Immediately, I was surrounded by the scents and sounds of the past, all of it so unfamiliar. The scents were intense—perfumes that had fallen out of favor and strong liquor and wine. The dialect was possible to understand, though difficult.
I drew in a steady breath and approached Grey’s table.
The Devil.
I shouldn’t think of him as Grey, because he wasn’t.
As I neared his table, his gaze landed on me. It was cold—icily so.
Immediately, I was thrown back to when I’d met him for the first time in Guild City. He’d reminded me of a statue carved of the coldest granite. His eyes were an icy gray, his cheekbones sharp, and his jaw hard. As with before, the only soft thing about him was his lips, and even those looked like they would bruise.
He sprawled elegantly in a chair behind the table, so perfectly still that it was eerie. I shouldn’t be processing him anew, like I was seeing him for the first time, but I was.
The Grey that I knew today was an entirely different man.
But this man…
He was dangerous. Deadly.
God, how he’d changed. At least around me. I was sure the rest of Guild City still knew him as this quiet, deadly predator. But I’d almost forgotten what he’d been like when we’d first met.
His dark eyebrows arched up, curiosity in his eyes. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. It was a summons. A command.
I stepped forward, my heart thundering.
He had no idea who I was. Who I was to him.
It would be centuries yet before I would meet him.
I drew in a steady breath and ascended the stairs to the raised platform upon which he sat.
“Madam.” His voice was as cold as his eyes. “You dare much to approach my table without an introduction.”
I smiled. “You’ve no idea what I would dare.”
Interest flickered in his eyes. “Your accent. It is unusual. Foreign.”
Foreign to this time, not this place. I was pure London, circa 2020. But I couldn’t tell him that. So I merely inclined my head. Without asking, I took the seat across from him.
The slightest smile threatened to tug at his mouth, but he kept it suppressed. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I were meeting him for the first time, but I’d grown used to his quirks.
“Well?” he asked.
I gave a slight shrug, attempting to force my face into bored lines. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you. Privately.”
His eyebrows rose again. “Really?”
“Indeed.” I smiled. “It is in regard to Petra.”
That time, he did nothing to disguise his naked curiosity. “How do you know of that?”
Because you told me.
Petra was a dangerous but valuable business venture from this century that Grey had remembered, an irresistible lure to the Devil that I knew next to nothing about.
“I’ll discuss it in your chambers.” I stood, my heartbeat thundering beneath his gaze, and prayed he couldn’t hear it.
“You are nervous.” His gaze dropped to my chest, but he wasn’t leering. He was look at the heart that beat so frantically. “Your heart is going wild.”
Damn it.
“You’d be nervous, too, if you knew what I knew.” I waved my hand, gesturing for him to follow. “Come. We will discuss it.”
He stood, his chair scraping backward quietly. “How do you know that I will follow?”
I looked back at him and smiled, hoping it was mysterious. Confident. “But of course you will.”
I descended the stairs, praying.
When I reached the ground below, I felt his presence at my side. I hurried forward, trying to keep him from touching me.
I wanted him. I couldn’t help it. He was Grey, in a sense.
And yet he wasn't, and it felt disloyal.
Fortunately, he was polite, though that didn’t stop him from leaning down and whispering against my ear, “How do you know where my chambers are?”
I shivered at the feeling of his warm breath, heat flushing through me. “I have my ways.”
I strode through the club, and the patrons parted like water to let me pass. It was so unlike when I’d had to push my way through the crowd, and I knew that I had the Devil at my back to thank for that.
We reached the exit of the club and slipped out into the quiet hall. I started down the hall, the Devil at my side.
Tension tightened the air between us.
“How do I know I can I trust you?” His voice murmured low.
“Does it matter?” I looked up at him, smiling. “You are stronger.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged lightly, his gaze moving over me. It flared with heat. “But I’ve learned not to underestimate others. Particularly women.”
We reached the door to his flat. It was time. I was going to touch him. To seduce him—at least a little. It was part of the plan.
My heart raced.
I pushed him against the door, my gaze on his lips. Heat flared, an atom bomb of attraction exploding in the space between us.
“It’s wise not to underestimate me.” I looked at his lips, leaning up slowly.
His hands came to my waist, gripping firmly. I shivered at the familiar touch.
Before my lips could reach his, the door behind him opened. I caught sight of my Grey standing behind him. He reached up with a cloth and pressed it over the other’s mouth, pulling him back into the room.
Briefly, he struggled, but the potion soaking the cloth was enough to knock him out for days. He collapsed against Grey, who dragged him inside. I followed, shutting the door behind me.
The interior of the flat was quite different than I remembered. The same massive window revealed a view of a windswept desert, and the bookshelves were still there, but the furniture was older and more staid, fussier than the Grey I knew. But then, everything during this time period had been fussier.
“Where will you put him?” I asked. The potion was supposed to last for at least two days, and he’d wake with little memory of the preceding hours.
“In the second bedroom.” He heaved the body into his arms and strode in that direction.
I followed him.
Grey delivered the body to the smaller bed, then stared at the younger man for a moment too long.
“Weird to see yourself like this, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It is. But…that’s not what’s so strange.” He looked down at me. “I remember this now. Waking up in this bed chamber, confused about why I was here. And realizing that two days had passed.”
“What?” My heart raced. “Really?”
He nodded. “I’d forgotten it along the years, chalking it up to an excess of drink, though that was never my inclination. But now that I stand here and witness myself lying in this bed, I remember it.”
“That’s wild.” We had proof that we were integrated into the past. “Does that mean we succeeded when we were here?”
“I do not know, unfortunately.”
I nodded. We’d just have to continue forth and pray this worked. With one last look at the prone body of the former Grey, I left the room, passing Grey’s usual bedroom and spotting an enormous bed draped in heavy fabric. The large window still provided a magical view of the snow-covered mountains of Carpathia, but like the rest of the flat, the decor was massively different.