“They said that? Or allowed you to believe that.”
“But… if he was the enemy, why harbor him?”
“That’s Throe, Xcor’s second in command. He’d been left for dead by his boss—and we were going to be goddamned if he was dying on our watch.”
John took out his cell phone with his free hand and texted quickly, but Layla wasn’t tracking anything. Her lungs were burning, her head swimming, her gut twisting.
“Layla?”
Someone was calling out to her, but the panic that claimed her was the only thing she could connect with. As her heart hammered, and her mouth opened wide for air, a blackness descended upon her—
“Fucking hell, Layla!”
Working the rooftops of Caldwell, Xhex kept on Xcor at a distance, tracking him from alley to alley and district to district as he went up against slayers. From what little she saw, the male was an incredibly efficient fighter, that scythe of his doing some serious fucking work.
Damn shame he was a megalomaniac with delusions of the thronal variety.
At all times, she stayed a minimum of a block away. There was no reason to press her luck and run the risk of his tweaking to the fact that he was being followed. She had a feeling he knew, though. If the way he handled the enemy was any indication, he’d be smart enough to assume that Wrath and the Brotherhood would send emissaries out after him, and it wasn’t like he was in hiding. He was an individual with a pattern within a limited geographic space: He fought in Caldwell. Every fucking night.
Hello.
As snowflakes began to swirl in the air, the male in question moved position, falling into a jog with his right-hand man, Throe, by his side. Staying on them, she dematerialized to another building. And another. And a third. Where were they going? she thought, as they left the fighting sector.…
Half a mile or so later, Xcor paused down at street level, clearly trying to decide between left and right. As Throe came up next to him, angry words were exchanged. Maybe because Throe recognized they were headed in the wrong direction?
While they argued, she glanced at the sky. Checked her watch. Shit. Xcor was going to dematerialize at the end of the night, and that was how she was going to lose him. With her instincts roaming only so far, he was going to get out of range fast when he ghosted away.
But at least she had his grid now. And sooner or later, either he or one of his soldiers was going to get injured and have to be driven out of the city. It was inevitable—and that was how she was going to get them: a scattering of molecules she couldn’t track. But a car, a van, a truck, an SUV—that was her way in. And shit knew they were months overdue for a goddamn injury.
Abruptly, Xcor went on the move again, heading around the building she was up on top of, calling her back into action. With grim intensity, she crunched through the crusted snow of the rooftop, circling with him, jogging by HVAC vents and other mechanicals. When she got to the other side, she—
John Matthew.
Shit, her John was not far. What the hell—
He’d told her he was staying home tonight because he was off rotation.
Who was he out with? Qhuinn had given up his man-whore ways… wrong part of the city for that, anyway. This was the theater district.
Dematerializing to the lip of the building, she looked down. Across the street, at the head of an alleyway, John was standing in the shadows, with Qhuinn and… Layla. Who was up off the ground in the former’s arms, looking like she’d passed out?
Shiiiiit. Lot of drama down there. Big drama—the kind that was threatening to fritz out the Chosen’s emotional grid altogether.
Scattering her molecules, Xhex re-formed in front of John, startling the bunch of them. “Is she okay?”
“Is he on his way?”
Clearly. Whatever had happened here was deep.
“You can put me down now,” Layla said gruffly.
Qhuinn just shook his head and kept holding her up off the snow.
“Look, iAm’s not far.” Xhex took out her cell and flashed it. “Will you let me call him?”
“Yeah, that’d be good,” Qhuinn replied.
As she hit up the Shadow, she stared at John while the phone rang. “Hey, iAm, how’s you? Yup. Uh-huh— how’d you know? Yeah, I need a set of wheels in the theater district, stat.… You are so the man, iAm.” She ended the call. “Done. ETA is less than five minutes.”
“What is it?” Qhuinn said as Layla started to stiffen.
Xhex narrowed her eyes on the Chosen’s face as the female’s grid lit up… with arousal. And shame. And pain.
“He’s here,” the Chosen whispered. “He’s not far at all.”
John and Qhuinn instantly went for their weapons—which was a good trick on the latter’s part, given that he still had Layla up in his arms.
Who the hell was she talking about—
“Xcor,” Xhex breathed as she looked in the same direction the Chosen was focusing on. And then connecting the dots, she thought out loud, “Jesus Christ… Xcor?”
iAm picked that moment to pull up in a BMW X5, and a split second later, he was out and holding the door open.
Qhuinn lunged for the SUV, and Layla didn’t put up any fight as she was shoved in there like an invalid.
“Take the vehicle,” iAm told the males. “Use it as your own.”
After an abrupt thank-you from Qhuinn, there was a brief moment of now-what as John looked at Xhex.
Bracing herself for some male chest thumping, she wanted to curse—
Just like that they hopped into iAm’s SUV and off they went.
“Do you need help?” iAm asked.
“Thanks, but nope,” she murmured as she watched the red brakes flare and then disappear around the far corner. “I got this.”
FIFTY-NINE
Xcor had sensed the Chosen female from blocks away. Drawn to her, he had changed direction and headed toward her—until Throe had gotten in the way and argued with him.
Which had been, in a manner of speaking, a good thing. It meant that the male was staying true to his vow to never see her again.
Xcor, on the other hand, had made no such promise—so he had pressed onward, leaving his soldier in the dust. Fates, but he had spent so many days staring up at the cobwebbed beams above his bunk, wondering where she was, what she was doing. How she was doing.
If the Brotherhood ever found out who she had been of aid to in that field, they would be furious—and Wrath, the Blind King, had long been known to live up to his name. Lo, how Xcor still regretted that his second lieutenant had brought her into this mess. She was guileless, an innocent seeking only to help, and they had made a traitor out of her.
She deserved better.
Indeed, it felt insane to pray for his target’s mercy in her case. But he did. He prayed that Wrath would spare
