to some mutinous ancient reaper who had been in their neighborhood for no longer than a few months.
Layla gripped the edge of the kitchen counter so hard, her nails left divots in the granite.
Her heart thudded in her chest at the image of Elise covered in her own blood and choking on death.
She watched as Jamie and Sterling exchanged a look.
The fact they held a knowledge of Elise that she was not privy to sent a sharp spike of jealousy through her spine.
Whether it was the blood they shared between them or just Layla’s twisted desires causing this charge of emotions, she didn’t care.
Her brows furrowed into a dangerous glare while her fangs emerged, digging into her lower lip until blood spilled over her chin in thin rivulets.
Jamie looked over Sterling’s shoulder, and his eyes widened. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Sterling frowned, stopping abruptly when he saw Layla.
He relaxed, his shoulders lowering as he placed another gun on his belt.
“It’s a strange possessive reaction some reapers have after drinking from a human.
Although usually it’s the human who experiences the urge to lay claim over the reaper.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she tore through Harlem just to find Elise. ”
She would. Layla knew just how volatile human blood made her, and Elise’s absence only increased her adrenaline.
What she would give to be near the Saint heiress now—what she would kill to keep her around.
“We can save a lot of lives if you just tell me where she is,” Layla muttered.
She licked the blood from her lips and waited.
Sterling offered her a soft gaze full of pity. “I will not betray her on this,” he murmured. “For once you get to taste the sins of your own flesh.”
Though Elise had been gone from the apartment for a while, Layla still suffered the overwhelming sense of her.
Beyond just her scent and her essence, Layla felt like she could still feel Elise in her—as if the blood between them had become something more tangible than just spilled promises and acts of vengeance.
Her heart throbbed the farther Elise went from her, and all her thoughts came back to the Saint, no matter how hard she tried to direct them elsewhere.
Even as Jamie passed her by, Layla grabbed his arm, roughly holding him in place. He grunted and gave her a bewildered look. “What the hell?”
Layla looked up at him with as much malice as possible, urging every ounce of glowing anger she had into her eyes. “If she has a single hair out of place when I find her, it’s death for you.” She shot her glare at Sterling. “You too.”
Jamie pulled away from her the moment she released her grip. He brushed off his coat and rolled his eyes, blowing out hot air. “I’ll be damned. And I’d rather die than have a Saint get hurt on my watch. I know my boundaries. Have a little faith in her, Layla. She might surprise you.”
But with a Saint’s blood still cycling through her system and an Elise-shaped hole in her sinking chest, Layla knew faith would not keep her calm. Her crushing desire would end in no less blood than the Saint’s lone mission would. This hunt was Layla’s and Layla’s alone. Consequences be damned.
***
Layla had never been good at tracking those she did not care for. The act came easiest to her when there was a blood she desired to recognize and trace, but this time, she was going purely based on her own rage and urge to hunt and kill.
Karine knew many people and reapers in Harlem.
It was no surprise to Layla when one of her blood patrons mentioned the various allies Karine had been through in an attempt to settle in Harlem.
The absolute pride with which her patrons spoke of Karine with while reeking of her made Layla’s stomach turn.
Along with the slight sheen of their eyes and the dreamlike state they seemed to function in that told Layla Karine’s venom still ran through their veins.
She followed the faint scent she had grown to associate with Karine through the apartment building her blood patron had mentioned just hours earlier at a blood house.
The moment she stepped in front of the door that held the most of her essence, it swung open, revealing the older reaper inside a dimly lit sitting room.
“I’ve been expecting you, Layla.” Karine gestured for her to come inside, and as soon as Layla crossed the threshold, she shut the door.
Layla didn’t even take in the apartment and all its luxurious grandeur before she whirled on Karine. “What have you done to Elise?”
Karine raised her brows. “You figured it out. Your proximity to that Saint girl is impressive. You would recognize her and any part of her without a face, wouldn’t you?”
Frustration locked Layla’s jaw. She swallowed past the prickling urge to let her fangs snap out and tear into Karine’s flesh. “Where is she?”
“You don’t get to know.” A cool curiosity darkened Karine’s face.
She made her way to the bar cart off to the side of the room and began pouring herself a cocktail made of clear liquid.
Even with the strong scent of alcohol filling Layla’s senses, she still sensed the familiarity of the blood traces around the apartment and on Karine.
While a large part of her remained starved and yearned for the taste of fresh blood more than almost anything, an even larger part of her stood in an anger so steep, her hands trembled and a red haze crept slowly over her vision.
Karine continued as if she didn’t notice Layla’s seething state. She lifted her glass, before stopping halfway to her lips. “I’m also quite impressed by your Saint girl. She came right to me and made a deal almost instantly. She seems more willing to get her hands dirty.”
Something inside Layla snapped. She lunged for her.
The hunger ravaging her system made it impossible to control her anger, but Layla relished in it anyway.
A blood fury was quickly taking over, and all she could do was let it happen.
Layla threw herself into Karine so hard, the glass went flying out of her hand and shattered on the wall.
The scent of liquor coated the room, but Layla’s senses honed in on the blood dripping from a new wound in Karine’s face.
She dug her nails into the older reaper’s shoulders and slammed her into the wall again.
The force of her back hitting it sent cracks into the paint and the foundation.
Blood spilled from the piercing of Layla’s nails in Karine’s shoulders.
She lifted a hand to Karine’s face, slapping it so hard, blood flew from her mouth.
On the second strike, Karine caught her hand and wrenched it back until Layla felt the bone pop.
Layla shrieked as pain flooded her senses.
Red still covered her eyes, but black dots seeped over the rage the more her hand flopped on her injured wrist. Blood filled her mouth, and it was then she realized that her fangs had sprung free and were digging into her lower lip.
This time her own blood had no calming effects on her rage.
Layla yanked Karine away from the wall and delivered a crushing blow to her knee, sending her to the floor.
While the older reaper hissed in pain and struggled to rise again, Layla crouched over her, pressing her knee into her chest. She spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the floor and reached for the Saint blade in her belt with her uninjured hand.
Karine’s glowing gaze flashed vicious and angry as Layla lifted the knife above her head, poised to strike. She grabbed the swollen mess of Layla’s wrist, squeezing until she screamed.
Layla’s vision went black with pain. Her body pitched to the side, and Karine hovered over her.
It wasn’t until the adrenaline subsided along with the worst of the pain that her vision blinked back to life.
Glass crunched beneath her back, and Layla coughed, swallowing blood as she looked up at Karine.
A lifetime’s worth of rage simmered in the ancient reaper’s golden eyes.
With her blood-tipped fangs bared and her mouth wide in a vicious hiss, Karine overpowered Layla on a bed of shattered glass.
“You’re too late, Layla. I told Julius your girl is the one who killed Sena.
She’s on her way right now to interrupt his business at the Renny under my request. Poor girl thinks she stands a chance against him. ”
Layla was too weak to fully take in Karine’s words. The short revelation she had let slip had the power to spark a wildfire among her clan mates and get Elise killed.
He knows.
Julius knows Elise killed Valeriya.
The look in Karine’s eyes told Layla there would be nothing less than hell to pay for her friend’s murder.