Hadrian was just trying to undermine her resolve, for obvious reasons.
It shouldn’t have worked so well.
No doubt about it, this dragon shifter had a dangerous charm.
Rania went down into the secret room hidden beneath the main house, opening the panel to display her knife collection. The bichuwa had been the ideal choice, but she was ready to compromise.
She surveyed her collection and chose.
Sebastian was late.
Sylvia couldn’t decide whether to continue waiting for him or not. She knew he had mixed feelings about the alliance between the Others, and that he was shaken—although he wouldn’t admit it—by the death of other vampires in the coven of mercy. Had he left the city? Was he just sulking in his library? She had a feeling that he was annoyed with her, too. He hadn’t liked her suggestion that she tempt the magick to play.
One thing she knew about Sebastian was that he hated magick.
Of course, they could have had a massive argument about her choice but Sylvia didn’t remember because he’d removed her memory. They could have had a torrid affair that she didn’t remember for the same reason. He could have confessed every single detail about his life and his motivation, then taken her recollection away. He really was infuriating in his insistence on remaining an enigma.
Was he really several thousand years old, or had that been a joke?
Sylvia had no idea what she knew or had known about him. As someone who loved to do research and remember it, this trait of Sebastian’s drove her crazy.
Still, she liked him, in a strange attraction-of-opposites kind of way. He fascinated her. His touch excited her. Her reaction to him was more potent than any attractive she’d felt before—but potentially a lot more unhealthy. Was it the risk? Or was it her sense he that she could help him, with something? Maybe he was drawn to her for the same reason, and against his will.
Maybe the attraction was just as potentially threatening to him.
There was a thought.
Either way, they had a connection. An inexplicable and frustrating one, but a bond Sylvia couldn’t deny.
Was he coming to meet her at all? Had that been a lie? Had he changed his mind?
Or was he in trouble? The possibility of Sebastian being in peril hadn’t occurred to Sylvia before and she didn’t like it at all. She thought of him as invincible—irksome but invincible—but there had been vampires killed at the coven just days before.
In daylight, Sebastian was vulnerable, whether she liked it or not.
What if something had happened to him? How would she ever know?
The book!
Sylvia was already wearing her coat and had what was left of Maeve’s book in her purse. She pulled it out and turned to the page about vampires. Sebastian’s name was still there—so he was alive but standing her up.
The sky was getting dark and the wind was blowing, as if a storm was coming. She looked out the window of her apartment over the street and saw Caleb leave, the wolf shifter sparing a glance back at the townhouse before briskly walking away. Sylvia pulled back from the window. He was headed uptown, in the direction of Bones. Did he know that she hadn’t left for the meeting yet?
She went to her terrace, the one that overlooked the courtyard behind the house, since that was where Sebastian tended to appear. There was no sign of him. She even went out and looked over the rooftops, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. No luck.
She looked down into the garden, wondering again whether she should move into Eithne’s apartment. The woman she’d believed was her aunt had died, leaving everything to her, but Sylvia hadn’t cleaned out Eithne’s belongings yet. She tended the garden in the courtyard, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to change anything. She liked her apartment in the attic of the townhouse. If she moved down to Eithne’s place, it would only make sense to rent out her own apartment to someone else. She just wasn’t ready for more change, so she delayed over the move. It was probably inevitable and definitely was practical but Sylvia couldn’t face it yet.
She missed Eithne. She’d been trying to figure out how to help the Others in their battle against Maeve, but every attempt she made at spell-casting had failed. The best she could do was produce a tiny red light, one that quickly fizzled out. She’d tried conjuring and she’d tried summoning the dead. She’d tried scrying and she’d tried fortune telling. She’d tried to cast protective spells and even had beckoned to the Fae, all without success. She’d taunted the magick and challenged it, daring it to play with her, but nothing. There was either some detail missing in Eithne’s journals or Sylvia had no magickal abilities at all. She suspected she needed a tutor, but didn’t know where to find one. A Google search wasn’t going to turn up a contender.
It was depressing to be so useless.
She looked again for Sebastian, but there was still no sign of him. She had to leave immediately to have any chance of making the meeting on time. Sylvia grabbed a pair of gloves and pulled out her subway fare, tucking it inside her right glove, then went to the door.
She’d just put her hand on the knob when she saw a shimmer in the periphery of her vision. She turned slowly to look and found a man in the middle of her apartment, a man who hadn’t been there before. He had a glow around him and seemed to be transparent—she could see through his figure to the table behind him. He had dark hair and the clearest blue eyes. She guessed he was about her age, maybe thirty or a little younger. He was dressed in ragged rough clothing. Was he poor or from another era? He smiled as he offered Sylvia something long and white.
She took it, amazed to see that it was a feather and it was real. It had to have come from a large bird, given its size, and it was radiantly white. It gleamed in her hand, so luminous that it could have come from another world. She looked back at him with wonder, uncertain what it meant.
His mouth moved and she heard a word echo in her thoughts, even though he made no audible sound.
Semyaza.
Sylvia pulled out her phone and made a note of it, just in case she forgot the word. It had to be important. It seemed familiar but not quite.
She looked up and his mouth moved again.
Sebastian.
Sylvia frowned at the echo in her thoughts. The man smiled. Then he waved and vanished, as if he’d never been there at all. He hadn’t been her imagination, though, because she still had the white feather.
Semyaza and Sebastian.
Had he been giving her a clue about Sebastian’s truth?
Sylvia decided to go to Reliquary and ask Sebastian herself, instead of attending the meeting at Bones. The Others argued so often that she doubted she’d miss much. She could stop in at the bar afterward. She hurried down the stairs, looking forward to seeing her vampire despite his likely mood.
Semyaza. That name sounded familiar, but Sylvia couldn’t quite place it.
Sara was glad to be home. There was something about being back in Michigan in the house she and Quinn shared outside of Traverse City that made her feel safer. She’d enjoyed the visit to Kristofer’s farm and that Quinn, the Smith of the Pyr, had been able to repair the scales of both Kristofer and Rhys, but she was always happiest when at home.
She could feel the icy tingle of Quinn’s dragonsmoke barrier around the house, thanks to her psychic sensitivities. She welcomed its familiarity, as well as that of their five sons arguing good-naturedly over the rules of the game they were playing in the family room. Quinn was in his studio, replicating the gloves he’d made for Donovan years before. She’d cleaned up after dinner—a chicken from a local organic farm, roasted with all the trimmings, which had disappeared with amazing speed—with the help of the older boys.