15 #2
“Please, Blair. I don’t have much time. Come with me, please.”
She clenches her teeth, turning her head away. “Right, because he isn’t patient. Never was,” she says to herself, referring to Caryan. Then she shakes her head. “I can’t. I can’t go back.”
“What would you rather do? Drink and stagger from bed to bed every night, Blair?”
Riven. I didn’t hear him come back. Didn’t hear the door. I glower at him, but his eyes are fixed on her.
“You should be glad he’ll accept you back, Blair. You should be glad Melody is asking you. That she cares enough, while you don’t care about her in the least.”
He approaches, wrinkling his nose as he regards the pizza and our sorry home. I shake my head at him, signaling him to shut up. He ignores me. Blair stares at him, more hateful than I’ve ever seen her.
Then she whirls on me. “You shouldn’t have talked to Caryan. You put him on our scent and now there’s no going back.”
“She would have died, Blair!” Riven’s tone changes, and it freezes every fiber in my body—he is that furious. A cold, lethal kind of fury. Even worse than he’d been with Beeatrisa. I wonder if he could summon his magic here; the motel room would burn with dark flames.
“For fifty years, I watched you sulking and playing your little games against your aunt. For fifty years, I waited for you to help our cause, yet you decided to stay that irresponsible, spoiled brat. And even now, you just see yourself.”
I have no words for what I spot in Blair’s aura. The pot she grabbed as soon as he reappeared falls from her hand, hitting the ground with a clink . Then she shoves Riven in the chest and runs for the door—impossibly fast with her fae speed. The door flies open and she’s gone.
I grab the keys and run after her to our car. But Riven appears in front of me like a wall and I almost run face-first into him. “Where are you going?”
“That was unnecessary and cruel. Why? Why did you have to do that? I would have convinced her if you’d waited a little longer, but you needed to saunter in and poke the bear, right? I’d have convinced her but now you’ve ruined it!”
His eyes shine, and suddenly I know. He doesn’t want her to come, never did—that’s why. I take a step back from him when I hear Aris behind him, feel him close.
“Let me pass. I’ll get her back.”
“You are not following her,” Riven growls, fangs bared, making no move. “Caryan wants you in Avandal now . We can’t make him wait much longer.”
“I’m so fucking following her. And if you want me to come back to the fae world, you better help me find her and convince her to come with me.”
My eyes widen as he lifts his arm. I bare my teeth, willing as much fury as I have into my voice. “Do not. Do not fucking touch me.”
Aris lets out a warning growl, and I know he would fight for me—if Riven tried to grab me and hurl me over his shoulder to bring me back to the fae world without my permission.
Since Riven—however deadly in the fae world—can’t summon his magic here, I think it would at least make them even, because Aris—however cute and cuddly he looks—can still be a force of nature.
Riven’s eyes go to the demon behind me, and whatever he sees in Aris’s eyes, he seems to come to the same conclusion .
“Good,” I pant, taking his silence as agreement, my heart already beating too fast from exhaustion and weakness. “Let’s find her.” I step around him and open the car, then climb into the driver’s seat, Aris jumping into his usual spot in the passenger seat.
“Can you track her?” I ask him.
“I can try. She’s not too far yet,” he answers. “Her scent is still fresh.”
I look at Riven through the open window. “You can either climb into the back seat or follow us.”
“Go. I’ll catch up with you,” is all he says before he shoots away in a blur of black armor and pale skin with his high fae speed. I pull out of the parking lot and accelerate down the street, driving back to the city until Aris finally declares, “Here,”
I kill the engine in front of a club, tucked into a shady corner of a district whose name I don’t know. It’s underground, the walls vibrating with a heavy beat, shaking the bricks of the building. A few drunk people stand outside, waiting for a cab or vaping.
“Wait here, okay?” I say.
Aris grumbles his response, but there’s no way I can bring him in there with me. I open the door and stride toward the two bouncers guarding the entrance. The massive guys look me up and down, clearly deciding my outfit is in no way fitting for a dance club.
“She’s with me,” Riven says, suddenly materializing next to me.
The bouncer’s beady eyes, embedded in a fleshy head, slide to Riven, who holds out a wad of money.
He looks so immaculate, it’s as if he knew we were going to a club.
How did he change so fast? When I look closer, I spot the glamour he must have cast to change his appearance—one that hides his pointed ears and turns his armor into a club-ready outfit.
He’s still so beautiful that everyone turns and stares at him, and a few women try to catch his eye.
A dark part of me wants to growl at them and tell them he’s mine. But he isn’t.
“Sure. Have fun,” the bouncer drawls, pocketing the money.
Riven gently takes my elbow and steers me inside.
He’s either used to being checked out or he simply doesn’t care.
Either way, as we descend the stairs and dive into a throng of dressed-up people, I’m too tired to be embarrassed.
Too tired to care that I’m still in my black pants, loose shirt and leather jacket, while everyone here is dressed in glitter and heels.
I probably look like a drug addict. Even more heads turn to look at him, then at me, and I can see them trying to make sense of him being with someone who looks like me.
“You go left, I go right,” I tell him, because hells, I can’t stand being this close to him and bear more of the leering looks his appearance earns. No—enough torture for tonight. I expect him to disagree, but he just nods and we split.
I venture into the crowd of beautiful people who laugh and dance, searching for Blair’s moonlight hair among them.
The beat is so strong it confuses my heartbeat, the too-loud music and flickering lights playing my fae senses.
I reach a bar, where young boys do shots lined up in a row, knocking them back like water.
Still no Blair.
I look up and stop dead, my heartbeat staggering, the blood in my veins turning to ice.
On the other end of the bar stands Caryan.