I opened my eyes and stared up at Laurie, knowing he’d brought me out here for this feeling. This clarity. My heart sank as I recognized a flutter in my belly. It was the same flutter I’d gotten around Collith, especially toward the end of our short-lived romance.
“Please,” I whispered. “Don’t do this.”
Laurie’s brow lowered, and his eyes snapped to mine. “Do what?”
“Make me fall in love with you.” As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. Saying the truth out loud made it even more terrifying. In an attempt to fight the pull between us, I forced a smile and added, “I don’t think I’d survive it.”
Laurie’s gaze shone with frozen heat. There was no trace of humor in his countenance. “To be clear, I fully intend to do exactly that,” he informed me. “But don’t mistake me for Collith, my queen.”
My confusion was genuine, and I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“I am not kind. I am not gentle. I am not human nor do I pretend to be. I kill when I want to.” Laurie gave me a faint grin, but it lacked the usual teasing. “Just so we’re on the same page.”
Suddenly my mouth felt too dry. I swallowed, hoping he hadn’t heard it, and mentally ran through a list of possible responses. Most of them ended in shoving Laurie against a tree and ripping his suit off. I reminded myself, over and over, that those scenarios would only complicate my disastrous life. “Got it. Same page,” was all I could think to say.
Why was it, whenever I was around Laurelis Dondarte, part of me wanted to run while the other part always lingered?
A second passed, then two. “We still need to talk about how to free my demon-possessed brother,” Laurie said, his voice back to normal now.
I knew he was changing the subject for my sake. Even though I hated myself for letting him, I cleared my throat and said, disguising my relief, “Yeah. But Savannah still hasn’t found a spell she can do. There was one passed down in her friend’s line, I guess, but two of the ingredients for it no longer exist. So we still can’t do anything except wait.”
Frustration seeped into my voice. What was the point of having so much power when I couldn’t use it for good? When it was ineffective at a time I needed it most? I’d told Finn we were a pack. It was a promise, and yet here I was, breaking it like I had so many others. Because there was an easy solution to our problem. The agony of the past three days could’ve been prevented, if I were as reckless as I used to be.
“Tell me you haven’t considered it,” Laurie said, startling me. His gaze bored into mine again. “Tell me you’re not actually thinking about Belanor’s deal.”
How did he always know what I was thinking? I looked out at the horizon one more time, committing this place to memory. “I can’t,” I said truthfully. “I have considered it. If I knew what the cost would be, and it didn’t harm anyone else, I would’ve accepted his offer on the spot. But death follows Belanor everywhere he goes. Odds are that letting him finish the spell would be catastrophic.”
Laurie paused. “I agree,” he said, failing to hide the undercurrent of relief in his voice.
Our conversation felt finished, but neither of us moved. Now that I remembered what it was like to feel alive, I wasn’t ready to go back to that basement. In the silence, I thought of my broken promises again.
There’s one I could keep, I thought suddenly. One person I hadn’t let down, not yet.
I refocused on Laurie, who gazed back at me with a casual stance, as if he had all the time in the world. “Will you go somewhere with me?”
He answered without hesitation. “Anywhere.”
“You wouldn’t be back at Court until tonight, probably.”
Laurie placed my hand in the crook of his elbow and tugged me into movement. He didn’t bother to acknowledge my warning. “Where are we off to, my queen?”
As I considered the best way to answer, I remembered the distant sheen in Gil’s eyes that day we drank screwdrivers on Adam’s kitchen floor. I heard the broken shame in his voice as he asked, Will you do me a favor? My heart cracked a little more at the thought of what I was about to do, but I’d made a promise, and it felt important that I keep one. Just one.
Laurie was still waiting for my answer.
“We’re going to London,” I said.
England was gray and wet.
Luckily, the shop I put into Google Maps wasn’t far from the Door we’d stepped out of. Laurie and I strolled through the streets as if we were here every day. The pavement gleamed with ice and humans hurried by, most of them putting their heads down against the cold.
I spotted it first, a narrow door on our left covered in faded blue paint. A wooden sign hung over it that simply read, Tattoo.
“Shit. They’re closed,” I said, noting the darkened room through a wide window. Just to be thorough, I tried the door handle. It was locked, of course.
Laurie blinked out of sight, then reappeared inside the shop. He turned the deadbolt—I heard it click—and opened the door for me. “Welcome to my shop,” he said with a brilliant smile. “What kind of tattoo would you like today? The face of the previous Seelie King, perhaps? I hear he has a face of legend.”
“Oh, he does,” I replied, brushing past. “The legend of Hephaestus, to be more specific. It’s said that he was so ugly his own mother pitched him off the highest mountain in Greece.”
Laurie released a long-suffering sigh. Ignoring him, I looked around the place where Gil had spent so much of his time. There were framed images on the brick walls, tattoos that assumably had been done here. The lines were crisp and the coloring solid. Modern light fixtures dangled from the high ceiling. The furniture in the waiting room had a shabby chic look, and the floor was covered in Persian rugs. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but this place fit, I thought. It felt like Gil.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?”
I jumped at the deep, unfamiliar voice that sliced into the quiet. Turning, I jumped again at the sight of a man standing in one of the doorways. He had to be Nicky. Curiosity blazed through me, and I studied Gil’s best friend. He did the same, his sharp eyes bouncing between me and Laurie.
Like most of the people I’d met lately, Nicky was easy on the eyes. He wore a gray newsboy cap, and the brim cast a shadow over his high cheekbones and flawless dark skin, evident even from across the room. A silver hoop curved around one of his nostrils. He wasn’t a Nightmare, but he wasn’t human. His eyes didn’t give anything away—they were an ordinary brown—yet I could sense power around him like an invisible curtain.
That was a detail Gil left out of his little story, I thought, making a mental note to call him later. I hadn’t spoken to the vampire since Finn had collapsed. Did he even know what was going on? What if Belanor had gone after him and Adam? I hadn’t gotten a text from them in a while…
“Are you Nicholas?” I asked, pushing the torrent of worried questions away. Now was not the time.
Nicky’s frown deepened. “Yeah, I am. Look, if you want to make an appointment, you need to call during—”
“I have some news. About Gil,” I added.