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“No. And you have a problem.” He nodded toward the pile in my hand. “Any more notes?”
I flipped through it, found the usual advertisements and garbage. “Nothing,” I said, but that didn’t make me feel better. The stalker might not have found Connor’s town house, but he knew we weren’t staying here. He’d been watching.
Goose bumps lifted on my arms, and I shook the fear away, put down the mail. Fear was what he wanted, and I wasn’t going to give him that victory.
“Good girl,” Connor said, trailing his fingers over my hair, as if he’d understood my silent battle and the result of it.
His screen buzzed, and he pulled it out. “Damn it. Fight broke out in the bar.”
“As they do,” I said.
“Yeah, but this time two humans were hurt, and they’re threatening to sue the shifters they fought with. I need to make a call, and it’s likely to get loud and magicky. I better step outside.” He glanced at me, frowning. “Will you be okay in here by yourself?”
I dumped old water in the sink, turned on the tap. “Alone in my empty apartment? Yes. I’m pretty sure I can handle that difficult assignment.”
“I’ll just be outside.” He came toward me, covered my mouth with his, left me little doubt of the extent of his affection, his concern. “Be careful. Or I’ll mete out the punishment.”
I heard the door close, replaced the water dish, filled the cat food.
And wondered that Eleanor of Aquitaine didn’t come running. Fresh food, even if not the delicately sautéed line-caught Atlantic salmon she preferred, was a beckoning she rarely ignored. Probably still pissed.
Still. It was weird. I walked back into the loft, looked around. The cat had disappeared. “Eleanor of Aquitaine?”
I didn’t know there’d been magic until it was gone; I didn’t know I hadn’t been alone until I heard the voice at my ear.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Elisa.”
And then the world wentdark.
NINETEEN
I felt pain before I could hear, before I could see. Then tried to move, to shift against new pains, and realized I couldn’t.
I blinked my eyes open, vision blurry from the strike, and knew from the ringing pain that radiated down my back, my arm, that he’d struck my neck. Hit the vagus nerve, probably, and I’d gone down. I was still in the loft, sitting in a chair, shoulders pulled back, hands bound behind me with what felt like fabric. The room spun, and I shook my head to clear it, used the fingers of one hand to pinch the other. The bright pain helped clear the fuzziness away.
“You’re awake.”
I looked up at the man who stood in front of me, stared at his face until it resolved from blurs to features. Pale skin, blond hair, black fatigues, and a hunting knife gleaming in the glow of streetlights through the windows.
Levi.
I was tied to a chair in the loft with my stalker.
My shoulder ached anew from being dragged behind me, and I clung to it, used it as fuel. I had to focus, because I had only a moment to decide what to do, how to play this. I opted for sympathy, hoping he was just crazed enough to buy it.
“Levi?” I asked and blinked my eyes a few times. “I’m sorry, I’m dizzy. I didn’t know you were here.”
Brown eyes smiled beneath blond hair that was shaggier than he’d worn it before. “It’s my particular version of glamour. I’m rather good at it.”
So he’d been hiding in plain sight. Connor and I had expected the loft to be empty, so a little glamour just made us think we were right. Pushed us just enough. He’d watched me talk to Connor, watched me feed the cat, until it was time to reveal himself.
“Connor will be back... in a minute,” I said slowly, as if still unable to focus.
“The dog will have his own problems,” Levi said. And the fear that slid through me was a cold and silver thread. “And you really, really need to stop thinking about him, Elisa.” The words were tight, pinched off, angry.
He started pacing, and I glanced down, around, looking for something to use. The weapon I needed—that gleaming knife—was in his hand. But that wasn’t going to happen, so I rubbed my wrists together, trying to scrunch up the fabric enough to get a hand free. Keep him talking, I thought, and figure out a way to get free.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean I wanted him here. I just wanted you to know that he’d be back. He’ll come looking. So you have to be careful.”
