Chapter 16
Susie
I wanted to linger in the kiss we shared, hold onto Raoul’s lapels, and find shelter in his arms. He’d let me, because that’s who he was, and protecting me was, I now knew, incredibly important to him.
Considering where we were, I knew I had to do the sensible thing.
Logan might still convince his buddies to rally and come back, though Raoul seemed certain they wouldn’t.
I let go of his jacket, and that was enough of a signal for him to lift his head. Immediately, the silence struck me. Not the peaceful kind, but the heavy, ringing quiet that comes after violence. The air itself was holding its breath, waiting to see if it was truly over.
Raoul took my hand and led me back around the corner of the building to where it had started, where the car had dropped us off.
The warehouse lot stretched around us in cracked concrete and rusting metal, but it was not the same place as it had been before.
There were dents in steel doors that hadn’t been there, and a forklift lay tipped on its side like a discarded toy.
Dark streaks, some oil, some definitely not, cut jagged paths across the ground.
Impossibly high up on the building, a bank of dirty windows had been shattered around a decidedly human-sized central point.
Oh fuck, this place looked like a warzone. I recalled the crowd converging on us out of nowhere. I’d been so focused on Logan’s sudden appearance that I hadn’t let that sink in, but I remembered now.
Almost a dozen: big, muscular, grim-faced.
I was pretty sure at least one of them had been part of the group that had cornered me in the alley near the hotel.
My eyes flicked over the mayhem left behind in the lot—broken branches on the miserable row of bushes nearby, dents in the asphalt that covered the parking lot.
Something had dragged across the dark surface and raked massive furrows through it.
I dragged my gaze away and looked at Raoul.
His suit was immaculate; not so much as a tear or a speck of dirt.
Not even a wrinkle that hadn’t been there before.
He stood in the middle of the destruction like it had politely arranged itself around him, one hand adjusting his cufflinks as if we’d just stepped out of a café instead of a supernatural brawl.
I stared. “You...” I gestured vaguely at the carnage, at the broken world and the very unbroken vampire. “You just... what, handled that?”
His mouth curved, faintly amused, like I’d commented on the weather. “They were enthusiastic,” he said. “But unrefined.” I gazed around again, noting that there were no bodies, so at least everyone had walked away, or been dragged away.
“Unrefined,” I echoed, a little hysterical. “Raoul, one of them had claws the size of kitchen knives.” I pointed at the furrows in the ground, vaguely recalling a massive bear bursting from the crowd.
“Yes,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Rather gauche.” I huffed out a breath that was half laugh, half disbelief.
My heart was still racing, my pulse a wild, frantic thing under my skin.
He’d fought nearly a dozen creatures—things that did not belong in any sane version of reality—and he had walked through them like it was nothing.
He’d done it in the span of a handful of minutes, while I’d been occupied with Logan the douche dragging me off and demanding his rock back.
The enormity of what had happened, and how incredibly different my world was now, crashed into me. This wasn’t just strange or exciting or surreal anymore. This was dangerous and potentially deadly, and I was standing right in the middle of it.
My gaze snapped back to Raoul, to the calm in his eyes, the impossible steadiness of him, and something inside me tipped, fast, reckless, inevitable.
“I love you,” I blurted. How could I not love him when he’d always been honest with me, and always had my best interests at heart?
He’d protected me so many times, and he asked absolutely nothing in return. Nothing I wasn’t willing to give.
The words hit the air between us like a dropped glass, sharp, sudden, impossible to take back. I froze in shock. That was… that was not what I had planned to say. His expression stilled.
For a heartbeat—one fragile, suspended moment—I thought I’d broken something. That I’d misread everything, and rushed headfirst into something far too big.
He moved so fast, crossing the scant few feet between us in a blur.
Then he was in front of me, his hands framing my face, his touch cool and steady and utterly grounding.
“Say it again,” he murmured, his eyes intense as they glowed golden, casting light that danced across his handsome face like magic.
My breath hitched. “I…” But I didn’t get the chance.
He pulled me against him, one arm sweeping around my waist, the other tangling in my hair as he kissed me.
It was centuries of restraint snapping all at once.
I melted into him without a second thought, my hands clutching his jacket, my mind blissfully blank for once.
The world narrowed down to him, his mouth, his touch, the way he held me like I was something precious and irreplaceable.
“I have loved you,” he said against my lips, his voice low and fierce, “for a span of time that defies reason. For moments I did not yet understand, for dreams I could not name.” His forehead rested against mine, dark eyes burning.
“And now that I do… I find myself utterly unwilling to exist without you.”
My heart did something ridiculous and swoopy. “Good,” I whispered, because apparently that was the level of eloquence I was bringing to this life-altering moment. “Because that would be really inconvenient for me.” His laugh was soft, warm, and it wrapped around me like sunlight.
“Charming,” a voice drawled from somewhere unseen, “but perhaps ill-timed.” I jerked, twisting in Raoul’s arms. The air shifted.
It was subtle at first, a shimmer, like heat over asphalt.
Then it deepened, thickened, until the space at the far edge of the lot seemed wrong.
Distorted. As if something stood there that reality hadn’t quite agreed to acknowledge.
Raoul went utterly still. In his arms, it felt like he’d turned to stone, not breathing, not even the thump of a heartbeat to sense. “Louis?” he called out. He sounded confused, but that was rapidly followed by absolute certainty. “Merde… it is you, isn’t it?”
The shimmer rippled and fell away. Magic, and I couldn’t believe I was starting to consider that kind of thing normal.
A man stood where the mirage had been moments ago.
Possibly the most normal-looking man I’d ever seen.
He wore jeans, a simple shirt with the sleeves rolled casually to the elbows.
He looked like someone you’d pass on the street without a second glance.
His most distinguishing features were the streaks of silver at his temples and the sharp, knowing intelligence in his eyes.
He grinned. “I can never hide from you, can I?”
He approached where we stood slowly, like he was just out for a stroll, and I stared, then glanced at Raoul, who’d recognized this guy.
“Wait!” I pointed at Mr. T-shirt, my hand trembling from the surprise.
“You’re Louis? The Louis? The one who...
” I gestured at Raoul. “Put him in vampire hibernation and was supposed to be there when he woke up, but wasn’t because you were dead? ”
Louis inclined his head, a smile dancing around his mouth and his razor-sharp eyes twinkling. “Oui,” he said like it was nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t heard the slight accusation in my tone, or maybe he was just ignoring it.
“I made a promise,” he added, glancing at Raoul.
“I would have been there.” His gaze flicked to me, amusement softening it.
“But he woke early. Thanks to you.” Raoul exhaled slowly, tension easing from his shoulders.
I wasn’t as ready to relax, this was the sorcerer we were supposed to meet, wasn’t it?
And now he was Louis the necromancer too?
“Bonne, that is what I assumed had happened,” Raoul said, and just like that, they seemed to trust one another. Louis gestured for us to follow and led us out of the warehouse lot at a casual stroll. My vampire kept his arm around me, holding me protectively close as we followed.
The house should not have been there. One moment we were in the same bleak industrial wasteland—rust, concrete, abandonment—and the next, we weren’t. Or rather, we were, but also not.
The building Louis led us to was tucked away on a small plot between a massive warehouse and some kind of small factory.
A thick, plant-choked fence surrounded it, and signs warning people to keep out dotted it, along with strange symbols and scrawls that screamed magic. Once through that fence, though…
A lush garden, a verdant lawn, a driveway with several cars, and, of course, the house itself.
Elegant, warm, with ivy curling along the pale limestone, windows glowing with soft light.
It was the most magical place I’d ever visited, purely because of how improbable it was to even be there.
We’d driven right past and never seen it; Thibault’s supposed sorcerer hiding in plain sight.
Inside, it was even stranger, because it was so unlike what I’d been expecting.
It was not dark or ominous or dripping with occult weirdness.
It was a home just like any other. Bookshelves, worn armchairs, the faint scent of tea and something sweet.
Louis led us to a sitting room and then fetched a tray of refreshments.
I sat there, hands wrapped around a delicate porcelain cup, trying to reconcile “necromancer” with “cozy domestic host.”