It had to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I knew the Auphe wanted him, almost more than they wanted me—because of me. Walking away from him based on a feeling, an ability I barely knew existed—“tough as shit” didn’t begin to describe it.
And for him to let me go? He almost couldn’t do it. Literally. He’d spent his life making sure I kept mine, and to not be there to watch my back now? I didn’t think he could take that first step away. He didn’t think so either. This wasn’t a fight with a mummy or a battle with a werewolf. This was the big time—the real monsters. Our monsters.
Walk away? Now?
I saw it in his eyes. Impossible conflict. My big brother, who’d guarded me since my first breath, and he couldn’t do it. Not even if it meant saving us all. He believed in me—he did—but when belief runs up against a lifetime of habit, belief can be kissing the canvas in a heartbeat. Just that one step . . .
I took it because I knew he couldn’t.
“Tell the son of a bitch Samuel hey for me.” I grinned before turning and merging into the crowd on the sidewalk. If it was the last look he ever had of me, I wanted it to be of the same cocky, cynical, stubborn bastard I’d always been. That thanks to him, I’d lived long enough to be. When I finally gave in and glanced back, he was gone.
It was the right thing to do, but I’d never felt more alone in my life. Your brother watched your back and you watched his.
Always.
God.
But he was safe. I believed it. I believed it because I had to.
“Safe.” In the library Delilah leaned down to whisper by my ear. “Safe is overrated. Safe is not fun.”
I let my thoughts shift from Nik to the image of a very nude, very limber werewolf, then gave myself a metaphorical smack back to reality. Not that doing it in the stacks with Delilah wouldn’t have been entertaining, not to mention some stress relief, but I didn’t have the time. And not really the concentration. Knowing the Auphe could appear on the top of a shelf any second and snatch me away while I was going at it was enough to take the lust out of anybody’s thrust.
“Safe is all I’ve got right now, if I want to stay above ground and kicking.” I ignored the warm press of her upper leg against my arm. And I didn’t sweat. No court in the land could make me swear otherwise. “I need a favor.”
She sighed, bored. She didn’t pout. Wolves don’t pout. They may get indigestion from eating you if you annoy them, but they don’t pout. “Favor? What favor?” she demanded with a careless yawn.
It was an easy enough one for her, just information, though for what she charged you’d think it was much harder. Before I left she did kiss me with a punishing nip of teeth and the soothing silk of tongue. It had me wanting to rethink safe, but I couldn’t. I’d been heading for this moment my whole life. Whether I lived or died, it ended now.
I left the library, hoping Delilah was smart and patient enough to stay behind as long as she’d said, because I had one of them on me now . . . watching. It had just moved into range. Of course, I wasn’t sure what that range was, so it wasn’t too helpful to me. I assumed within eyesight. I didn’t look around. We had one small advantage in this, and I didn’t want to give it away. My phone rang while I was clambering down the bottom of the stairs. I answered to hear Niko say brusquely, “You alive?”
“It’s cute how you worry.” I grinned, equally relieved to know he was in the same shape himself. “How’d it go with Samuel? Did they go for it?”
“They did. More importantly, they have the equipment upstate, although they also said officially it didn’t exist.” For some reason that seemed to amuse him, but he didn’t say why. “They flew it down from Fort Drum. I met them and was instructed on it. What’s the address Delilah gave you? I’ll call it to Samuel.”
I gave it to him. Flew it down from the army base. Damn, the Vigil did have some unbelievably serious influence. “You haven’t seen any of them following you, have you?”
“No, I’m clean as far as I can tell. You were right. They are homed in on you. Do you have any?”
“One.”
“One.” Nik didn’t say it like it was good news. To him it wasn’t. One could as easily call in the other seventeen, and he wouldn’t be there. That was the bottom line. He wouldn’t be there.
“Just one. Broad daylight. Thousands of people.” All separately might not have stopped them, but the combination could pull it off.
He exhaled, sounding calm and matter-of-fact, and absolutely not fooling me one damn bit about any of it. “Samuel said they can be ready starting tonight.”
“Be nice if one time was all it took.” The sky was as pure blue as yesterday when we’d come tumbling out of it. “Everyone else crawled in a hole and pulled it in after them?”
“Yes, although Promise and Robin aren’t too happy about it.” Promise and Cherish had gone to New Jersey. If Oshossi’s animals could sniff them out in that smell, more power to them. Robin had gone wherever Robin went. Someplace where condoms were stored by the crate and clothing was not only optional but highly frowned upon.
It made facing the Auphe a shade less terrifying.
“It was you and me in the beginning, Nik,” I said. “You and me in the end.” It was the way it was supposed to be. Meant to be. Fate coming full circle.
“If this time in the beginning you could come already potty trained, it would be a big plus,” he said dryly before disconnecting.
I snorted and slid the phone into my jacket pocket as the second watcher joined the first. Five minutes later, there was a third. They had to be curious. Annoyed. Ticked the hell off. Where were the rest of us?
“Yeah, you keep watching,” I muttered. I’d been right when I’d talked to Nik on the beach days and days ago. If I’d ran while the others hid—even if they’d had to do it all their lives—they would’ve been safe. Although Niko was like the Auphe. They might have genetic GPS, but in a way, so did he. There was no guarantee who would’ve found me first.
I ducked my head against the cold wind and started walking. It was going to be a long day of dragging these bitches from place to meaningless place. And the night? I didn’t want to think about the night. That’s when it could go wrong in all the worst ways.
I had hours to kill before that, though, and there was one thing I’d always meant to do. If I was going to go out, good hand or not, and chances were much better than ever that I was, I wasn’t going out with that on my body. That was a black and red tattoo I had on my bicep. I’d been possessed once—yeah, yeah, old news—and my pilot during the whole ordeal thought it would be an absolute blast to get MOM surrounded by a heart on my arm. To say I’d considered peeling the skin off with my combat knife didn’t really give the flavor of how much I hated it. Had hated her.
I wasn’t going to die with that on me. I found the nearest tattoo parlor, waited my turn before sitting, taking off my jacket, rolling up my sleeve, and saying, “Cover it up.”
The guy—big, fat, and with a curly beard—blinked, bored. “With what?” Whether I didn’t love my mommy or not anymore wasn’t his concern.
“With damn Big Bird for all I care. Just cover it up.”
It wasn’t that easy. It’s never that easy. A whole slew of them came over to discuss the situation. A tattoo was a reflection of your inner self, your true blah, blah, blah. You couldn’t just slap anything on there. Well, obviously I had, as no one had fought me about the whole mom issue. Apparently moms got more respect than Big Bird. One guy had actually suggested that it would be easy to blend the tattoo I had now into a dragon, as if that wouldn’t get me laughed out of the bar. Assuming Ishiah ever let me back in after Cambriel’s death.
A dragon. Christ. While piles of flaming lizard crap from the sky were deadly enough if you weren’t careful, it certainly wasn’t worth bragging about to have survived. I could never wear a short-sleeved shirt again.