Page 5

“We know, Luther…” She rubs her thighs as if she’s trying to warm up, even though it’s not cold.

“Know what?” I force the words out, but the congealed dread in my stomach tells me exactly what she knows.

“We know what you did to the people who killed your family.”

My entire body stiffens. Her words, like a shard of ice, cut through the heat in my veins and leave my shivering. No one knows. Only Mack and Kole.

“We’ve always known,” she breathes. “And now we’re calling in our favor.”

I stare at my hands. The fireball fizzles out then comes back to life along with a flurry of indignation. “You mean you’re blackmailing me.” I drop the fireball to the ground and allow it to surge between us. The flames flicker bright white, then blue, then green.

“I’m asking you to use the skills you used then… when you tortured that poor defenceless human, and made her tell you where to find the gang who killed your family.”

Memories pummel their ugly fists against the inside of my skull. I refuse to let them in. Not now. Not after all this time. “She was not defenceless. She was one of them.”

“You tortured her. Lucinda? Was that her name? You left her looking like a corpse, and yet she was still alive. She survived in the burns unit for three long painful months before her body finally gave up on her. Enough time for you to seek out the others and⁠—”

“Enough.” I stand up. As I speak, the flames reach higher and the heat swells. “If I say no?”

Annalise does not stand, just looks up at me with wide eyes. Is she sorry for what she’s doing? If she is, I can’t see it in her face. So much for being friends.

“If you say no,” she sighs, “there’s a jail cell waiting with your name on it.”

3

LUCIEN

His blood – the viking’s – surges through me like white hot glass, searing the inside of my veins. It has been a long time since I tasted mage blood, let alone one as powerful as him. And, if the story is true, it’s not just his blood I’ve tasted; the Fire Bird’s blood lives inside him.

I licked her remnants from his skin, and then I drank from him.

Which means Nova is in me, too.

I haven’t run this fast in years. Through the museum, to the fire escape, and up onto the roof.

The sun is setting. I stalk the shadows, my entire body twitching with the urge to be free. To fill the streets with my darkness and my power.

It’s an urge I have learned to keep under control. Over many, many centuries I have tamed this side of myself. Caged it. Beaten it into submission because the only way I could hope to keep control over this hell-damned city and its wretched inhabitants was to be above them. More than them.

Zephyra likes to think she took the opposite path, but even she does not indulge the base impulses that once ruled her.

She wants power, and to outlive the humans that taint our existence. And she knows the only way to achieve that is to be smarter than them.

Unlike me, however, she has let her lust for pleasure sully her ambition.

I stalk toward the parapet and lean forward, bracing my hands on the cold, slick stone. Remnants of the day’s rain still cling to it, and sit in shallow puddles on the flat roof of the museum.

I pull my shirt closed and fasten the buttons. As soon as the sun goes down, I won’t be able to stop myself.

I will go to her.

I know I will.

Luna.

The woman who drives me crazy, who occupies every waking thought even when I try to lock her in the shadows of my mind.

I have watched her for so long now, I can barely remember what it was like not to know her. All that time, I’ve controlled the urge to speak to her. To breathe the same air as her. To look directly into her eyes.