“Was it?” Another tease.
“You showed up every single night, watching me like some kind of stalker.”
“See, there’s where you’re wrong. I’m notsome kindof anything. If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth going all in on. Otherwise, what’s the bloody point?”
“You’re a little unhinged, aren’t you?”
“Like I said. All in.” Jude runs a hand through his floppy black hair and shrugs. “Does it upset you?”
“Which part? The part where you killed a guy for harassing me and made tiny things out of his bones? The part where you followed me home? The part where you stood outside my window every night for a month? The part where you’ve been hiding in my closet watching me sleep?”
“I told you.” He leans in close, breath stirring my hair. “All. In.”
“No,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper. My heart’s beating so fast, I’m sure he can hear it. “It doesn’t upset me, Jude. Actually, it kind of—”
“I know.”
“What?”
“I knowexactlywhat it does to you.” He breathes in deeply, then lowers his mouth to my ear, his lips brushing the shell. In a hot, dark whisper, he says, “I can smell your delicious little cunt.”
Before I can even draw another breath, he pushes me down on the bed and climbs on top, clawed hands clamped around my wrists as he pins them above my head, his hard body pressing down on me, every muscle and ridge digging into my flesh.
He drags his hot mouth down along my throat, fangs grazing my skin as I shudder beneath him. If I had any doubts about his strength and power before, all of them just shriveled up and blew away.
Jude Hendrix—and every other gargoyle in this house—is an immortal, apex predator.
I am prey.
“Are you certain you’re not afraid of the monster in your closet, little scarecrow?” he whispers.
“I… I’m…”
I close my eyes and try to take a deep breath, but it’s hard to breathe with him on top of me, with my heart about to burst, with my entire body on fire with a sudden, unquenchableneed.
“No,” I finally manage, the certainly in my voice surprising us both.
“How disappointing.” Jude smiles, dark and devious and utterly captivating. Then, in a low and dangerous growl, “Let’s see if we can change your mind, shall we?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
DRAEGAN
The door to Archmage Forsythe’s brownstone on New York’s Upper East Side is as thick and imposing as the man himself, and after I bang on the brass knocker, I’m forced to wait an annoyingly long time before one of his mage-servants finally greets me.
It’s the invitation I’ve been working on for months, and it arrived via text earlier this evening. But I’m harboring no false notions about the nature of the request. Rook picked up the intel last night on one of his many police and federal agency scanners—Lennon Forsythe reported Westlyn as a missing person. And thanks to his money and connections—and a good bit of shadowy hocus-pocus, if my instincts are correct—the Avery case is now a top priority.
If the unmarked agency vehicle parked outside didn’t give it away, the servant’s constant fidgeting and inability to meet my eyes would certainly do it.
I’m being set up.
“Tea, sir?” the servant asks as he leads me into a massive marbled foyer.
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
He leaves me waiting while he disappears down the hall, and I stretch out my gargoyle senses to try to get a better read on the situation.
Voices filter through my awareness from deeper inside the brownstone—two men. One of them is definitely Forsythe. The other?
