* * *
I wastedno time traveling up the Strip. Ms. West couldn’t sit on her heels, so I sent her to check security footage of anyone who may have been following us. Though Timothy and I knew I was going to the only person who could help.
I pushed the door open to the cat café and bookstore. The smell of fresh coffee, pastries, and new books curled in the air. Tabbies, Siamese, and black cats roamed free throughout the shop. One skittered to avoid my heavy foot falls. Most of the felines had squeezed themselves in the shelves on top of the books. They watched me pass by with lidded eyes. I strode to the back of the café where large windows overlooked the hotel pool below. A woman was curled in an oversized Tiffany-blue chair with a book and a glass of red wine.
“Why Anu,” the dark-haired woman said with open surprise. “What are you doing here?” She rose with fluid elegance from her cozy spot, setting aside the wine. A cat jumped from her lap with a discontented meow as she stood. One feline lay along the back of the chair while four more were sprawled nearby. I worked to keep my lip from curling. I never cared for cats.
“I need your help, Bast.”
Bast went by the name Galina now, but when I called her by her old moniker, her eyes glowed bright green for a second. I had her full attention.
A line formed between Galina’s eyebrows as she took in my bloody, disheveled state. Galina was tall, elegant, and lithe. Black wavy hair was cut above her shoulders. She wore designer yoga pants and a large white sweater that was miraculously free of cat hair.
Feeling the slip of time through my fingers, I had no time to ease her into things. “There are sekhors in our city. I was using one of them as bait to lure out the master vampire when he managed to grab her and take her back to his hideaway. She was my only lead. My reapers cannot track sekhors, but your servants can.”
Galina’s mouth hung open, gobsmacked. A finger still held her place in the hardback she’d been reading. When she recovered, she grabbed a bookmark on the table next to her and slipped it into the book and set it down. “Really, Anu, we don’t call them servants anymore. They are my envoys.” The cat who’d jumped off her lap sat near my feet. It stuck a leg straight up and began to lick its privates.Lovely.
“I need your help, Galina,” I urged.
Galina slipped an arm through mine. “Tell me everything. How did you discover the presence of the sekhors?”
“We have no time, Galina.” I closed my fists, wanting to punch a hole through time and space to get to wherever Vivien was.
Giving me an even look, Galina was thoughtful for a moment. “Do the others know about this?”
“Only Timothy and Bianca. Fallon is aware I am taking care of the situation.”
Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “You should have come to me sooner.” She made a pss pss pss sound. All the cats straightened, looking at her. A couple gracefully leaped from their shelves and walked to her feet, giving her their full attention.
I didn’t explain that I’d intended to take care of the situation quickly and quietly. That alerting the others would create a panic, and gods did not deal well with fear. The aftermath usually left a scorched trail in the earth.
Pupils thinning into slits, her eyes appeared cat-like as they glowed green. Within moments, the cats all dispersed, off to find Vivien. I could only hope they would find her and Jamal in time. Otherwise this world would suffer my wrath.
28
Someone pulled the bag off my head, leaving my hair a wild, staticky mess. I couldn’t smooth it back down or away from my face as my hands were currently shackled to the chair I was in. Cold metal bit into my wrists and ankles. The smell of crushed concrete and fresh-cut metal filled my nose, making me want to sneeze.
Blinking against the bright light in my face, I couldn’t see past the flood light, but I recognized the scent. We were in the tunnels under the Vegas Strip.
I fought the panic rising up in my chest.
For one day, I’d stayed down in the notorious tunnels before realizing my mistake. There was an abundance of homeless people squatting under the Strip.
When the blood lust hit me, the need to hunt had struck me as hard as when the master stoked it in me. It wasn’t just the blood of transients calling to me, I wanted to stalk them in the darkness, maybe let them run a bit before I caught them and drained them. The prospect sent thrills through my entire being. A part of me had whispered,This is your new nature. Don’t fight it. Hunt, drink, kill.
But I fought it. Fought it hard. I was ready to walk into sunlight before I let my impulses take over.
I’d somehow gotten a hold of myself enough to run to a remote end of the tunnels, far away from any and all persons. I’d been a miserable, hungry, shivering mass, waiting it out until the sun set so I could escape to a more secluded hideaway. The sewers I’d found were not nearly as comfortable as these tunnels, and they sure as hell didn’t smell pleasant. But there were no people I could endanger.
But I had endangered Grim. Last I’d seen, he was fighting off the sekhors as best he could. Even with his supernatural strength, they were overwhelming him. Death and violence surrounded him in a black cloud as he fought back. But even a mass of army ants can overtake an elephant. Blood had seeped through his clothes as the vampires latched on like leeches.
Right before I was nabbed, Grim’s gold eyes met mine and they flashed with fear and alarm. In that moment, I knew with certainty his concern went beyond keeping me around as a meat snack. Longing and need stretched between us like a physical tether. That is, until I was wrapped up like a sausage and carried away. Grim didn’t want anything to happen to me, despite the fact he claimed he’d have to kill me once I’d served my purpose.
My throat tightened with deep longing and the need to know he was okay. I knew he was an immortal god, but the way those sekhors tore into him…they intended to take him apart. My un-beating heart clenched at the thought they could hurt or possibly kill him.
I wanted to be with him so badly, right now. I’d let him judge my outfit, look down his nose at me and I’d poke fun at his perpetual glower. He could even parade me around in an old-timey dress decked out in frills if that’s what he wanted. Anything as long as I knew he was okay.
The reality that I’d caught feels for Death and that Death had caught feels for me was so wrong…and yet, so right.
