I’m reluctant to leave, but I don’t want to upset her. Not when she’s so weak. Besides, I can’t bloody think straight when she’s so close to me.
But sheisclose to me,I remind myself. So, so close. I spent half the night going out of my mind believing she’d slipped through my fingers, and then my fallen scarecrow appeared—quite literally—on my doorstep. A fucking gift, that.
And now that she’s under my roof, I’m not letting her leave.
Drae closes her door and locks her in—can’t risk our new houseguest wandering about and uncovering all our secrets—and we head down to the study. Auggie’s sprawled out on the leather sofa with his feet propped up against the fire grate, glass of whiskey in hand, flames licking his talons. Behind him, Rook’s half sitting on the back of the couch, his tablet screen reflecting in two white squares on his glasses.
Drae heads right for the bar.
“Explain,” he says, his back to me as he seeks out his favorite bottle from the stash. It’s only now that I realize his fucking hands are shaking, his normally dark gray gargoyle coloring pale. “You said you know her. How?”
“Youknowher?” Auggie asks. “Westlyn Avery?”
Westlyn Avery…The name whispers through my mind like a sweet caress, stirring something to life inside me. Something I thought died centuries ago.
“We’re sort of…” I shove a hand through my hair and drop onto the sofa next to him, stretching my wings out behind us. “Look. It’s not a big deal, all right? I met her in the park on my way back from Stella’s Café about a month ago. Caught some arsehole fucking with her—same arsehole I threw out of Stella’s not ten minutes earlier for harassing the barista. I was practically obligated to take care of it.”
“So you chased him down and what?” Auggie laughs. “Decapitated him right there on the street?”
“Don’t be daft—I did no such thing.” Absently, I twist the ring that used to be part of his femur around my pinky. “Not out in the open, leastways.”
Drae whirls around and nails me with another look, like,are you fucking kidding me?
“To be fair,” I tell him, “this happenedbeforeyou instituted the no bloodshed rule.”
“Jude, you can’t just—”
“What’s done is done, leave the past in the past, et cetera, et cetera.” I wave away his concern before he gets on another of his infamous tears. “Right, then. I met her in the park last month. Helped her out of a jam, gave her an almond joy latte, and—”
“Wait.Myalmond joy latte?” Auggie laughs, a new sparkle in his eyes, the fucking sap. “I remember that night. It was your turn to do the coffee run, but you came back to the office empty-handed. You told us Stella’s closed early.” He smacks the back of my head. “Had I known you’d exchanged my drink for a roll in the—”
“We didn’troll,” I say. “We chatted, enjoyed a few laughs, then said our goodbyes.”
“That’s it?” Drae asks, and I nod, thinking it’s probably not the ideal moment to share the whole, I’ve-been-stalking-her-and-jerking-off-outside-her-window bit for now. Not sure they’dquiteunderstand our special connection.
“Fuck,” he says into his glass. “We know nothing about this girl. We’re treading on dangerous ground even bringing her here.”
“What the hell happened, anyway?” I ask. “I thought you were all at the circle-jerk mage wedding of the century.”
“We were.” Drae tosses back the rest of his drink and closes his eyes, cursing under his breath. By the time he looks at me again, I swear the old man’s aged another century. “Westlyn Avery’s the bride, Jude.”
“The fuckingbride?” The very word unleashes a jealous fire that burns through my guts, pushing me back onto my feet. “But she’s barely old enough to—”
“Wasthe bride,” Auggie says, the sparkle in his eyes replaced with some new heat I can’t quite get a read on. “She left the bastard at the altar.”
“Left him at the altar?” I try not to show my absolute thrill at the news.
“Leftis a bit of understatement.” Rook finally tears his attention away from the tablet and sits down in the chair beside us. “She called off the final rites, stabbed him in the throat with a ceremonial athame,thenleft him at the altar.”
“Fucking hell,” I reply, more than a little impressed. “Maybe I should’ve letherdecapitate the guy in the park.”
“Pretty sure demon-slaying is a new pastime for your damsel,” Auggie says.
“Wait…demon?”
Auggie sighs and passes his glass behind him for a refill. Drae tops him off, and for the next several minutes, the three of them take turns filling me in on the disastrous evening—the botched blood ritual, the mysterious ravens, the grand leap from the bell tower—but honestly, I’m barely following. My heart is pounding in my ears, I’m pacing again, and the longer they talk, the more the whole fucking story sounds like an episode of that show with the hot monster-hunting brothers.
The difference is—this episode isn’t getting wrapped up in a neat little bow.
