Page 18 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)
Rua Alva was a quiet street with well-kept buildings divided into flats, each with flowerbeds in front, though they were withered now from the chilly nights.
The address he sought had an archway with a locked wooden gate.
Peering through the slats, he glimpsed an interior courtyard with potted trees and a small fountain.
Gavriel rattled the gate. “Good day!” he shouted. No answer came. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “I suppose we must wait until someone comes along. Or return another time?—”
Rowan’s bootheel struck the gate. It flew open with a splintering crack.
“You do realize this is criminal trespass,” he said with a scowl.
“But it was broken when we arrived.” She looked up at him, guileless.
Gavriel disapproved of her cavalier attitude toward the laws she was sworn to uphold. But the gate stood open and he was eager to learn what Gia Andrade might know about Casolaba’s death.
“I shall do the talking,” he said sternly.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and found number five. Before he could stop her, Rowan banged hard on the door. Silence stretched, then footsteps.
Gia Andrade was in her middle years with thick, curling black hair and a generous figure. She wore a belted dressing gown embroidered with silver birds at the hem. Heavy kohl smudged her eyes.
“Did the landlord send you?” she asked in a flustered tone. “I told him I’d have the rent next week . . .” The words faded as she noticed Rowan’s smoky eyes. “Go away,” she snapped. “I have nothing to say!”
“Just a few questions,” Gavriel said quickly. “It won’t take long.”
A naked, bearded man with a hairy belly appeared behind her. He tried to slam the door, but Rowan’s boot slid into the crack. She forced the door wide quite easily, even with a broken hand, and Gavriel reassessed his initial impression that she was weaker than her partner.
“You heard Gia,” the man snarled. “Piss off, witch!”
Rowan moved like a striking adder. Gavriel watched in amazement as she reached through the door, seized the man’s flaccid member, and used it as a handle to yank him into the hall.
Another well-placed kick to the rump and he half-tumbled, half-slid to the foot of the stairs, cursing vividly all the way.
When he got to his feet, she held up her hand in warning.
A gem nestled in her palm. The man swiftly retreated.
Gavriel feared that Gia Andrade was about to receive similar treatment and lifted the glamour. When she saw his wings, her eyes rolled back to the whites. He caught her before she hit the floor and carried her inside.
The flat was small but clean, decorated in the local style with a rug in intricate repeating medallions, bright cushions, and a backgammon game in progress on a table. A sulky-faced cat darted away as they entered, streaking into the next room to hide under a rumpled bed.
“That was savage of you, Rowan,” Gavriel admonished as she checked the other rooms and found them empty.
“He was obstructing an investigation,” she called over her shoulder.
“But still, did you really need to . . . Never mind.” He gestured to a decanter on a side table. “Pour a glass of that pear brandy.”
She frowned. “How do you know it’s pear brandy?”
“I can smell it.”
“Stoppered? From across the room?”
Gavriel nodded impatiently. She looked impressed and poured a finger of the amber liquid into a glass. He tipped a few drops between Gia’s parted lips. Her eyelids fluttered, then flew wide.
“You are . . .” she whispered.
“Gavriel Morningstar, archangel of Kirith,” he confirmed. “You can answer my questions truthfully now, or Cypher Rowan can bring you to the Red House for questioning there.”
Gia shot an anxious glance at Rowan, who leaned against the doorframe.
“Of course, my lord, if I had known . . . please forgive my rudeness.” She sat up and drew her dressing gown tighter with trembling hands.
“There is no offense,” Gavriel said. “When did you last see Barsal Casolaba?”
She took a hefty gulp of brandy and coughed. Color returned to her cheeks. “The night he died.”
“What was his manner?”
“He seemed nervous,” she admitted. “Preoccupied. But excited, too.”
“Did he say why?”
Gia hesitated. “He’d found something. A new kind of gemstone that was beyond priceless. He said it would change everything.”
Gavriel’s interest sharpened. “Those were his exact words? That it would change everything?”
She nodded firmly. “But he wouldn’t tell me more.
After we . . . engaged in a tryst, he left to meet someone.
It was after midnight by then. Before you ask, he didn’t tell me who.
” Her eyes filled with tears. “The next day, I heard what happened to him. I swear, Lord Morningstar, that is all I know.”
He searched her face for deception and found none. “Did he mention his aide? Levi Bottas?”
She looked puzzled. “The boy from down south? No, not that night. Barsal thought he was a bit dense, to be honest. He only hired him because his uncle gave a lot of money to the Freedom League.”
“What about Primo Roloa, the deputy consul? Or Luzia Bras?”
She shook her head. “He’d complain about them sometimes. That’s all.”
Gavriel asked a few more questions, but she knew nothing more. They left the flat and descended the stairs. Gia’s naked visitor lurked behind one of the potted palms, hands covering his groin. He crouched low when he saw Rowan, peering between the fronds with apprehension.
“You can go back up now,” she told him in a friendly manner.
He waited for her to pass, then scurried up the stairs, bare buttocks wobbling. Gavriel did his best to remain aloof, clamping his molars together. Rowan did not make a jest. She was scanning for hidden assassins ahead.
Outside, rainclouds gathered, threatening a downpour. It would be a wet walk back to the Red House, but Gavriel felt pleased with their progress. Rowan might be heavy-handed, but he had her to thank for his first real breakthrough. Had he come alone, he would still be standing outside the gate.
“Finally, a lead we can use,” he said giddily. “Casolaba’s death must be connected to this gem, and whoever he met must be the killer. I’m afraid it is looking more and more like the witches are behind it, but I must follow where the evidence takes me.”
Rowan gave him a half-hearted nod and halted at the curb. The cobblestoned street was deserted, yet she stared intently into the distance.
Gavriel followed her gaze. “What is it?”
She didn’t reply at first. Her pupils were huge. Then she said, “Something isn’t right.”
The hair on his nape stirred as he watched a line of violet blood trickle from Rowan’s nose. A second later, Gavriel heard the rattle of wheels. A coach rounded the corner, drawn by four caracal cats. They were running flat out, the muscles of their flanks bunching and lengthening.
He took a startled step back. The coach bore down, veering towards the curb. Then Rowan flew into him and they both went sprawling into the flowerbed. She twisted at the last moment to ensure he landed on top, sparing his injured wing.
Their faces were inches apart. Her scent, the one that had been distracting him since the moment they met, even from across a room, grew dizzyingly strong. Smoky vetiver and the earthbound stillness of oakmoss, with a hint of almond blossoms.
Gavriel wrenched his gaze away, turning his head in time to see the coach thunder through the space he had occupied a moment before.
His heart pounded, partly from the near miss, mostly from her warm body beneath him.
His left knee pressed between her legs, and he had a powerful urge to take a strand of her pale hair between his fingers and test its softness.
To caress the smooth skin of her cheek. How plump her lower lip was, like a ripe summer berry?—
It must have only been a few seconds before she pushed him off and chased down the coach. Still stunned, Gavriel pulled himself together and followed. The whey-faced driver stood at the end of the block stammering apologies. When he saw a cypher and angel approaching, his terror redoubled.
Rowan ignored him and strode up to the snarling cats. She allowed them to sniff her hand, then scratched them beneath the chin. Their tails stopped lashing. One began to purr, a calming rumble.
“Since you nearly ran Lord Morningstar down, you may take him to his residence,” she said in a colder tone than Gavriel had ever heard her use.
The driver was happy to oblige. “I’m terribly sorry, my lord,” he said, wringing his hands. “They went wild. I’ve never seen such a thing. Normally, my girls are the sweetest darlings. Perhaps they caught the scent of a rat . . .”
Gavriel assured him that he did not blame the caracals. Rowan, stone-faced, gave the address of the townhouse on Boulevard Dos Safiras. As the coach started off at a normal pace, she said softly, “There’s a residue of ley on those cats. Someone riled them up.”
He had guessed as much. “How did you know?”
“Most people with witch blood can sense the lingering magic of a spell.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said evenly. “How did you know the coach was aimed at me?”
She avoided his gaze, looking out the window. “I heard the wheels. It was moving too fast.”
Gavriel doubted this. He had heard nothing until it was too late and his hearing was keen. But he decided not to press. Rowan looked grim and unapproachable. She furtively wiped the blood from her lip, angling her body away from him.
What troubled him more than her obvious lies was his own undeniable physical reaction to her. Even now, he longed to close the distance between them and sit by her side.
Gods, the scent of her.
His jaw tightened. The pressure of the investigation must be getting to him. Gavriel vowed never to indulge such mad thoughts again—and to keep his distance from Cathrynne Rowan.