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“You sure about that?” Hazel asked as the ground shook like an earthquake had hit. The walls around us vibrated, sending clumps of pebbles and dust down like mini avalanches. Jensen searched around, fear in her—my eyes.

“What the fuck did you do?” she asked.

The answer came with a resounding crash as the wall to our left burst open in an explosion of stone that sent the kitsune to her ass. The head of an enormous black dragon poked inside the hole, nostrils flaring on its serpentine head.

“Good boy, Karma!” I whooped.

Jensen’s eyes—my eyes—widened as she took in the sudden intruder. Her aura spiked orange and reached out toward the shining golden aura surrounding Hazel’s familiar. It was exactly what I’d seen happen outside of the pub when she’d run into Carmichael. She’d been collecting his information with her aura so she could become him later. Another clue I’d misinterpreted.

Well, I wouldn’t do that twice. “She’s going to shift into a dragon too!” I yelled, attracting all attention to me.

“Stop now or you’re toast,” Hazel said. “Literally.”

“Fuck you.” Evil me began to pop and bubble as she had when she’d morphed earlier.

But before she could shift, Karma let loose a torrid of flame directly onto the kitsune. She shrieked as she went up, disintegrating before our eyes. It was like watching my own death. Yet it wasn’t mine. I breathed with relief, head stuck between my knees until I felt the blast of heat fade. Then a soft, small head popped in between my feet. Karma was a flop-eared bunny once again, and clearly delighted with himself.

“We cheated, kind of,” Hazel said, scooping up Karma and cuddling him. “I figured dragons are apex predators for just about anything.”

“It works.” Daphne shrugged then grinned at the hole in the wall like it was the best thing she’d seen all month. “The general is not going to like that.”

Chapter 14

Who the Hell is Annette?

Hazel’s unseelie connection and torture machine supplier, Fazz, it turned out, had shown up ten minutes earlier. While Hazel had worked on the elevator and I had been communing with Julian, Daphne had contacted him through fae channels. But Gladys had held him at the front desk somehow. I didn’t ask. When we managed to convince her to let him come up, he eyed the mess with large bulging eyes, something like a toad, and held his pug-like nose, sensitive to the scent of burned flesh. He looked like a distant cousin of Tittwell. Goblin, perhaps?

“How do we release someone from these?” I demanded, using my ability so I didn’t have to waste time bargaining with another fae or delaying until the general tried to stop me.

“You have to kill him first.”

I didn’t like that answer, and it must’ve shone on my face because the small man stepped back into the rock and swallowed hard. “I don’t mean permanently. Just make his heart stop beating then you can remove the wires.”

“You’re lucky he’s a vampire, and I’m hoping it won’t hurt him,” I said. “But stick around, because if he needs to kill something after, well, you don’t seem to give a fuck about what that machine does.”

Daphne and Hazel flanked him so he couldn’t run and herded him toward the cell where Julian still lay like a corpse that only I could see. Had it felt like lifetimes for him already? The thought brought a pang to my chest as I rushed to his side.

“We have to stop his heart,” I said, examining him as Daphne and Hazel approached, Karma now a cat in her arms.

“Vampires inhale about every twenty seconds,” I continued, spewing what I knew about vampires from my research. Maybe if I made this feel professional, my own heart wouldn’t hurt as much, and my hands would stop shaking. “His heart beats, but so slowly it’s unnoticeable unless he’s just fed.”

That was a mistake. The memory of him feeding on me—of us pressed against the wall, him inside of me, the incredible sensations… I licked my lips. “We have to stop it temporarily. Ideas?”

“I can do it,” Hazel offered, her lightening fingers raised.

I nodded my consent and watched as she closed her eyes and, without looking, laid her palm over his chest, making his body jolt in the restraints. Sucking in my own breath, I waited as she remained still for about thirty seconds then nodded.

Reaching up, I took hold of the wires and yanked them from his head. The second they were out, Hazel did the same move again, and when he jerked, his eyes fluttered.

“Oh, thank the gods,” I said, hand to my chest. But even as I reached to release his bonds, he broke through them like they were made of crepe paper and sat up.

“It’s Jensen,” he announced, gaze darting around as though afraid she would pop up.

“She’s dead,” I told him, setting a hand on his to calm him down. “We have witnesses to her admission of guilt and to her shifting abilities.”

Julian smiled at me, eyes meeting and holding mine like deep indigo orbs, lighter than his normal shade somehow, but still darkened with years of pain and hardness compared to those I’d seen on his human self. “Thank you, Charlotte.”

I nodded since my throat was too thick to speak. But tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes as it all came crashing down over me. When I’d offered to cure him—to make him human again—he said he would never be that man again. I think I finally understood what he meant. In the past, I’d seen his human self, full of enthusiasm and the optimism of youth. Centuries of time and who-knows-what horrors had stolen that from him as much as his actual transition to vampire.