My pulse quickened. How can I look past that cold indifference on his scarred face? And yet, he carried necklaces in his pocket for when Constance stole one from her own followers. “You could have stopped her,” I muttered.
Pike laughed bitterly. “You don’t know much about the long undead,” he said, voice ugly.
Eyebrows high, I stared. “You’re afraid of her?” I said, not believing it. I mean, I’d seen him in the tower’s lower halls. He hadn’t been afraid. Cautious, maybe respectful even as he was disappointed at her failure to be the powerful master he wanted to look to. But not afraid.
Pike leaned back to put his elbows on the railing behind him, his attention on the bathrooms across the upper pond. “Yes and no,” he said, as if he’d never admitted it before.
I pressed my lips together, angry for even thinking to give him a pass for this. “You could have done something,” I insisted, and he looked at me as if I was stupid.
“I did. I convinced her to leave him alive.” He returned to scanning the park. “I assumed the great and powerful Rachel Morgan could save him,” he mocked.
Guilt flashed through me, and I hated that he knew it. “I—I’m not that good,” I admitted, flushing. “And I had a falling-out—” My voice cut off. Why am I telling him this? “Hey, don’t tell her I said that, okay?” I said, giving him a weak but honest smile.
He stared at me as if in disbelief, and my flush deepened when his attention dropped to the lace at my throat.
“Hurting people with the sole intent to piss me off is not a good idea,” I added, and he almost rolled his eyes before turning his focus back to the park. “Your job is to protect her, right? Then convince her to let Zack go so we can talk this out. We can find a way to live in Cincinnati together. This should be between me and her, not everyone we care about.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have made her daylight quarters unlivable,” he said, a cross expression bringing his features tight. “With the sole intent to piss her off. She thinks that if I kill you, the spell will be broken.”
“Ah, it doesn’t work that way. It will be harder to break if I’m dead,” I said quickly.
“That’s what I told her,” he said, ruefully rubbing his ribs, his eyes still scanning. It was starting to get on my nerves, and I risked a look behind me at the seemingly empty park. Maybe he thought that Were pack at the front gate was coming up to swamp him.
“She still wants you dead,” he added, smiling as he lifted his cup. “But not with coffee.”
I couldn’t help it, and my lips curved up in a smile as Jenks’s soft “told you” drifted down. That’s why the charms, Jenks.
“So.” I leaned my back against the railing and set my thoughts lightly in Al’s ley line. “Are you going to kill me?” We were shoulder to shoulder and, eyes closing, I let my head loll and my hair spill down in an open invitation, exposing my neck, knowing he wouldn’t dare, knowing if he did, I’d be able to evade him for a precious three seconds to circle myself—then smack him halfway to the Hollows. One minute without magic becomes my advantage with magic.
“Not yet,” he said, and I made a small sound, half nonchalance, half enticement. “Not if I can convince you to tuck tail and leave. And you should leave. They’re talking about you in the lower levels of the I.S., not her. She’s so angry now that even if you publicly humiliated yourself and begged for her forgiveness, she’d kill you the week after.”
“As if I’d ever do that,” I said. But he said nothing, and I finally opened my eyes. He had moved, standing with his shoulders hunched and jaw tight. Embarrassed, I pulled myself straight. “Sorry,” I said as I took the lace off and stuffed it into a pocket. “It’s not fair to push your buttons like that.”
“You have no clue where my buttons even are,” he muttered, and I flushed again.
“So, just for gits and shiggles, what are Constance’s terms?” I asked.
Pike eyed me, clearly annoyed. The rim of brown had returned, but I’d thought it important that he knew I wasn’t afraid of him. Cautious, yes. Afraid, no. “She has no terms,” he said flatly. “She wants you dead. Gone will satisfy her. I suggest you take it.”
Thinking, I sipped my coffee. My foot was touching my bag, but I didn’t need anything in it if he moved. All I needed was in my fists, feet, head, and that ley line nearby. “Say I leave. Will she free Zack? Stop trying to subjugate the elves?”
Pike’s wandering attention returned to me. Something was distracting him, something that had nothing to do with the lace I’d stuffed in my pocket or my short white skirt. “Are you going to leave?” he asked, and in that instant, I thought about it. Really thought about it. I could abandon Cincy, go out to the West Coast where my mom was. Trent could probably find something to do out there, seeing as his holdings here were being picked apart one lawsuit at a time. And Jenks? He could make it anywhere.
“No,” I finally said, and Pike slowly nodded as if knowing this was real, not posture and play. “I like the Hollows. My dad is buried here, and it’s where I went to school. I finally found a place that cuts my hair the way I like it, and I have a few spell shops that will sell to me again.” Melancholy, I slumped against the thick railing and thought about the church. I really wanted to talk to Jenks about staying, but damn . . . his face went awful every time I brought it up.
“You’d live longer if you left,” Pike said, jerking me back to the present.
But he wasn’t looking at me, scanning the park over my shoulder, a rising tension pulling him straight. “Will you relax?” I said, annoyed. “I’m not trying to kill you. There’s no point to it.”
Eyes empty, he looked me up and down. “I never said you were trying to kill me.”
“Then what is it?” I said. “You’re hardly listening to me.”
“It’s nothing.” But his jaw was tight and his eyes continued to track the passing cars.
My arms went over my middle. There was little that irked me more than taking the time out of my day to threaten a city power and having them be more concerned about the tour bus driving by than me. “Good God. You’d think having four vamps watching me would be enough,” I said flatly, and his eye twitched.
“There are five,” he said, grit grinding under his foot. “And they aren’t watching you.”
“Jenks counted four.”
“You saw them? They’re here?” Pike jerked forward. “Shit, you need to leave,” he said, his attention going to my car. “Now.”
“We haven’t settled anything yet,” I said, stepping out of his reach when he made a grab for me. “I want to talk to her, but she has to release Zack first as a goodwill gesture. I want a meeting. Just her and me. Somewhere neutral and public. Not the I.S. You’re the only one who can get it for me.”