Page 124

S ometime after midnight, Adric jerked awake. He glanced around, shaking off a very pleasant dream. Rosana was sprawled on top of him, her breasts soft against his chest, her head tucked into the curve of his neck.

His mouth curved. So that part of the dream had been true.

After they’d made love the second time, they’d napped and then taken a hot shower together. Just a shower—he’d wanted to give her time to heal. But he’d never had such an erotic shower. They’d washed each other from head to toe, intermixed with slow, sensuous kisses, until the hot water ran out.

They’d toweled each other dry—and then she’d gone to her knees on the bathroom rug before him. Her mouth was warm and wet, and while a part of him registered her lack of experience, the rest of him muttered who the fuck cares and enjoyed.

Then it was his turn. He led her back to the bed and feasted on her, reveling in her sexy little sounds of pleasure and how she wriggled and bucked beneath his tongue and hands.

By then it was dinnertime. She put on her snug red jacket and those fuck-me boots, and he took her to a restaurant overlooking the canal. They had local beers and grilled rockfish as the stars appeared, one by one, over the canal’s night-dark waters.

When they returned to the B&B, he had her strip and then helped her step back into the boots while she watched with those wide, ocean-blue eyes. They’d explored all the ways a man and woman could enjoy each other without full penetration before falling asleep, bodies entwined.

Now she snuggled closer, murmuring his name. He tightened his arms around her, nape tingling uneasily.

What had awoken him?

The outside door opened. Footsteps started up the stairs to the main floor. Three people, from the sound of it.

He lifted his head, straining to hear something. Anything. But they were dead silent. Yeah, it was late, but surely a group of three would speak at least a few words among themselves?

They reached the main floor and rapped on the door to Mark’s private apartment.

“What the hell?” the innkeeper demanded in rough, just-woke-up tones.

“Where are they? The fada.” A man’s voice.

Adric tensed. Easing out from beneath Rosana, he crept to the door, setting his ear against the wood.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark returned.

“Yes,” the man said in a cold voice, “you do.”

“Get your hands off me,” Mark snarled. “You’ve got five seconds to get out of here or I’m calling the cop—”

The thud of flesh against flesh was followed by an “oof.”

“Talk,” the man said.

The only sound was the harsh scrape of Mark’s breathing.

Adric whirled into motion. “Rosana,” he hissed.

She was already sitting up. Scrambling out of bed, she whispered, “What’s the matter?”

He tossed her some clothes. “We’re leaving,” he replied in an equally soft voice. “Someone’s asking about us.”

She froze. “My brothers?”

He shook his head. The Rock Run men might be hard-assed S.O.B.s, but they wouldn’t beat a man just for renting the two of them a room. No, they’d kick Adric’s ass instead.

“I don’t think so. Now, move .”

She hurriedly pulled on her jeans and shirt while he dragged on his own clothes. He shoved an iron dagger into his back pocket. Iron was the only sure way to kill a fae.

“No shoes,” he told her. “We may have to run for it.”

“Got it.” She crammed her things into the canvas bag, leaving her barefoot in the Henley and jeans. He silently blessed the tight operation run by Dion. She’d clearly been trained how to respond in an emergency.

“This way.” Rosana jerked her head at the sliding doors. “Down the back stairs.”

He gave her a silent thumbs-up.

In the hall outside their room, footsteps could be heard. Another person ran lightly up to the third floor.

Apparently, Mark hadn’t given up their location. Adric would owe him for that. He just hoped the human would be alive to collect.

Rosana slung her bag over a shoulder and eased open the sliding door. He grabbed his duffel bag and followed, quietly closing the door behind him. Hopefully, that would buy them a little time before their pursuers realized they were no longer in the B&B.

Rosana ignored the stairs to sling a long leg over the wood railing. She worked her way hand-over-hand down the outside of the stairs before dropping the last few feet to the grass. The entire descent took five seconds, tops.

Despite the danger, his mouth edged up as he swung over the railing and dropped to the grass beside her. Damn, he liked how the woman’s mind worked.

They glided around the enclosed outdoor shower and halted against the far wall where they couldn’t be seen from the B&B.

Rosana set her mouth to his ear. “They’ll be watching the parking lot.”

He nodded. Why the fuck hadn’t he parked the rental car somewhere else? But he’d believed they were safe. No one knew his exact location, not even Marjani.

Had he’d been followed from Baltimore?

He peered around the corner. The lights in their room came on, visible through the cracks in the wood slats. His nostrils flared, but he couldn’t pick up a scent from that far away.

If only he knew who, exactly, was after them—fada or fae? Because a fada could track the two of them even if they ran.

His neck crawled. The backyard was too small, nothing but a narrow strip of grass between the B&B and the tall fence surrounding it. They had to get out of here before the bastards came looking for them.

He jerked his chin in the direction of the beach. “We’ll go over the fence,” he whispered in Rosana’s ear, “and stick to the backyards. Make our way to the bay. You can go into the water, and I’ll shift to my cougar and run along the beach. They won’t be able to track us in the water.”

Her mouth formed a shocked O. “You think they’re fada? Not humans robbing the place?”

He shook his head grimly. “They asked Mark where the fada were.”

And even if they hadn’t, his itching nape told him he and Rosana were in danger. He trusted that itch. During the Darktime, it had saved his life more than once.

“Once you’re in the water, head for Henlopen,” he told her. “I’ll meet you at the park.”

The Cape Henlopen State Park was a good mile away, but in his cougar form, he could sprint as fast as fifty miles per hour. It would take Rosana a little longer to swim there, but unless one of their pursuers was a water fada, she’d be safer in the ocean than with him.

Not even a wolf could track her in the water.

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “You want us to split up?” she whispered back.

“Just for a few minutes—maybe half an hour. I’ll meet you at the Point. I’ll be on the beach that faces the Breakwater Lighthouse. You know it?”

“Yeah, but—”

Footsteps on the balcony above made her snap shut her mouth. As one, they shrank deeper into the shadows.

Adric risked a look. The man was scanning the wetlands behind the B&B. Tall and dark-skinned, and dressed in a black leather jacket and pants, he would’ve blended into the shadows if not for his cropped silver hair. His pointed ears stood out in stark relief against his pale hair.

A fae, then. But Adric had been expecting a night fae, and the only fae with such light hair were ice fae.

His brow furrowed. What the fuck was an ice fae doing in Lewes, Delaware?

The fae turned his gaze on the backyard. Adric dropped his eyes so the fae wouldn’t see them glowing in the dark.

“Ice fae,” he mouthed at Rosana.

She gulped. Then she raised her left arm, the one with the silver bracelet. “Protection charm,” she whispered back.

He nodded, relieved.

He fingered his quartz. A few months ago, he’d stumbled upon a new use for his Gift of hypnotism. He could somehow induce people to look right past him. It was similar to a cloaking spell, something the fae charged an arm and a leg for—if they’d even sell it to a fada.

But he’d never tried to cloak a second person as well. He wasn’t even sure if he could. Plus, it drained energy at a rapid rate, energy he might need to shift.

Still, if it came down to it, he’d try. He was not letting that fae bastard get his hands on Rosana. At least she had that protection charm.

“See anything, Jon?” A woman’s cool, aristocratic voice.

“No. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out here.”

Adric risked another look as the woman joined Jon on the balcony. She was tall and curvy with long hair the color of moonlight, her scent a mix of silver and something acrid.

Every hair on his nape rose. Only a night fae had that distinctive scent of metal and decay. His heart clenched with pure, unadulterated hate.

But she wasn’t a pureblood. No, that silver-blond hair spoke of an ice-fae ancestor, and the only ice fae/night fae mix Adric knew was Lady Blaer.

The woman who’d put Marjani in a cage.

His upper lip peeled back in a silent snarl. He wanted badly to sneak another look, but night fae could see in the dark as well as cats.

Gods, he wished he were alone so he could shift to his cougar, rip both fae into tiny pieces. He’d lost too many good friends to the night fae, been hunted himself too many nights. And Blaer had not only attacked Marjani, she’d forced his friend Luc to accept her geas .

Rosana bumped her shoulder against his. “Calm down,” she mouthed.

He gave a tight nod.

She was right. Night fae were energy vampires, with a creepy sixth sense that allowed them to home in on negative emotions—fear, anger, agitation. The only way to hide from them was to stay calm, slowing your heart and breath so they couldn’t track you.

Breathe in, breath out.

Retracting his claws, he pulled out the dagger and held it against his side. He forced himself to relax, blanked his mind.

In, out.

Beside him, Rosana slowed her breath to almost nothing.

The two fae continued scanning the backyard. Power brushed over Adric’s skin, cold and black. A night fae questing for prey.

He stilled, sinking deep into his animal.

Next to him, Rosana drew a barely perceptible breath and gripped his left wrist. He turned his palm over, threaded his fingers through hers and gave her an encouraging squeeze. She lowered an eyelid in a slow wink.

He managed a small smile back, although he’d never felt less amused.

Inside the B&B, doors slammed. From the third floor came the sound of frightened human voices. The bastards had rousted the couple upstairs.

Adric’s fingers tightened on the dagger’s handle, but he remained where he was. The fae wouldn’t do anything but scare the crap out of the human couple. The humans hadn’t even seen him and Rosana, so they’d be no help to the searchers.

Rosana’s palm was damp with nerves. He squeezed her hand again.

Hold on, angel.

A minute ticked by. The tension wound tighter.

He took another deliberate breath.

Calm, cool, blank. A sheet of paper. A snow-covered field.

Serenity flowed from Rosana. Maybe it was her, and maybe it was the charm, but it helped.

At last the woman murmured in disgust. The dark tendrils withdrew.

“They could be miles away by now. All I know is they’re not in this bloody inn.”

The man murmured assent, and the two of them returned inside without bothering to close the sliding door.

Adric waited until their voices receded before jerking his chin at the fence separating the next yard from the B&B.

Rosana nodded, and together, they scaled the fence and sprinted behind the neighboring house. They continued that way down the street, sticking to backyards as they aimed for the water.

When they were almost to the beach, Adric pulled Rosana into the shadow of an empty cedar-shingled house.

“ M?e de Deus .” Her breath whooshed out. “What was that about?”

He shrugged, although he had his suspicions. “You were perfect.” He gave her a hard kiss. “Cool as could be.”

She shrugged, but he could tell she was pleased. “My training as a Seer includes meditation techniques.”

“Well, it worked, but now we need to get the fuck out of here.” He indicated the deck behind her. “We can stash the bags under there and come back for them later.”

His quartz was engineered to be a smartphone. While Rosana stowed their bags beneath the deck, he notified the Lewes police about the break-in at the B&B.

“A man’s hurt. Send an ambulance ASAP.”

“Your name, sir?”

“That’s not important,” he said, and ended the connection.

He and Rosana peeled off their clothes and tucked them under the deck, and then he dragged her long, lush body up against his. Her skin was icy, and even though he knew river fada had naturally cool metabolisms, he hated that she’d been pulled out of a warm bed because of him.

“The Breakwater Light,” he reminded her. “Stay in the water until I signal you. Three flashes with my quartz.”

She wound an arm around his neck. “’Kay.”

He brushed a strand of her hair back from her temple and then frowned. Rosana was a river dolphin, not an ocean-going dolphin like a bottlenose. “The salt water isn’t a problem?”

She shook her head. “The bay is actually an estuary—a mix of fresh and salt water. And I can take salt water for short periods of time. My mom’s a bottlenose.”

“Okay, then.” He kissed her nose. “Watch for a blue light—I’ll flash it three times in a row, then pause and repeat it.”

“Got it—three blue flashes.” She touched his cheek. “Be careful, okay?”

He blinked, bemused. When was the last time anyone besides Marjani had told him to be careful? He was the strong one, the alpha. Even as a teenager, he’d been the one his friends looked to for direction.

“Yeah. Sure.”

He watched as she glided across the deserted street to the beach, sticking to the shadows, silent as a ghost. She sprinted across the sand and dove into the shallow water.

Shining bits of green and blue and purple glimmered beneath the surface, so beautiful he caught his breath.

A slender torpedo-shaped body sketched an arc against the night sky and disappeared beneath the waves.

Adric waited another minute to make sure she got away safely. Then he shifted to his cougar—and headed back to the B&B.