Page 13

THIRTEEN

Snap

The place Sorsha had called a “bar” didn’t look anything like the long, straight pieces of metal I’d used that word for in the past. Even viewed from the shadows, the images slightly warbled and the sounds and scents faded, it was much more interesting. Interesting enough that I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask Thorn whether it really was a good idea for us to be slinking through these shadows.

Sorsha had insisted it wasn’t safe for us to come along. I’d have thought she should know, since she’d been here before and we hadn’t. But Ruse knew a lot about the mortal realm and Thorn knew a lot about danger, and neither of them seemed concerned that we’d run into any trouble here. I could follow their lead.

Especially when it meant getting to take in so many new aspects of mortal-side life.

I slipped through a patch of darkness under an empty table to tip my head close to a glass that one of the mortals had left there, a trace of amber liquid ringing its base. I couldn’t taste anything while remaining in the shadows, directly or with my deeper senses, but the sour smell tickled my nose.

“Why are they drinking these liquids?” I asked Ruse, a languid presence nearby. “They smell almost like plants gone to rot.”

The incubus’s chuckle came with a distant tone. “In some ways, that’s what they are. It’s called fermenting. It brings out some… interesting qualities that help mortals relax and find courage.”

I peered at the people socializing in the room around us. “Are they bolstering themselves to head into some kind of battle?” Sorsha’s world hadn’t appeared to be the sort of place where masses of warriors took up swords against each other on a regular basis, regardless of the hints Thorn liked to drop about his past adventures in this realm.

Ruse laughed again. “Only battles with their own self-esteem and other people’s opinions of them. Mortals come to establishments like this to enjoy themselves with friends and to pick up potential mates. Usually short-term ones, but for some reason many of them get much more anxious about that than looking for marriage material.”

Mates. Like that couple over there, two men with their arms twined as they rocked with the music a few paces from where Sorsha and her friend were dancing. You could tell they were mates and Sorsha and her friend weren’t because of the amount of closeness… and also a sort of energy around them that I could taste without even using my tongue.

Sometimes Ruse and Sorsha generated that kind of energy between them. But not always. I didn’t fully understand what it accomplished other than that they seemed to enjoy something about it, which maybe was reason enough to want it. Like eating food I didn’t need but that tasted so delicious.

Did they decide to create the energy or did it just happen? What did it feel like when you had it? I didn’t think I’d ever encountered it in myself.

I might have asked, but as I turned in Ruse’s direction, I spotted another shadowkind—not in the shadows like us but sitting at one of the stone tables with a drink of her own. A dappling of scales showed across her skin. From that along with her pose, I expected she was some sort of reptilian shifter.

“There are other kind here,” I said, nodding toward her. “Should we avoid her?” We’d already known the being distributing drinks from behind the shiny counter was one of us, but she stayed on the other side of that large, carved crystal slab.

Thorn shifted closer to me, his presence looming as large in the shadows as it did on the physical plane. “Sorsha said our kind often come here. Why would any of them think it’s strange that we’re here too? It was an excuse to keep us away.”

“She really should have known better than to assume we’d go along with that order,” Ruse agreed with a teasing cluck of his tongue.

Why wouldn’t she have wanted us to see the bar? Maybe I’d asked too many questions at the market earlier today. There were just so many things to experience that I didn’t understand but wanted to.

Like the young man who was tossing coins into the circle of water to our left. I peered at him and then the coins, the metal discs glinting as they caught the tiny underwater lights. “That’s money he’s throwing away, isn’t it? Why would they put it in the water? Is that how they pay for those relaxing courage drinks?”

“They pay for the drinks at the counter,” Ruse said. “And mostly with paper bills or plastic cards. The coins don’t buy much. They throw them into the water for fun and to pretend it’ll give them the power to get whatever they want.”

My gaze jerked back to the coins. “Does that work?” So far I hadn’t met mortals who could work magic of any kind, let alone on that scale.

“Of course not. They just enjoy the pretending.”

Mortals were rather strange about a lot of things. Before I could puzzle any longer about that, Thorn moved forward. I looked in the same direction.

Sorsha was stepping away from her friend with the swishy clothes and hair. She was smiling, but tension wound through her posture. A twinge shot through my gut. “Where’s she going? Is something wrong?”

“She seems to think it is.” I could feel more than see the flex of Thorn’s considerable strength. “Four men came in together a minute ago. Their movements appear very purposeful. She may have had past dealings with them or seen some other warning sign.”

“She’s heading for the back door,” Ruse pointed out. “We’d better keep up, don’t you think?”

Thorn glanced toward the front of the room again, but then he turned to stride after Sorsha, leaping between shadows as need be. Ruse and I traveled along behind him. If any of the newcomers tried to harm her, we were between her and them now. It must have been a good thing we’d come along.

The incubus had been right about the door. Sorsha twisted the handle, murmuring a faint tune to herself, and pushed outside. We leapt after her into the thicker darkness of an alley.

A totally different combination of sensations washed over me: the faint chill of the night, the contrast between the dark, narrow space we’d come out into and the yellow glow of streetlamps at the opening a few buildings away, and a dank, definitely rotten smell seeping from the trash bin Sorsha darted around. It took me a moment to adjust—and to notice the figure that had already been out here in the alley.

The man looked so scruffy I might have taken him for a werewolf in mid-shift if everything else about him hadn’t screamed mortal . He’d been standing farther down the alley, but at Sorsha’s exit, he turned and headed toward her with steps that both lurched and swayed. A bottle of that sour-smelling liquid dangled from one of his hands. He didn’t seem relaxed or brave to me, though, only unsteady. And intent on catching up with our rescuer.

“What’s he do—” I started to ask, and sucked in the rest of the sentence and my breath at the gleam of a knife he’d pulled from his pocket.

He was going to hurt her. We had to stop him. Those thoughts blared through my mind clearer than anything—and my body went rigid. A sickly chill congealed in my stomach, so dense it erased even my memories of the treats I’d snacked on at the market and later at dinner.

I could stop him. I could—like that other time—but to do that again— Despite my urge to protect the woman who’d saved us, every particle in me flinched away from the thought with a smack of horror.

It was a good thing I wasn’t the warrior among us. As I froze, Thorn hurled himself forward.