Suddenly, I want nothing more than to save this girl from whatever cruelties fate has bestowed upon her.
No, I won’t let her jump. And no, I won’t let the Archmage have her, either.
The door bangs open again.
The girl grabs my arm, a new ferocity in her eyes. “Help me.Please.”
Augustine bursts into the chamber. “Drae! Get her out of here. They’re coming.”
Fuck.
“Hold tight and don’t look down.” It’s all the warning I can offer before I grab her and leap from the balustrade. She opens her mouth to scream, but before the sound escapes, I drop my human glamour and reveal my true form, a massive winged beast come to life before her eyes. My wings catch the current and we sail upward, higher and higher until we finally punch through the cloud cover and level off.
Augustine is right on my tail.
“Were you seen?” I ask.
“No. I jumped right before they breached the tower.”
“The guests below?”
“Too busy with the birds.”
“Good. Rook?”
“He’ll meet us en route.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I tell the girl. But when I try to look into her eyes, I find she’s already passed out cold.
Chapter Eleven
JUDE
The boys still aren’t home, and despite the copious amounts of witchweed I’ve polluted my lungs with tonight, I’m a right fucking mess. My hands won’t stop shaking, my heart’s fluttering like a cracked-out hummingbird, and I’m pretty sure I’m pacing a trench in the hardwood floors of Blackmoor Manor. I don’t even have the strength to bother with my human glamour. My talons are probably gouging the fuck out of the finish, but I’ve got bigger problems to worry about than Draegan’s lectures on the cost of his endless restoration projects.
Fuck.
Her window was black tonight, is the thing.
The entire fucking brownstone was black. I waited out there with the gift I made just for her—waited for a bloodyeternity—but my little scarecrow was a no-show.
She’s never done that before. Not once. Every night for the entire fucking month that I’ve been visiting her, playing our little game, she’s been right there waiting for me. Fucking clockwork—even more reliable than the D train.
Until tonight.
No girl. No fucking crows. Nothing. I did a flyby over her neighborhood, block by block. I went back to the park where we first met. Back to the brownstone after that, but no dice.
She’s just fucking gone, and I can’t stop thinking something terrible has happened and I can’t even distract myself with a good bludgeoning anymore without Drae getting his balls in a twist and I swear to the fuckingdevilI’m about five seconds from—
“Still unconscious,” someone says just outside the front door. “Likely in shock.”
I stalk back across the foyer and wrench the door open.
And my jaw damn near hits the floor at the sight.
Auggie. Rook. Drae. All of them in gargoyle form, their wings dripping with rain.
And there, limp as a rag doll in Drae’s arms, is my girl. The hem of her black dress is in torn, makeup smeared across her face. One shoe dangles precariously from a toe, its mate already gone, and her left hand is wrapped in a torn shirtsleeve soaked with blood.
