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For once, he didn’t dispute it. “I am not jealous, if that is what you are implying.”
“Then why do you have a problem with me being with him?”
“He is using you.”
“We’re using each other.”
“Yes, but his reasons are not what he states. He lies, Risa. I can taste it.”
“If he’s lying, then he’s doing it so well my internal radar isn’t picking it up.”
“He has been earthbound for many, many centuries. Have no doubt that he is well practiced in more than the art of sex.”
That, at least, was something we both agreed on. But it still didn’t mean Lucian was lying to me—or rather, I hoped it didn’t. I swung into the parking lot under the Flinders Street bridge and squeezed into a spot between one of the bridge stanchions and a large four-wheel drive.
I turned off the engine, then faced him. “You can’t have it both ways. Either you and I run the risk of assimilation, or you accept the fact that I will be with others. No more shitty aloofness.”
“The first is not an option, and the second will not be easy.”
“I didn’t think it would be.”
When he didn’t say anything else, I climbed out of the car and headed for the Southern Cross railway station. The building’s undulating roofline gleamed crisply in the bright sunshine and, as ever, reminded me of snow mounds—albeit snow mounds covered in pigeons and pigeon poop. A constant rush of people flowed in and out of the station, and the vast area under the unusual roof was filled with the sounds of chatter, footsteps, whistles, and trains.
I made my way through the interior to the main locker area, my footsteps slowing as I neared the doorway. I flared my nostrils, dragging in the air, and I couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. But I hadn’t the last time I was here, either, and that time two Razan—the human slaves of the Aedh—had been waiting for me.
“Anything?” I asked softly.
Azriel shook his head. “There is no human or non-human life within.”
“Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a trap waiting inside.”
“No.” He paused. “There is no sense of magic, however.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
I considered the doorway for a few seconds longer, then took a deep breath to fortify my nerves and headed in. The locker room was large and the air cool. There were two rows of cream-colored lockers in the center of the room, while more lockers lined the walls. The one I wanted sat about midway along the central locker row. I dug the little key out of my pocket and walked toward them. Trepidation crawled across my skin. Nothing, no one, was here, and yet every sense I had tingled.
My fingers shook as I opened the door. It was a stupid and illogical response given everything I’d survived over the last couple of weeks, but I just couldn’t help it. I feared my father. Feared him more than the Raziq themselves, even though he’d done little more than threaten me and my friends if I didn’t comply with his wishes.
And his threats were nothing compared to what the Raziq had actually done—they’d torn me apart, placed a tracker in the fabric of my heart, and then rebuilt me.
Perhaps that was the problem. I knew what the Raziq were capable of, and I knew what they wanted. Hell, I knew what Azriel, the Mijai, and even the vampire council wanted from me. But my father’s motives were little more than murk. All I could be sure of was that what he said he wanted and what he actually planned were two entirely different things.
It was the not knowing that scared the shit out of me. That, and the intuition that he could be far more dangerous than the Raziq as a whole ever could be.
The locker door swung open, revealing a totally empty interior. No letter, nothing to indicate what he wanted or what I was supposed to do next. It didn’t make sense. Why send me here if he didn’t intend to leave instructions?
“What the fuck is going—”
The rest of the sentence died in my throat, because it suddenly felt like someone had a hand around my heart and was threatening to squeeze the life out of me.
And hot on the heels of that came the awareness of an approaching presence. Only it wasn’t body heat I sensed, wasn’t humanity, but rather the heat of a being that was all energy, all power.>A breeze stirred the air, cooling the early-morning heat but doing little to ease the furnace-like intensity of the man who walked close behind me. Part of me wished I could ignore him, that we could just go back to the time when the attraction was muted and he was more antagonistic. More distant. But there was no way on earth to put that particular genie back in the bottle.
After a moment, I asked, “What did you mean before, when you said I had no idea of the risk we were running?”
“Just that. This attraction breaks all the rules—”
“Your rules, not mine.”
