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I started, “You can just take me home—”
“You think that’s not the first place he’ll look for you?” he interrupted.
“He doesn’t have any real proof I’m a half-blood, though,” I argued weakly.
“If he has your blood, he knows,” Sariel said, confirming what I already knew.
“Maybe I can stay with my famil—”
Sariel stopped walking to turn to me.
“You’re a smart wolf, Aria. Do you think the Council will leave any unturned stones in their quest to find an unregistered half-blood running around America?”
They wouldn’t. I swallowed as he started walking again.
“Where are we going, then?”
“Somewhere safe,” was his clipped response.
For now, I would have to trust him.
6
JOHNNY
Sariel
“I’ve lost my mind.”
This was the excuse I was going to give Johnny when I showed up on his doorstep with the very woman I’d been complaining about for the past three days. I would plead insanity, then let him figure out how the fuck we were going to deal with this.
I glanced over at her in my passenger seat again. She’d fallen asleep sometime between hours four and five on the road, and was currently clutching her little black bag like it was her lifeline. She was facing me with one leg folded beneath her, her pretty mouth parted and her head resting on the back of the seat. She’d twisted with the seatbelt, so she barely jostled as I drove.
The intoxicating scent of spices and warm honey filled the cramped space in the car. Well, it was a newer model four-door mustang, so it wasn’tactuallycramped, but it might as well have been a shoebox with both of us in it. Even if one of us was out like a damn light.
Her scent was like a tangible object; wrapping itself around me, caressing me like a lover’s touch, and sending my nerves haywire.
The hairs on my back stood on end as I drove, my knuckles white from the force of my grip on the steering wheel. The underlying sour scent of fallen-blood wolf still clung to her, but I could barely decipher it from the sticky sweetness of her natural scent. I could feel my little friend stirring in the back of my mind, as well as his satisfaction at having her so close to us. He wanted to douse his feathers in her scent, to peacock around with his wings spread out and smelling of her.
We didn’t often disagree, my bloodthirsty, not-quite-an-angel alter ego and I, no. In most things, we would find an agreement or a compromise. On this, however, I intended to put my foot down.
I didn’t care how he felt about the dark-haired beauty; she was off-fucking-limits. Not only was she a fallen-blood wolf, but she was a mix of both fallen and blessed, making her a walking target. The last thing I needed in my life was more drama.
As if my father wanting me dead wasn’t enough.
Of course, if he told the Council what I was—just as much an abomination as Aria—they’d handle me for him. But Azazel Ambrose’s pride was centuries fucking old, and he’d worked too hard to gain favor with the Grigori and find his seat at the Council to out himself as the father of a being like me. That was why he had attempted to get rid of me himself on several occasions.
One would think that after years of having my existence threatened by all manner of assassins, I would be resigned to my fate at twenty-five. But no. Similar to the Hulk, my “friend” wouldn’t let me die even if I wanted to, and I have. Wanted to die, that is.
Johnny’s house came into view; it was a townhouse on the city's outskirts, small compared to the one he’d Ben raised in. It was in a safe neighborhood dominated by humans, who were none the wiser about the predator living within throwing distance of them.
The garage door was open, so I drove right in and parked next to his truck and bike. The engine dying stirred Aria, where a fresh wave of her scent enveloped me.
The steering wheel creaked beneath my palm as she murmured sleepily and attempted to roll onto her side, causing her to bump into the door. My lips twitched as she came fully awake with a jerk that had the skirt of her dress riding up her thighs.
A flashback of the morning after we met distracted me—her long legs in AMH’s tight white skirt, that fucking ruby lipstick, and those smoky eyes.
She huffed as she tried and failed to tug the dress into place, and the movement dragged me out of my reverie. My entire body twitched with the effort it took not to reach across the center console and keep her hands from doing that nervous fidgeting.
