This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. He had decided to save her, to protect her—even though those two things went against everything he was supposed to do in his capacity as a Dream Reaper. There was also the conflict with his job as a Drakon to protect the humans from preternatural beings. On the one hand, if she was too powerful then she’d definitely be a threat to the balance of good and evil, thus endangering other humans at some point. But, if she was—as he suspected—a woman with no magical powers, then he was actually harming a human. Something the Drakon didn’t do. The conflicts didn’t matter at the moment because, well, she’d gotten away. Thunder continued to rumble above, but it was no match for the growling sound his beast was making. It moved through his chest like boulders being pushed out of the way, making space for something he didn’t quite understand.
Steele ran a hand down his face and squatted when he saw enforcer vehicles pulling up to the house. This really wasn’t how it worked. He’d been with her as she’d pulled off half a dozen robberies in the past week and never had enforcers shown up, nor had the sky seemed to become as angry as his beast was at this moment.
Yeah. He nodded while watching enforcers get out of their cars and walk into the house, something was definitely wrong about this scene. He just had to figure out what.
And while he was at it, he’d need to get a grip on why this woman was an exception to every rule the Dream Reapers had.
“That’s not a good address.” The driver balked.
Ravyn had just jumped into the backseat and slouched down so she wouldn’t be seen. Her heart was pounding so fast and loud she almost didn’t hear the guy.
“Just drive,” she said between breaths.
“But that’s not a place you wanna be at this time of night,” he insisted. “Nothing’s down that end of town but old abandoned buildings. You can’t possibly want to go there.”
“I said drive!”
Those three words came out in a deeper tone of voice than she’d ever used before and they’d burned her throat on the way. She lowered her forehead to the not-so-fresh-smelling upholstery of the seat and closed her eyes.
What the hell had just happened?
Her hands shook as she lifted them to her chest to press against the slight bulge the sheathed knife created.
Good. It’s still there.
Where else would it be? She’d stolen it from the case where Vertis had said it was being kept. And then she’d had to make a run for it, into the attic and up on the roof where... Why was he there? And why hadn’t he arrested her? Because he wasn’t an enforcer, at least that’s what he’d said. And that made sense, at least a little.
A brisk breeze blew over her cheeks as she looked to the window above her head the moment she heard the whishing sound of the wind. The car was going fast, whizzing by homes and landmarks until they were just a blur. It was a twenty-minute drive from Sodesto to downtown Burgess. She knew the way because she’d taken rides out there several times in the last few months and could probably walk from there to Safeside if she had the time or inclination. So why was she staring out that window as if there was something new for her to see now?
Because there was.
It appeared to be there one minute and gone the next, so she closed her eyes tightly, opening them slowly after a few seconds to try again. After that strange bout of lightning, the moon had appeared and now seemed extra bright. Far, far away, she thought she saw something weaving in and out of clouds. Something that seemed to be following them. What “it” was, she had no clue but she had an eerie feeling that just as she was watching it, it was watching her.
“Lady, I’m not gonna be responsible if something happens to you down here. You meetin’ somebody?”
The driver’s voice snapped her out of what she presumed was a hallucination and Ravyn pushed herself up on the seat.
“That’s none of your business. Just take me to the address I keyed into the database and be on your way.”
If she were any other person, given any other life, she might have felt some measure of gratitude that the guy seemed so concerned for her welfare. But she wasn’t, and hers wasn’t what anyone would call a “normal” life. She’d been born to Ford Walsh, a general in the U.S. military. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her father with a girl child he despised for no other reason than because she was a girl child. Each day of her life Ford had reminded her of his disappointment in her, from the way she chewed her food, to the way she walked and eventually to the way she talked. She’d never been good enough for him. So no, normalcy wasn’t in the cards for her and she was fine with that. Adapting, surviving, overcoming, those were her claims to fame and tonight she’d used them all to make what might be the only score needed to see Safeside through to the spring.
But now somebody, or rather something, was following her.
She turned her head to look out the window on the other side of the car. There was more darkness, more buildings, but
