Eavan stood and stepped closer to the window.
In the crowd below, Daniel waited. Cuddled into his arms was a very malleable young woman. Daniel kept her upright. He kissed her forehead and then looked up at Eavan and mouthed, “I’ll let her go if”—he stopped a group of women, gave the girl over to their care, and then looked back up at Eavan—“you come see me soon, Eve.”
Cillian came to stand beside her; he peered into the crowd below. “Are you looking for someone? A dealer? Brennan again? If your family is trying to protect you because you’re mixed up in something…”
She walked away from the window. Daniel was gone. It wasn’t a trap, but a negotiation. What do I do now? She couldn’t chase after him; the idea of seeing him in this state was sheer foolishness. She couldn’t take Cillian, either…or leave him behind. Rage started to build inside her. She was a glaistig, not some child to be toyed with and broken. Daniel had no clue who he was taunting.
Eavan watched the mortals of the dance floor. It looked so normal. That’s the sort of life she’d used to dream of having; it was the life she thought she could have one day. Nyx had seemed to be giving her a little more freedom. Everything seemed to be going well—until Nyx hired Cillian. Until Daniel.
She’s been watching me the whole time.
There was no normal, only degrees of beautiful lies.
Eavan knew the answer, but she asked all the same: “Did my cousin hire you because of Daniel?”
Cillian didn’t reply or flinch, but his silence was answer enough for her.
Eavan held down “1” on her mobile and said, “Grandmother.”
Nyx didn’t bother with greetings at this hour. “Are you injured?”
“No.” Eavan watched Cillian as she spoke. “How long have you known?”
“Long enough to see that you were too far gone,” Nyx said. “I don’t like Brennan. Not for you or for anyone. Especially not as your first.”
“You know what he’s doing?” Eavan asked, still watching Cillian.
“Of course I do.” Nyx sighed. “That’s not your business though, Evvie. Brennan is trouble. The powder he uses…it’s really not good for our kind. It works on some of us, too.”
Eavan looked away then. She’d been a fool to think she could hide anything from her matriarch, and in that instant, she had to wonder if she truly could do anything beyond Nyx’s control. “This doesn’t change the other thing. I’m done with Daniel because I’m not able to—”
“Ask your Cillian what his real job is,” Nyx interrupted.
Eavan looked up and caught Cillian’s gaze. “What do you do for real?”
“I’m your bodyguard.”
On the other end of the phone, Nyx made a rude sound. “Tell him to tell you the rest.”
“Nyx wants me to know,” she told him. “She said…”
Cillian held out his hand for the phone. Silently, she released it.
He held it up to his ear, listened for a moment, and then scowled and hung up. Quietly, he said, “Let’s take a walk.”
9
Cillian wasn’t sure what he hated more, the fact that he had to tell Eavan that he was with the C.D.A. or the fact that he seemed to have picked up a second supervisor. He wanted to tell Nyx to piss off, but his superiors would be anything but pleased if he lost his “anonymous” source so soon—plus that whole threat business of Nyx’s echoed in his mind.
Eavan was silent by his side as they walked down the street toward a tiny park that was reasonably well-lit. He stopped at a small cluster of unoccupied benches. It was late enough that they had a bit of privacy.
“I’m here investigating him,” Cillian told her. “Your cousin offered me a wealth of information on his activities, among other things, in exchange for protecting you.”
Eavan laughed, a bitter sound that made him want to comfort her. She sat down beside him. “Threats, sex, or money?”
He didn’t pretend to be shocked. “Not sex.”
“With her at least.”
“With any of them,” Cillian corrected.
Eavan was silent for a moment. “She hired you in the hopes that I’d sleep with you. It’s an obsession of hers.”
“Excuse me?” He angled his body so he was facing her. Of all the things he’d been prepared to hear, that wasn’t anywhere on the list. “She hired me because she knew you were spending time with Brennan, and he’s bad news.”
“He is.” Eavan took a breath. “But Nyx could’ve simply broken a few of my bones if all she wanted was to keep me away from Daniel.”
“She could’ve”—Cillian lowered his voice as a small group of people walked by—“broken your bones. You say that like it’s an everyday event.”
“Not these days, but…” Eavan shrugged. “Nyx is in charge. I’m guessing you already know on some level how terrible she is, else we wouldn’t be having this conversation. She picked you for reasons that aren’t about guarding me from Daniel. She picked you for me to have sex with.”
“Does she pick a lot of people for you to sleep with?” He tried to keep his voice even, but the idea that his family had been threatened, his life endangered, his career toyed with, and his peace of mind completely upended over sex was infuriating. It isn’t Eavan’s fault, he reminded himself. She’d been adamant that she did not want him around.
Eavan blushed. “No, you’re supposed to be the first.”
“Well that’s something, at—” He stopped mid-sarcasm. “The first first…like…”
“Yes.” She looked about as comfortable as he felt. “The very first. My virginity is a matter of family irritation.”
“Your family is concerned over your being a virgin.” He said the words slowly. “So you were dating a drug dealer and your cousin hired me to have sex with you? Is that what earlier was…Never mind.”
“No, earlier was about my wanting you. It was a mistake. A pleasurable one but a mistake nonetheless…and I wasn’t dating Daniel.” Eavan smiled regretfully. “I know it all seems a bit odd.”
“You think?”
They sat there for a moment while Cillian tried to figure out what to say. On the phone, Nyx had been very clear in her orders to be “completely honest” with Eavan and then report to the house to speak with her. Screw it. He was already so far out of his comfort zone that he wasn’t sure he’d be seeing level ground again. “Can I ask you what you are?”
“What I am?” she repeated.
“I’ve met your family…and now this. You’re not quite like most humans, right?”
“I can see where you’d get that. I’m human, mostly,” she hedged. “I’d like to stay that way, too.”
“Explain?”
“There are a couple things I can’t do if I am to stay human.” She squirmed, and a blush burned up her cheeks. “My grandmother Nyx would like me to do those things. She’s not particularly pleased with my intention to live and die as a human.”
“And if you do these things, you become something else? Something Other?”
She nodded.
“So Nyx hired me to…” He whistled and shook his head. “And Brennan? He’s what?”
“Daniel is a human. One that my family doesn’t like.”
“So…” He paused and shook his head, trying to make sense of the things she was sharing. He thought he was taking it remarkably well, all things considered. “I’m trying to understand. Help me out here?”
Eavan stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “Nyx wanted my first to be someone I’d remember fondly. She’d prefer I sleep with you than with Daniel, and she, undoubtedly, thinks I’d be in danger if I continued…stalking him. He’s making some zombie powder that he’s using to enslave and sell girls. I was just going to try to scare him, rescue some of the girls, but I got caught up. And Nyx thinks that whatever he’s doing with the zombie powder is dangerous to our kind.”