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She was nothing remarkable that Sirus could tell at first glance.
Average.
Plain.
Gwendolyn Moore. The name he’d seen on a package strewn amongst the cluttered floor of her tiny bedroom.
He’d only broken into her apartment to investigate. An incredibly easy task, given the window to her room had already been cracked open to let in the cool night air.
Sirus had watched her sleep for several minutes, trying to determine why he found her so familiar—to determine why he’d bothered to come up here at all. She was fair and lithe and young. By his estimate, she could be no more than thirty years at most. Her chestnut hair rested over her round cheeks, cascading down her long neck and along a small but prominent line of freckles. A half finger length crescent scar pointing toward her ear split her right brow.
He sensed craft magick from the elder witch below, enchantments of some sort, but there was something different about the magick that lingered around this young woman. Not powerful, just odd. It was more like an aftertaste than a true presence. Sirus let out a slow, irritated breath as he watched Gwendolyn slumber. Whatever her ilk, whatever her magicks, Sirus conceded that his instinct to investigate had been wrong. This woman may have some magick, but he doubted she possessed what he hunted. He only hoped his companion Barith would have some success getting information from the witch who lived downstairs.
Sirus knew he should take his leave when he recognized she was of no real interest, but he found himself lingering. It’d been decades since he’d last seen a woman sleep. He watched the soft rise and fall of her chest. Recognized the small twitches of her eyes as she dreamt. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was dreaming of.
Her soft pink lips parted, and she mumbled something incoherent. He leaned in a touch closer to better hear and caught himself. What did it matter what this woman mumbled in her sleep? What did it matter what she dreamt of?
It didn’t.
The second she suddenly jolted awake, he slipped back into the shadows, out of sight, frustrated with himself that he’d not already gone. Frustrated that he’d gotten mesmerized by something as simple as a sleeping woman.
Sirus coiled the shadows tighter around him. Her tension was palpable and climbing with each of her heavy breaths. When she turned to stare nervously into the darkness, he stilled. Her eyes were the deepest green he’d ever seen. The color of emeralds.
She scanned the space where he lurked. It was a rare few who could sense him mingled in the darkness. He waited, watching her closely. Taking in how her slight body trembled. How her breaths grew more and more shallow. She could not see him, but that didn’t mean she could not sense something.
He could almost taste her fear and took no pleasure in it. He’d known she was going to run before she’d even fully registered it herself. Guilt slithered through him, but he kept still and silent as she scrambled for the door like a spooked rabbit. Not that he blamed her, or anyone, for such a pure, instinctive reaction. He was a vampire. A killer. The monster people feared was lurking in the shadows when they peered into the gaping darkness. She’d been smart to run.
He let her fumble for the door in her panic. It was pointless to stop her. If he showed himself now, it would only scare her more. So he’d wait for her to flee; then he’d leave the way he’d come. Only she stopped short, her shoes squeaking on the wood floor, her hand frozen just above the doorknob.
Sirus narrowed his gaze as she turned slowly, trembling, breath ragged, and peered once more into the darkness where he skulked, those green eyes glimmering in the pale light. The moment they found his amongst the shadows, a jolt spread through his bones, her sharp inhale stirring something in his blood.
She’d seen him.
He shifted silently, to be sure. Her eyes followed, and he could barely believe it. She could see him. Not only that, she wasn’t running. It had been many, many years since raw curiosity got the better of him. Sirus let the shadows coiled around him fall away, and he stepped into the light, testing to see how she would react. “Hello, Gwendolyn,” he greeted her.
He expected she might try to run again, or scream, or faint. Instead, her emerald eyes went wide, and she looked at him as if he were a ghost come to life.
“You,” she whispered on an exhale.
With that one little word, Sirus’s curiosity was drowned by a deep sense of foreboding. Then he felt pain.
The ancient marks of protection tattooed over his body seared with warning, sharply drawing his attention. Sirus lunged forward and snatched her to him as the door to her apartment was blown apart by magick. He pinned her against the wall, shielding her slim body from flying debris. She shrieked, cowering beneath him. He couldn’t help noticing that she smelled of lilies.
She tilted her head up to look into his face, her green eyes full of fear and confusion. A flare of magick caressed the edges of her irises. Sirus felt that prickle of power skitter over his skin and fought the impulse to shudder. The sensation was unspeakably pleasant—and wholly unwelcome.
“Back away!” the zephyr paladin seethed.
Sirus drew in the darkness, pushing away the warmth of her body, the smell of lilies, the way her strange magick made his blood hum with awareness, and let the familiar grip of cold, clear purpose seep into him.
He pushed the woman none too delicately behind one of the two chairs in the sparsely furnished room. “Stay down,” he ordered, turning to the task at hand. Blades hissed across their leather scabbards as he unsheathed the two curved shamshirs strapped across his back.
The High Priestess’s paladin stood in the destroyed doorway. He looked much like Marcus. Tall and broad, with short blond hair and sun-kissed skin, but he was dressed to blend into the city. A jacket, T-shirt, and jeans. The paladin’s pale blue eyes glowed faintly with magick as he held his sword at the ready. His white feathered wings, a rare trait of some zephyr highborns, were tucked tightly at his back.
Marcus’s information had been correct. The High Priestess’s paladins were in New York City. They’d tried to keep their movements unseen, but they hadn’t escaped Sirus’s notice. The shadows were his domain, after all. Clearly they too had learned of the elder witch who lived here and had come to get what information they could. Or perhaps she was who he’d been hunting for all along.
The zephyr stood alone. Sent, no doubt, to take him on while more raided the witch’s apartment downstairs. They’d be dealt a rude awakening when they found Barith there waiting for them. It had been clever magick to use a concealment charm to sneak into the building.
A sharp pang of visceral hunger struck deep within Sirus as the remnants of the young paladin’s charm wore off. The pure hunger he felt every time he squared off against an opponent. Every time there was a chance to taste blood with honor. Blood drawn in combat.
