Chapter 15
At some point, a chill replaced the glorious warmth Gwen had huddled against all night.
Then the nightmares came.
And then…
Oh, gods, too much power poured through her. So much her body couldn’t contain it all without damage, and copper coated the back of her throat. The flood filled her to bursting. Every cell strained toward utter destruction, until—
The same scorched, corpse-strewn battlefield filled Gwen’s vision.
The same enormous, carelessly piled pyres of bodies sent plumes of roiling, greasy smoke toward the same fast-moving clouds, and the same stench of burned flesh choked the air.
The same secret meeting of the battle’s fae leader and his unlikely ally, a common human general, began.
She watched their discussion from a different spot, though. Much closer than before. No more than ten feet to their rear.
They mentioned their secret pact. They laughed at the weakness of their foes.
Still laughing, the general reared back and kicked the small, motionless body of a young werewolf. In careless malice. In utter disregard for the loss of some family’s child, for the snuffing of a sentient life, for an entire future that the blank-eyed werewolf pup would never experience now.
The human walked away, his uniform crisp, his stride jaunty.
And the fae leader, he—
He looked back at her. Then smiled slowly, his satisfied grin stretching grotesquely wide.
“Why, hello, darling. There you are.” He inclined his head, a courtly gesture of mocking politeness. “I’m on my way.”
His wings, the same tarnished-silver hue as his hair, snapped open, and he was gone.
The rush of power diminished slowly, moment by moment. Dimly, she grew aware of her physical body. Of her sobs of helpless grief and fear echoing in some unknown room.
Once she was back to full consciousness, she knew what was going to happen next.
By sheer chance, she managed to grab a discreet bedside trash can before her stomach entirely revolted.
Every time she thought she was finished and pushed herself upright, though, coppery warmth slipped down the back of her throat, choking her and causing her to heave once more.
And when she lurched forward again, hanging her head over her makeshift bucket, blood splattered all over Hugh’s pristine monogrammed sheets.
Miserable beyond words, she only sobbed harder at the sight.
Had the fae leader truly seen her? Or was her vision a simple portent of looming danger? A warning that her identity would become known if she didn’t exercise more caution?
But how was that possible when oracles couldn’t predict their own futures?
Once her stomach settled, she blearily raised her head from the trash can and forced herself to crawl out of bed, wash up, and change the sheets with trembling hands. It was still early when she finished, so she weakly pulled on a fresh set of pajamas and collapsed atop the mattress once more.
She lay there for a long time, wide-awake, doing her best not to think about her vision or its implications. Her extreme fatigue eventually overcame her fears, though, and she dropped back into blessedly dreamless and gloriously deep slumber.
Hours later, she abruptly woke again for reasons she couldn’t immediately pinpoint.
Then her nose twitched, and she coughed a little.
What was that smell? Hugh’s usual scent was a cozy campsite blaze, but this was…
She raised her head from the pillow and finally noticed the obvious.
Holy fuck, his apartment was on fire. Faint tendrils of smoke curled around the top edges of the guest room door and hovered near the coffered ceiling even though no alarms had sounded.
There was no way in hells Hugh would fail to ensure his smoke detectors functioned correctly. The fire couldn’t be an accident.
Still weak from her earlier vision, she rolled off the bed and landed hard on the floor, her legs collapsing beneath her.
Fine. Better air down there anyway. Her stomach roiling with renewed queasiness, she shuffled on her hands and knees toward the door, which was so far away.
For someone moving as slowly as she was, too far away.
But she kept doggedly crawling, every limb shaking, because no way those battlefield assholes were going to win, not if she had anything—
Footsteps. Loud. Rapid.
Oh, shit, that fae fucker had said he was on his way. She had no weapons. Nowhere to hide. No way to overpower him in her current state of helplessness.
The door burst open, slamming against the wall, and she jerked and gasped and began coughing helplessly in the sudden rush of smoke. It stung her eyes, obscuring the identity of whoever was rushing toward her, shouting something.
“No!” She thrust out her palms as he neared, as if that could possibly ward him off. “Leave me alone!”
The intruder halted mere inches from her huddled form. “Gwen?”
Haziq. That was Haziq, frantic and wide-eyed, staring down at her. Squatting and tugging at her with strong hands, doing his best to help her stand.
She staggered to her feet with his assistance, and his iron bar of an arm across her back helped support her and lead her out of the bedroom.
As they hobbled toward salvation, she spared one glance backward.
Through the thick, gathering smoke, the flames flaring and licking upward from Hugh’s living room couch at the far end of the apartment were barely visible.
But his home’s cozy temperature had turned to sauna-like heat, the stench of burning chemicals singed her nose, and the crackle of fire couldn’t be mistaken.
Together, she and Haziq stumbled out of the smoke-filled apartment.
As soon as they surged through the discreet door to the emergency stairs, her ears sort of…
popped. In a heartbeat, that ominous crackle disappeared beneath a near-deafening avalanche of sound.
Every other smoke alarm in the building seemed to be functioning just fine, if the earsplitting clamor served as any indication.
Hugh’s noise insulation must be excellent. Maybe too excellent.
No other apartment appeared to be ablaze either, from what she could tell on their halting journey down the stairs. But if the fire was allowed to spread much longer, who knew?
At long last, she and Haziq emerged into the crisp winter air, where sirens from approaching fire engines had finally begun wailing in the distance.
Hugh’s neighbors stood in shell-shocked clusters across the street, some of them complaining of the early-morning inconvenience, others calling insurance companies or family members on their cell phones.
A preschooler shrieked in the arms of her grim-faced father.
“Gods, I was…I was so scared.” Haziq gulped, his young face drawn in remembered horror, his solid arm shaking now that they were safe. “I didn’t—I didn’t know how bad it was, but everyone else was out, and the fire trucks hadn’t arrived yet. I knew you were still in there, and I couldn’t just…”
At a safe distance from the apartment, he helped ease Gwen down to the curb. She looked up at him, tried to gather sufficient words to thank him for saving her life, and burst into tears instead.
Before she even had time to become embarrassed at her utter lack of control, he sat down beside her. Took her in his arms again.
And as he held her carefully, respectfully, they cried together.
—
Fifteen minutes later, Haziq was giving his statement to someone in uniform.
The blaze seemed to have been extinguished, although it was hard to tell from the outside.
Firefighters continued swarming the building, their trucks parked directly in front of the structure.
More and more police vehicles, sirens set to full blast, arrived by the minute.
Human paramedics had separately checked Gwen and Haziq for smoke inhalation issues. The whispered revelation of her pregnancy had caused concern, but she’d eventually been given the go-ahead to skip the hospital. So had he.
Afterward, she’d answered various officials’ questions.
And then, with the heroic doorman’s help, she’d gladly moved away from the epicenter of the tumult.
The tiny little park across and down the road from Hugh’s apartment boasted a prettily carved wooden bench, and she slumped there numbly, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Waiting. For what, she didn’t know.
Hugh might still be in a do-not-disturb meeting with the SERC chair. Even if he had been disturbed—news of arson in a councilor’s apartment would surely spread fast—getting from SERC headquarters to here would take time.
She hadn’t escaped with her cell. It was no doubt waterlogged now, along with her tote, her identification, and everything else she’d packed only yesterday. Someone would probably lend her a phone to call Max or Sabby, but…
That would require getting up. Talking to someone.
She didn’t have the energy for that. Better to stare into space and be afraid.
Then Hugh’s little hybrid appeared at the end of the street, traveling at a speed not recommended for a residential zone.
Once he neared his building’s grounds, he didn’t scan his resident’s ID and wait for the complex’s wrought-iron gate to open, allowing him access to the parking lot.
Instead, he steered directly toward the cordoned-off area in front of the building, outside of which all the residents and rubberneckers had gathered.
The car jolted to a halt as close to the teeming crowds as possible, directly in front of a no-parking sign.
With vague interest, she watched him lurch out of his car and slam the door behind him.
His head whipped back and forth as he scanned the crowds. Once he spotted Haziq, he didn’t walk to the other male. He sprinted. Interrupting Haziq’s interview-in-progress, he said something to both the official and the doorman, and Haziq pointed toward the park. Toward her.