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TWENTY

Sorsha

If I’d hoped I might saunter into Meriden’s office building and have a receptionist point me right to him, one up-close look at the current state of the place killed that dream. Obviously it would have been ridiculous to march right in demanding to speak to him anyway, but the dreary dimness that showed in gaps through the papered-over windows didn’t inspire much confidence that we’d find anything at all.

Thorn had already patrolled several blocks around the place, watching for any hint of our previous attackers. Now, as the other two shadowkind and I waited in a coffee shop down the street after a brisk walk past, he’d gone to prowl through the building itself.

Ruse sipped the espresso he’d charmed the barista into giving him, not looking as though he was enjoying it very much. Even Snap was too restless to make more than a few half-hearted exclamations over the whipped-cream-topped hot chocolate the incubus had gotten for him.

I’d decided to forgo caffeine altogether, since I didn’t need my nerves on any higher alert than they already were, but I was starting to regret leaving my hands empty. As I fidgeted with the napkin I’d pulled out of the dispenser, slowly tearing one corner, our hardened warrior stepped out of the shadows across the room as if he’d emerged from the bathroom rather than the darkness. I was pretty sure Ruse had coached him on that move.

“The way is clear,” he said when he reached us, his voice low but formal as always. “There is an entrance at the back I believe it would be wisest for us to make use of. M’lady, my companions and I will travel unseen and meet you there.”

I guessed that made sense. Still, I couldn’t help feeling I had a target on my back as I ambled outside like I was just enjoying this lovely summer day. I’d committed plenty of crimes, snuck into plenty of buildings I wasn’t meant to be in, but always with the cover of night. Under the blazing sun without my cat burglar get-up, I might as well have had a spotlight pointed at me.

If the place was empty anyway, there was no reason to poke around during the day. No employees to listen in on or even question if we’d dared. But we were here now. Thorn was even tenser about the situation than I was—if he thought we could go ahead, I was probably safer here than lounging on a beach in the Bahamas.

I just wouldn’t think about the fact that he’d missed the hunters who’d shipped him off to that cage I’d rescued him from.

I strolled around the block and down the driveway beside the used furniture store next door. Cutting across the parking lot took me straight to a rather imposing steel door at the back of Meriden’s apparently former workplace. Thank galloping gremlins that something about the process of melding iron into steel seemed to diffuse its repulsive effect on most shadowkind.

I glanced around to make sure no one was hanging out nearby to see me, pulled on my gloves, and tried the handle. It didn’t budge.

Huh. I’d expected the trio to make it there before me. An uneasy quiver ran down through my gut. I looked around again, bracing myself to run—and the handle jerked over with a metallic crunching sound from the other side.

Before I could bolt, the door swung open to reveal Thorn’s own imposing visage. The handle from the other side of the door, broken and twisted, dangled from his brawny hand.

“The place has some fancy-pants locks we couldn’t manage to open without a certain amount of destruction,” Ruse said with a baleful look toward the taller guy. “I tried to suggest to this lunk that we make sure you thought it was wise to literally break our way in before going ahead.”

Thorn was already motioning me in with an urgent sweep of his arm. “We’d have drawn much more attention standing around outside discussing the matter—or leaving her out there wondering what had befallen us. She’s in now.”

Snap peered around the storage room I’d joined them in. “It doesn’t look as if anyone’s come by here in a long time.”

The shelving units that filled the space were mostly empty, the few bedraggled cardboard boxes that remained holding nothing that revealed more than what type of printer paper the business had used. The date on a shipping label informed me that particular package had been delivered five years ago.

Had this place been empty that long? My hopes sank even further.

The storage room opened up to a hallway lined with interior windows. The rooms on the other side appeared to be labs with gleaming metal tables and fridges next to open spaces that held nothing more than scuffs on the floor suggesting there’d once been other equipment there. Only muted light filtered through the tiny, high outer windows set with frosted glass. A bitter chemical odor hung in the air.

Thorn got us into one of those rooms with a similar trick with the lock—if you could call brute strength a “trick.” Inside, Snap crouched down by the scuff marks. The first flick of his tongue provoked a wince that echoed through his entire slim body.

“Silver and iron,” he said, his voice gone tight. “There were cages here.”

The kinds of cages that would only be used to hold shadowkind. The sword-star bunch had removed the obvious evidence, but they hadn’t counted on a being with Snap’s skills checking out the place.

“Can you pick up anything else about them—what sort of shadowkind they were keeping?” Ruse asked.

Snap took another tentative taste and shook his head with a shudder. He moved on, sampling the air over and around the table and then the fridge. His beautiful face tensed with a frown it was painful to see.

“I can’t taste much about the people who used this room,” he said quietly. “But they were doing something with—something to —shadowkind creatures. Something that hurt.”

Thorn’s hands clenched at his sides. My own fingers had curled into my palms. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t have guessed that whoever had taken their boss—and probably come for my Auntie Luna as well—had nefarious purposes, but if they’d operated out of this building, there was no doubting their intentions now.

We checked each of the lab rooms in turn, even though my stomach knotted at the growing strain that showed in Snap’s demeanor. The impressions of whatever awful experiments he was having to glean became worth it when he straightened up from a cabinet in the last room with a brilliant grin.

“I saw it! Someone who opened this recently—however recently they were last working here—had that star symbol with the swords on the folder he was holding.”

“We’re definitely in the right place, then.” I glanced at the pale walls around us with another shiver of uneasiness. “Meriden must be our guy.” But so far we hadn’t seen anything here that could lead us closer to him.

“The front of the building had more… debris,” Thorn said. “Something there might give us a sense of where to continue our investigation.”

I wasn’t at all sorry to leave the vacant labs behind. We passed another steel door to reach the front half of the building, which opened up into a pretty typical office layout.

A maze of dividers wove across the floor, separating out a couple dozen cubicles other than where a few had toppled over. The plain steel desks remained, but weirdly none of the chairs. A water cooler without its jug stood next to a dust-coated coffee maker just outside a small kitchen area. Doors along the opposite wall led into private offices, but the name plaques had been removed from their brass holders.

Snap immediately set off to sample all the impressions he could find. I veered in another direction, picking through the crumpled papers, long-dried pens, and other garbage the employees had left behind in case any of it held an identifying clue that didn’t require supernatural voodoo to discern.

Ruse followed the same course I did, inspecting the cubicles on the other side of the aisle. As Snap and Thorn drifted farther away, he glanced at me. I was bent over a desk, struggling to reach a paper that had fallen between it and the divider wall it appeared to be bolted to.

I half expected him to make a cheeky comment about my waving ass, but instead he blinked out of sight. The paper vanished into the shadows, and a second later the incubus was standing next to me, holding it out.

“Oh. Thank you.” I couldn’t stop my posture from stiffening a little at the warmth of his body right next to mine.

I took the paper, which turned out to have nothing but a couple of obscene dick doodles on it. Such amazing productivity.

Ruse stepped back, his mouth twisting into a grimace. His lips parted, and then he hesitated. “Sorsha,” he said finally when I started to turn.

“What?” The word came out terser than I’d intended, but I hadn’t been going for friendly either.

“I—” He let out a huff of breath, but from his expression, I got the sense he was frustrated with himself, not with me. “You can be angry with me forever if you want. I’m not telling you I didn’t fuck up. But I do want you to know I didn’t break your trust for kicks or to manipulate you in any way.”

“No? Why did you, then?”

Despite my still-terse tone, he looked relieved that I’d even asked. “I know what value I generally bring to the table where mortals are concerned—or rather, to the bed. When the act is over, I haven’t been in the habit of sticking around. No one’s ever complained about my leaving. When it seemed as if you meant for me to stay with you, I wasn’t sure whether I was only making assumptions or— I didn’t like the idea of overstaying my welcome inadvertently. So I looked before I could catch the impulse, just to make sure that really was what you wanted.”

The only thing I don’t want is for you to feel obligated , he’d told me the other night when I’d invited him into my bed in the first place. Remembering that and seeing the remorse that sat so awkwardly on his roguishly handsome face, some of the betrayal I’d been feeling crumbled away.

What must it feel like, being treated as if you had no worth other than your sexual prowess for centuries on end? Maybe it didn’t matter to him as much as it might to a human being, but shadowkind could still experience loss and loneliness. To have all the pleasure but none of the closeness and connection of falling asleep in each other’s arms afterward… Even the months when I’d been hooking up with Leland, the lack of actual intimacy had started to dull the fun parts of our agreement.

Ruse’s skills might have knocked my socks off, almost literally, but I’d take the full experience of human intimacy over supernaturally powerful passion alone any day. If I ever got a chance to have that for real, that was.

“Okay,” I said. “I can see why you might have slipped up. I still don’t want you slipping ever again.”

I looked down at my hands braced against the desk and decided that if he’d opened up, I could give him a little honesty in return. “Having my mind messed with is a particularly sore spot for me. There was this time—when I was seven, heading home one evening with Luna, another higher shadowkind spotted us together and started mocking her for taking care of a mortal. When we tried to simply walk away from him, he used his powers on me.”

“He was an incubus?” Ruse asked softly, but his eyes flashed with a golden blaze of anger.

“I don’t think so, but he had some kind of charm ability. He called out to me, told me to jump around and crawl on my hands and knees and would have ordered me to walk into traffic if Luna hadn’t launched herself at him then.”

A lump filled my throat with the memory. “It was awful, wanting to resist, terrified of what he was making me do, but being trapped in my body that was following his commands no matter how much I tried to stop it. I know that tormenting people isn’t your thing, but the thought of anyone using their influence on my mind brings back that terror.”

If I hadn’t been completely sure of Ruse’s remorse before, there would have been no mistaking it etched in his expression now. “I hate that I reminded you of that time—that you’d need to associate me at all with that dumpster fire of a being. If I can’t manage to keep the promise of never slipping up again, you’re welcome to light me on fire and cheer while I burn.”

My lips couldn’t help twitching upward at the vehemence with which he made that offer. “I think I can manage without burning anyone alive. Let’s just see how it goes. And don’t push your luck.”

“Duly noted,” the incubus said with a playful salute, though his eyes were still serious. I was just venturing onward to resume my search when a joyful voice rang out from the office kitchen. Of course Snap would have ended up in there sooner rather than later.

“I have something!” He loped out with his face beaming as bright as his curly hair. With one hand, he held up a mug that had a jagged shard missing from its side. “This cup belonged to Meriden. He brought it in from his house, and I can see the house in the impressions that’ve stuck to it.”

Excitement raced through me. I hurried over. “Are you sure it’s his?”

He tipped the mug to show us the base, looking so breathtakingly pleased with himself I had to restrain the urge to kiss him. “I can hear someone saying the name while he was holding it—and look. This is for John Meriden, isn’t it?”

Marked on the mug’s base in black sharpie were the initials J.M.

I laughed and settled for squeezing Snap’s shoulder in a fragment of an embrace. “You did it. He’d better watch out now—we’re coming for him where he lives.”