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“Good eye? That’s all you have to say.”
“You said to put her out of her misery,” she said nonchalantly. “So I did. She wouldn’t have survived, anyway.Thatwas a mercy. Think of it as a getting to know you gesture.”
Confliction pulled in my chest. “What makes you think she’ll take it?”
“She will,” she assured, not elaborating further.
“Psychic?” I asked, knowing of the gift’s sorcerers had that were enhanced.
“Empath,” she corrected. “Like your wife.”
“How do you know—”
“Assume I know everything, and this will go a little easier for us.” She tapped her long, painted nail against her chin, the yellow matching the buttercups in her hair. “Now we are relatively alone,” she said, as we walked down the empty street. “I must warn you to be more careful in the future. It was far too easy to get in touch with you. Even if it was through Azia.”
My eyebrows furrowed as I searched back through Azia and I’s conversation. “I thoughthecontactedyou.”
She shrugged. “Same thing. Look, if you’re attempting to hide, you’re doing a terrible job,” she lectured, my agitation levels rising with each step. “Take better precautions from now on. For your wife’s sake.”
I grabbed her shoulder, squeezing tight. “You better start talking about what you know.”
She rolled her eyes, then touched my fingers, sending a shock through them.
“Touch me again,” she warned. “And I will snap those fingers off.”
Zach grinned to himself, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, grinding my teeth to hold back my emotions. She knew about Olivia, so she may know more about the prophecy. I didn’t trust her, but I couldn’t let her go until I knew what she did. If she was a threat, I decided, I would find a way to get rid of her. I wasn’t taking any prisoners, not when it came to my wife. That included those who might do her harm with their knowledge. I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her. Astor was next on my list once I was sure we extracted every piece of information about Salenia from him.
We reached a narrow road, trash bags piled against walls, the street strewn with litter; the walls splattered with blood. She crept close to the wall, her steps feather light, unaware of my sinister thoughts as we walked around the corner.
“Don’t draw attention to yourselves,” she ordered. “These folks have little to lose. Makes them the most dangerous.”
I glanced at Zach, both of us rolling our eyes as if any of the vampires in the area were an actual threat. I tilted my head at the boarded-up buildings sitting between a few open supply stores, noticing the absence of streetlamps. An eerie sensation crept up my spine as we continued. Something wasn’t right.
Zach met my stare. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of the sword hanging from his belt. We moved closer to the shadows of the wall as hisses and groans echoed through the streets and into our ears, the scent of blood quickly replaced by rotting flesh.
In the distance, bells rang as we fell further from the heart of the city. A low groan resonated as Avyanna slowed her stride and an aniccipere trudged across the road before us. Its beady eyes turned on us, sending a shiver down my spine. Unlike the ones who worked in the theaters and auctions, this one wasn’t as civilized. It was naked, with a chunk of flesh hanging from its teeth. Stillness settled over me as the fog thickened, and a sense of being watched erected the hairs on the back of my neck.
The creature’s appearance reminded me of the ones in the south.
The ones who took Olivia.
TEN
Sebastian
Ipoisedtofight,rage bubbling as everything came rushing back. Avyanna has led us into a fucking trap.
“Don’t,” Avyanna warned as I stepped forward. Zach pulled out his sword. “We are in their neighborhood. They won’t harm us, only the mortals that wander too far. Just don’t antagonize them and keep your heads down.” Zach kept his sword out, earning a glare from the sorceress. “Stop being such a man andlisten.”
He hesitated, then pressed his lips tight until they whitened. I nodded for him to do what she said, aggravated that she held so much leverage.
These aniccipere were not the same ones that took Olivia. I told myself, over and over, to keep my anger inside. But the way these ones moved, watched, sniffed the air even, it reminded me of the southern creatures—more beast than vampire.
She led us down another street, where fog settled around the small houses as aniccipere watched us from the windows, the stench of rotting corpses leaking into the darkening afternoon.
I’d never seen so many at once, except for when I was in the south. Then, we never had much reason to come this far east into the city. A haunting chuckle followed us as we passed the watching eyes of the soul vampires, their eyes glinting as the sun settled lower into the sky.
Avyanna stopped at the front of an old inn, tucked away behind an old seamstress store. She gestured inside, and I followed hesitantly, stepping slowly through the old doorway.
