Three Days to Dead

Chapter 8

May 11th

The empty boathouse reeks of tepid seawater and day-old fish—sure signs that multiple goblins only recently vacated the premises, since neither fish nor boat have seen its cobwebbed interior in at least a decade. It’s a smell I know, specific to goblins, and as always, it makes my stomach churn.

Ash steps out from behind a pile of moldy sails, her flashlight cutting patterns in the dust and grime. “So much for our hot tip,” she says.

“You need better sources,” I reply.

“I haven’t heard your troll offer up anything lately.”

I shrug, in no mood to play Who Has the Better Snitch? The goblins are no longer here, but this stretch of the Black River docks is notorious for drawing the after-dark crowd. Something worse may be along soon, and we’re one man down. Jesse split an hour ago to swing by Wyatt’s apartment. Our Handler has been out of contact all damned day—not normal behavior for him. Not at all.

Jesse should have reported—

Ash’s cell phone chirps. She fishes it out of her pocket and checks the screen. “It’s Jesse.”

Think of the devil and he calls.

She frowns, then types in a text message. Something chimes back. She puts the phone away. “He needs us at the Corcoran train bridge ASAP.”

“Did he say why?”

Her almond eyes crinkle with concern. “The message said he’d found Wyatt.”

My stomach bottoms out. I’m sprinting for the car, beating back fear with a mental stick. We’re nearly a mile away on the wrong side of the river, and the drive over is interminable. Ash is quiet, stoic, so composed next to my constant fidgeting. The Korean American yin to my Barbie-girl yang. I’m grateful for her centeredness; it means I don’t have to drive.

It occurs to me to call Jesse and demand to know exactly what he’s found, only I don’t really want to know. Triads survive the death of a Hunter; few survive intact and effective after the loss of a Handler. Wyatt is our glue. He has to be fine.

The train bridge is a black smudge against the navy night sky, a wrought-iron overpass that towers above two intersecting alleys and half a dozen abandoned construction sites. Corcoran Place is a known Dreg neighborhood—a trashy section of downtown with no actual stops along the train route. No one goes there on purpose. Except us.

Jesse is leaning against one of the iron pylons as we approach. He stands straight and jogs over to meet our car. Ash parks in the quiet alley, and I am tumbling out before the engine is off.

“Where is he?” I demand, circling to the front of the car.

“Where’s who?” Jesse asks, thick eyebrows knotting quizzically. He looks over my head as Ash’s car door slams shut. “What’s going on? You paged me half an hour ago to meet here. Did you stop for kimchi on the way?”

Ash snorts. “Bite me, taco boy.”

I reach up and ball my fist around the front of his shirt. “Where the fuck’s Wyatt?”

“Hell if I know,” he says. “He wasn’t home.”

Ash appears by my side and gently unhooks my hand from Jesse’s shirt. “Then why’d you text that you’d found him?” she asks.

Jesse blinks. “I didn’t text you.”

The knot in my stomach pulls tighter. “You didn’t ask us to come here?” I dread his reply.

“I thought you paged me.”

“Shit.”

As if my angry curse is their cue, a swarm of Halfies descend from the shadows—from beneath abandoned cars, between pylons, seemingly out of thin air. One leaps onto the hood of the car. I count thirteen, all moving with trained ease, as a fighting unit. Not something I associate with wild packs of half-Bloods.

Three against thirteen—bad odds.

We create a triangle, backs to one another as the Halfies close in their circle. My gun is holstered around my ankle, along with my two favorite hunting knives. A dog whistle is on a cord around my neck, hidden beneath my T-shirt.

My knot of fear loosens. Adrenaline surges. Good or bad odds aside, this is what we live for. They won’t get us without one hell of a fight.

Only they aren’t attacking.

This just won’t do. “Hey, Jesse,” I say loudly, “know what’s uglier than a dead half-Blood?”

He grunts. “What’s that?”

I look right at the spike-haired Halfie on the car hood. “A live one.”

It launches at me. Without the superior speed and agility of a full-Blood, the attack is awkwardly managed, but it signals the others to converge. I drop to one knee, pull my gun, and blast an anticoag round right into Spike’s throat. Blood sprays my arms and face, heavy, and stinking of old coins. I surge to my feet, replacing gun with knives, and seek another victim.

Ash spins between a clot of Halfies, taking down two with precision kicks to the temple. The self-proclaimed love child of an international jujitsu champion, she makes martial arts look easy. I envy that. My own moves are powerful, but always feel forced, unbalanced.

Jesse, on the other hand, swings his double-blade ax through the onslaught like a lumberjack.

My feet are swept out from under me, and I hit the pavement hard on my back. A Halfie is on top of me, hands clawing at my neck. It rips the corded dog whistle away. I swing a blade at its throat, but it leaps away, whistle in hand, before I can connect. I’m back on my feet and in the fray before one of the others can take advantage of my prone position.

The Halfies’ numbers are quickly cut in two, but they are infuriating me with their collective attacks on my partners. Again and again, I pull them off or kick them away.

What? I’m not worth the effort of trying to kill?

A Halfie with dyed blue hair knocks Ash to the ground and straddles her stomach. I drop a knife, grab my gun, and blow the blue head out sideways. Someone stumbles into me. I lose my balance and roll, coming back up on my knees to the sound of Jesse’s surprised shout.

Barely tall enough to hold him, a Halfie has Jesse’s right arm twisted up behind his back and the other across Jesse’s chest. My heart nearly stops when fangs sink deeply into Jesse’s neck. I meet my friend’s shocked gaze, coffee brown eyes wide with shock, narrow mouth puckered into an O, blood draining from his face. And his neck, as the Halfie feeds.

Like a mosquito bite, the bite of a Blood requires an exchange of numbing saliva. Those not lucky enough to be drained to death become infected and eventually turn into the rogue half-Bloods that wreak havoc on the fragile peace between the races.

“No!”

I’m uncertain if it’s me or Ash screaming, only that we are both moving. She reaches him as the feeding Halfie lets go, her blade immediately burying between its eyes. Jesse hits his knees, eyes glazing over. A Halfie sporting a letterman’s jacket reaches for Ash; I tackle the beast, snapping its neck on our third tumble across the pavement.

I turn back. Ash is on her knees in front of Jesse, trying to look at the wound. Babbling that we can help, tears in her voice. I try to stand, and the world slows down.

A flash of silver in Jesse’s hand matches a new gleam in his eyes. Ash looks for me over her shoulder. I shriek at her, incomprehensible. Jesse buries a switchblade in Ash’s throat. Blood gurgles from her mouth and dribbles down her chin. Eyes that can simultaneously laugh and hate stare at me in shock, and then the life in them dies.

As Ash dies.

I’m cold. I can’t scream. It’s all wrong. This hasn’t just happened. It’s impossible.

The four remaining Halfies seem to melt back into the shadows, leaving me with my partners. One dead, one infected, both of them lost to me.

Jesse stands, his eyes glinting in the orange light cast by street lamps. Soon his hair will turn mottled white and his fangs will grow in. He’s one of them now, one of the things I hunt and destroy. He looks at me, then at the body by his feet. Back up to me, and I see something I do not expect: confusion.

“I think I did a bad thing,” he says. “But her blood smelled so sweet, Evy. It still does.”

A high-pitched whimper rips from my throat. Trembling from head to toe, I take two steps forward, closer to him and the place where I dropped my gun.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You smell sweet. So sweet and pure.”

If he smells purity in me, he needs to get his nose checked. This monster in front of me isn’t my Jesse. It isn’t the man I’d once confessed my worst sins to over a bottle of tequila, a bowl of lemons, and a shaker of salt. It only looks like him. In my head, I scream for Wyatt to guide me. I know what must be done; I just don’t know if I can do it.

Jesse advances, licking his lips. I retreat. I have one knife, clutched so tight in my left hand that my knuckles scream.

“You know what I’m going to enjoy?” he asks, no longer advancing.

I eye the gun, on the ground just behind him. Five feet from me. “What’s that?”

“The look on Truman’s face when we knock on his door.”

“What makes you think I’m going to go anywhere with you?”

He grins and it’s terrible. He runs the tip of his tongue over the small points on his developing canines. “Because all it takes is one little bite.”

“Try it,” I growl.

He charges. I drop, tuck, and roll. On my knees and gun in hand, I spin, aim, and fire. He hasn’t managed to turn. My shot hits him squarely in the back, through his heart. He falls, head cracking off the pavement, and is still.

I crouch in the street, body trembling so hard I bite my tongue and draw blood. How am I ever going to explain this? Will Wyatt forgive me for what I’ve done? Will I ever forgive myself?

Do I want to?

I have no answers. I cannot think. I need help. I don’t want to leave him, but my phone is broken. I feel the pieces shifting in my pocket. I can’t bring myself to search the two bodies nearby. Bodies I can’t bear to look at, much less touch.

Numb, exhausted, and bordering on hysterical, I jog off and leave my family behind. The Triads will help. They have to.

Two days later, I welcome death. I will place a welcome mat for it, if such a thing is possible. I have paid a high price for my own selfish nature, and will never stop paying—not until I am allowed final rest.

I crouch in a dark alley, listening to the screech of fire engine sirens. The hulking vehicles tear down the street toward the blazing apartment building, red lights flashing, announcing their presence to the sleeping neighborhood. They will arrive too late.

Danika is dead. The Owlkins are obliterated, massacred by people I once considered friends. Murdered in their homes, punished for their silence, for their loyalty and unflinching desire to protect me—not even one of their own. I ran to them for protection after my own people betrayed me. Their deaths are my fault, and I know I will burn for it.

But not until my betrayers join me in Hell.

My route takes me deeper into the alley, to the service street that runs behind the buildings. I stay close to the shadows, ignoring the stench of rotting garbage. The air is heavy, already hot for May, and presses down like a blanket. Something hisses, but it isn’t a stray cat. It is something else, telling me to keep my distance. I do.

Keeping low, faster now. Two blocks farther and I break into a dead run. Pushed by fear and guilt, I draw energy from a tapped well, and surge forward. At the end of the block, I dash across a busy intersection. A car horn honks. Leaping over a low stone wall with unfailing grace, I hit and roll and run. On through a dark park, its rusty merry-go-round tilted and broken. Swings dangle from fractured chains. The slide is warped, the monkey bars covered in grime.

A trio of gremlins, no taller than my leg, scatter as I pass. I ignore them, unconcerned with their business tonight. The Dregs get a free pass, and I have no time to enjoy their confusion. Tonight, I have no beef with the non humans of the world. My enemy is the Metro Police Department. In one day, I have gone from their star Hunter to a wanted fugitive accused of murder.

They never gave me a chance to explain how my partners died.

At the far end of the overgrown park, I jump another stone fence. I land in a puddle, spraying tepid water over my shoes and black jeans. So much for not leaving tracks. I briefly consider disposing of the soaked sneakers, but I can’t run around the city barefoot.

Once again on a residential sidewalk within eyesight of dozens of apartment windows, I reduce my speed to a fast walk. It’s a good chance to catch my breath, to consider my options. I could just keep running and never look back, get out of this damned city and away from the Dregs. Find a place somewhere else, without the sharply delineated lines. No Triads. No Handlers. Just ordinary people.

But I can’t do that. Leaving means no justice for the Owlkins. It means no justice for Jesse and Ash, no justice for myself. And what of Wyatt? I haven’t seen him in two days. With two of his Hunters dead and a third on the run, what happens to him? Will the brass have him neutralized?

“My first loyalty is to you three,” Wyatt told us once. “It always will be.”

At the end of this block, I dart into a pay phone booth. I dig into my pocket for change. A few coins are all that I possess now, and I drop most of them into the slot. I dial a number as familiar as my own birth date and wait. A computerized buzzer ticks off the rings on his end of the line.

“Be there. Come on, Wyatt. Answer your phone.”

The line clicks, and a familiar voice asks, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

Silence.

“Don’t come here, Evy,” he says. “The brass knows what you did. I can’t help you.”

The words hurt. My teeth dig into my lower lip to drown out that pain with another. “They killed the Owlkins. Do you hear me, Wyatt? They slaughtered an innocent Clan.”

“It’s a dead end, Evy, I can’t help you. You have to go down this road by yourself, I’m sorry.” Click goes the line.

I drop the phone back into its cradle, hope daring to peek through the cloud of fear wrapped around my heart. If I am right, it’s a code. Dead Man’s Street—the dirt road that runs down by the Black River and the railroad tracks. He is telling me to meet him there; he has to be.

Believing it because I have no choice, I turn and head south. Without transportation, the trip will take at least an hour. I can’t risk the main city streets. Spies are everywhere, and they sell their information cheap. I stick to the shadows, drum up my courage, and run.

I crouch beneath an abandoned boxcar. It smells of human waste and rotting wood. The odors of oil and smoke join it, tinged with engine grease. The tracks around me are silent. Nothing disturbs the quiet of the moonlit train yard, save the occasional car that drives across the Wharton Street Bridge above, casting intermittent beams of light. I have been waiting for close to an hour, timed only by the ringing of a church bell on the other side of the river.

He isn’t going to show. I’ve fooled myself into thinking I still had one ally. My hands tremble, rocked by fear, inevitability, hatred. The tracks look like a nice place to throw myself the next time a train passes this way.

Gravel crunches. I peer out from the shadows of the boxcar. The sound draws closer, light steps trying to disguise themselves and failing. A figure emerges a hundred feet away, coming around the corner of a loading platform. He stops, waits. My heart soars, relief punching me in the stomach. Wyatt gazes around the train yard, moonlight glinting off his black hair. It accents the ever-present shadow on his face that no razor seems to touch.

I don’t move. Not even relief overpowers my ingrained sense of survival. I am a Hunter. I won’t move until I’m sure of my surroundings. It can still be a trap.

Wyatt steps farther into the yard and begins to unbutton his shirt. I stare. He shrugs out of the shirt, holds it at arm’s length, and turns in a slow circle. Exposed. Unwired. Asking me to trust him. I let out a breath. He puts the shirt back on, looking everywhere at once. Taking it all in.

Satisfied, I crawl out of my hiding place. He spots me and gapes. I realize I must be a mess, with blood on my clothes and in my hair, ash and soot adding gray to the red. He takes a step forward; stops. I wave him over. He comes.

I climb up into the boxcar, preferring its grimy, cobwebbed interior to crouching beneath it. Wyatt appears in the doorway, backlit by moonlight. I offer a hand and pull him up. His hand is so warm; I don’t want to let go. He surprises me by tugging me into a tight hug. My arms come up around his waist.

“I’m so glad you understood me,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Stupid question. “I’m pretty fucking far from okay, Wyatt. The Triads, the people I worked with for four years, won’t listen to me anymore. Why won’t they let me explain what happened?”

He disentangles himself, holds me at arm’s length. Black eyes seem to see right through me. “You know they won’t, Evy. They don’t give second chances. You’ve been marked as a threat. They won’t stop sending Triads after you until you’re dead.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I pull out of his arms and withdraw to the shadows of the boxcar. Dark and rot press in on me. “I’ve thought about turning myself in. Hell, I even thought about a spectacular leap off the bridge up there, because it seems easier than this. I don’t have anyone.”

“You’ve got me.”

The statement of singular fact unnerves me. I don’t deserve his loyalty, even though every fiber of my being craves it. Craves knowing I’m not alone in this battle. “If the Council finds out you’re helping me, they’ll kill you, too.”

“They can try, but they won’t.”

That certainty does nothing to settle my nerves. “You don’t know that, Wyatt.”

“Yes, I do.” He steps forward, hints of light casting odd, angular shadows on his expressive face. Faith and concern war there, and his eyes sparkle with life. Wonder fills his smile. “Elder Tovin told me so. We get a happy ending, Evangeline Stone.”

“Elder Tovin?” A tremor steals down from my scalp to my toes. Among the oldest and wisest of the non humans in the city, Tovin is rumored to be an elf prince banished Upside by his people for choosing a bride outside of his race. He’s also rumored to live in a mushroom, eat cats for breakfast, and fly during full moons. No human I’ve met prior to Wyatt has ever seen him, or any other elf. Neither Fey nor Dreg, elves have six-hundred-year life spans. Tovin has supposedly spent the last four centuries among humans.

“That’s where I was that night, Evy. He asked me to come see him. Said he had important information for me. When Tovin summons, you go.”

That night. The night I killed Jesse. The one night, out of all other nights, I truly needed Wyatt’s wisdom, and he’d spent it conferring with an elf. I had wondered, needed to know, and now I did. My fists ball, nails digging into palms.

“Happy ending?” I snarl. “He saw a happy ending, but he didn’t see how much I needed you by my side? Maybe everything wouldn’t be so fucked up right now if you’d been there.”

He flinches, but stays fast. “This is the path, Evy.”

“Don’t give me that destiny bullshit. You know I don’t buy it.”

“And you know I do, so one of us is going to look pretty stupid when this is over.”

“I think one of us already does, because if this is what destiny had in mind, you can tell her to eat me. People like us don’t get happy endings.”

Anger flickers across his face. “They do, if they work hard enough. We can fix this. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

“The Department won’t hear me out, and you know it.”

Getting the hell out of Dodge seems like the only viable solution. There is nothing to be fixed, only endured. It won’t be long before the brass starts itching for results and reports me to the regular police. Once that happens, when both the public and private faces of law enforcement are after me, it’s over. I’ll have nowhere left to turn.

The one thing I still don’t understand is the timing. How in hell did the brass have a Neutralize order on me within minutes of my leaving the scene of my supposed crime? Not hours, minutes.

“Who reported it?” I ask.

“Reported what?”

“Who reported what happened at Corcoran? Who told the brass it was murder and set me up?”

“I don’t know, Evy. Communication with the brass is one-way, remember?”

Right. Three unknown and unnamed officers in the high ranks of the Metro Police Department, who sit on their fucking Mount Olympus with representatives from the Fey Council breathing down their necks as they pull our strings. With a snap of their collective fingers, and on someone else’s word, they ordered nine other Triads to turn on one of their own. Because the brass knew they would. Handlers are well trained to follow orders. To respond to imperatives from the brass like Pavlov’s dogs to that damned bell.

Thank God Wyatt is finally deaf to its tune.

“One-way, right,” I say. “So I guess that makes pleading my case an example of words falling on deaf ears?”

“They might listen if you bring them something they can use. Something valuable.”

“Like what? The head of a gorgon?”

“I was thinking something a little less mythical, and a bit more tangible. Information.”

He is ignoring every single sarcastic retort, stuck on some imaginary idea of forgiveness and a fairy tale ending. I’m doomed, and he knows it. Still, a small part of me wants to believe him. To believe that there is a chance I can come out of this with my skin intact.

“What sort of information?”

“Tovin told me something else, the reason he summoned me, but we shouldn’t talk about it here,” Wyatt says. “You never know who’s listening. I have a hotel room not far from here. It’s under a protective barrier, so no one will find us. We’ll talk about it there.”

It can still be a trap. At least here, in this dirty boxcar, we are on familiar territory. I’ve hunted and killed here. I know all of the hiding places. But I trust Wyatt, because nothing he’s said sounds like a lie. He’s smart and skillful, but he’s never been good at lying to me.

“Fine, let’s go,” I say.

We don’t speak during the ten-minute walk to the West Inn, a two-story motel with bad parking lot lights and dirty windows. It’s quiet, private; the sort of place we need. It’s nestled just on the edge of Mercy’s Lot, surrounded by strip malls and consignment shops.

We reach the motel in the middle of the night. Foot traffic is nonexistent, but I still pause before crossing the street. No cars, no signs of life, just gentle quiet, practically unheard of in a city our size. Wyatt crosses first, palming his room key. He has a room on the very end, closest to the street and farthest from the office. I eye all possible exit points and escape routes—one front window, a path across the parking lot or to the sidewalk, no direct access to the second level or roof—before following.

I expect attack at any moment and am relieved to reach the door safely. My skin tingles as I cross the threshold and pass through the protection barrier. He closes the door, turns the lock.

The room is small, barely large enough to accommodate a pair of full beds. A plastic table and chairs are pushed to the front corner, nearest the single window. Hideous striped drapes are drawn shut, blocking out roving eyes and neon streetlights. Rumpled clothes lay in a pile by the bathroom door. Toiletries cover the vanity area.

“You’ve been here awhile,” I say.

“A few days. Even before I talked to Tovin, I was worried. Worried that something was going down. I wasn’t sure who to trust. I didn’t want to be anywhere I could be found.”

Not even by me. I spy an electric water kettle on the room’s cheap bureau, and next to it a box of instant cocoa packets. A smile steals across my lips before I can stop it. I want to be angry with him, but all I am now is tired. And smelly. Coated in sweat and ash and blood.

As if reading my mind, he says, “There are fresh towels in the bathroom, Evy. Go clean up and then we’ll talk.”

I want to argue, to get the inevitable taunts and blame-tossing out of the way first. Instead, I brush past him, eyes on the bathroom door. I can do a better job of ripping him a new asshole when I don’t feel quite so much like death on a cracker.

An hour later, I sprawl on one of the beds in a borrowed T-shirt, and feel more or less human again. More or less, because I never have felt completely human.

Hunters are recruited for many reasons. Most often, it’s because we’re smart, strong, and we like violence. It’s also a better alternative to jail. The recruiters see potential for strength, cunning, and obedience. We are generally orphans, usually unwanted, and always unmissed, taught to think only about the next kill. To follow one leader and trust in groups of three—our Triad.

They had hit the mother lode with me: orphaned at the age of ten, and in foster care until my arrest at the tender age of fourteen. I celebrated my eighteenth birthday with a breaking-and-entering bust that brought me to the attention of the Metro Police. I led them on a merry chase through Mercy’s Lot while resisting arrest, and accepted a one-way ticket to Boot Camp in lieu of jail time. Anything was better than jail.

At least, I used to think so.

Jesse and Ash had lost their senior teammate a week before I was assigned to Wyatt. They took to me faster than he did. He said at least once a week that I didn’t have what it took to be a Hunter. Times have changed.

Wyatt hands me a steaming porcelain mug. I inhale the rich scent of the cocoa, soothed by the gentle aroma of chocolate. The hot mug burns my fingertips, but it is a welcome pain. I sip. It scorches down my throat and warms my belly.

He sits on the edge of the bed, intent on me. “Tell me about it, Evy.”

“About what?” I ask, playing obtuse. Buying time to summon the words. He is silent, not playing along this time. I clutch the mug in both hands. My skin heats.

So I do. When I get to the part about Jesse’s death, Wyatt slides up the bed until he can touch my arm. I don’t draw away. I find a tiny measure of comfort in his touch, his warmth. He brushes my tears away with his hand. He offers what I needed two nights ago—unconditional love. Acceptance of tragedy and the promise of hope. I put the mug down on the room’s single nightstand and surge into his arms, burying my face in his shoulder. He holds me, hands stroking my back, his voice soft and murmuring empty words.

“They didn’t tell me,” he says. “The brass said nothing about Jesse being turned, just shot in the back.”

“What about the Halfies?” I ask, lifting my head. “Their bodies wouldn’t have had time to decompose.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “None were found, just Jesse and Ash. Someone set you up, Evy. Someone who wanted all three of you dead.”

I rest my head on his chest, drawing strength from him. His arms tighten around my waist. His heart, thudding so close to my ear, speeds up. He shifts. I remember his words from an hour ago: a happy ending for us. What sort of happy ending had Tovin seen? I love Wyatt, as much as any person possibly can, but not in a romantic way. I never had those feelings for him, and I don’t have them now.

I close my eyes, but all I see is the fight that killed my partners. My friends. I see how fiercely they pile onto Jesse during those first moments. I see Ash, black hair a blur as she becomes the warrior I have always longed to be. The fight is so well coordinated, unexpectedly so for Halfies. They move in packs and fight dirty. This is more planned, more focused—just not on me.

My eyes snap open. I must be remembering it wrong. But as I replay the battle from first blow to last, I keep reaching the same conclusion. After my initial taunt, none of them made a move on me. And the remaining Halfies scattered when Ash fell, and I was the last human standing.

Fucking impossible.

No, I am just tired and way beyond stressed. That line of thinking screams “inside job,” and I’m just not going there. Not until I can think straight again. “I don’t understand, Wyatt,” I whisper. “Do the Triads—?”

“Right now, I don’t trust the Triads. Or the Council, for that matter. There’s no way to know if one of them is in on this yet. But we could get them to listen to you.”

“You mentioned that before. About information?”

He releases me, and I miss his embrace. I feel cold without it. He paces to the other side of the room, hands balling into fists. I can almost see imaginary wheels turning in his head. “Tovin has been hearing rumors for a few days now, mostly through informants and the gossip train, about a possible alliance developing between the goblin Queens and one of the Blood Families. And now I’ve started hearing them, too.”

My heart hammers. A chill worms down my spine, stirring up the sudden urge to vomit. “That’s not possible. Goblins and Bloods hate each other.”

“Normally, they do, but they hate humans and the Fey even more. An alliance like that would be a disaster to us and the Fey Council, and to everything we’ve managed to build over the last decade. It would force the other races to take sides, and not all of them would side with us.”

“How reliable is your intel?”

“No one jokes about something like that, Evy. If they’re hearing it, it’s happening. The question now becomes when, and why? If we can get a bead on those things, find something to give the Council that can prepare them for the possibility of a species war, it could go a long way toward getting the brass to listen to your side of the story. Right now, we’re under orders to shoot you on sight.”

I shudder. “Guess I’m lucky you found me first.”

“I’ll protect you, Evy.” He returns to the bed, sits down in front of me. “I promised I would, and I will. We’ll figure this all out together.”

His hands cup my cheeks and force me to look into eyes that seem to see right through me, right into my heart and soul. So protective and loving. I crave those things. If only they can be enough to make me believe in his promised happy ending.

His breath is sweet, like chocolate, and warm on my face. I feel every callus on his fingertips, every rough patch of skin on his palms. His thumb gently strokes across my cheek—a featherlight touch. The world is more vivid, if only for a moment.

Wyatt’s mouth captures mine, and the world goes away. I have nothing to lose, and he has everything to gain. He wants this. I don’t know if I do or not, but I submit. Instinct takes over. I reach for him.

Hands caress flesh. Clothing falls away, replaced by touches and kisses. I taste his sweat; he tastes mine. Our bodies are one—stroking, taking, needing. Time is nothing. The world means nothing. We take pleasure in each other, finding elusive comfort in this sudden intimacy.

It is over too soon. He holds me close, my back to his chest, still breathing hard against my neck. My body trembles, as much from the pleasure he has given me as from the fear of facing tomorrow. Everything has changed. There is no going back.

“I love you, Evy,” Wyatt whispers.

I do not reply.