She was gone, but she was alive.
Steele told himself that was all that mattered. Her heart still beat, he could tell because he hadn’t felt that cold slice that sifted through his soul each time a being he’d dreamed of dying had succumbed to the Reaper’s quest. He entered his hotel room and lay down on his bed, welcoming the warmth that immediately filled him. The beast was awake even as the man sought rest. It moved throughout the human body with slow precision, reminding each limb, every vein and the steady stream of blood to whom it really belonged.
As long as he’d lived, Steele’s beast had never lain dormant. He’d always allowed it freedom on his command. Tonight, once the woman had run so far that Steele could no longer see her, the beast had ripped free, taking to the sky to track her. In those moments he hadn’t been able to control the beast and that worried him. Every second the beast’s eyes were on the car she was in, it breathed easier, and the moment it knew she was in the same area she went to each night, it relaxed, finally heeding Steele’s command and bringing him back to the hotel, where he’d had to use his strength to kick down a door to a service entrance. He used dream dust on the two laundry room workers so he could grab a kitchen uniform to wear. A six-foot-three-inch black man with locks hanging to his shoulders walking naked through the hotel was sure to cause a commotion.
The fury between man and his beast at the moment was at an all-time high and couldn’t be ignored. All Drakon controlled the beast within them, and some were even able to hold their beast at bay for hundreds of years—Theo had done that for the first three hundred years he’d been on the Human Realm. Steele, on the other hand, had always been one with his beast, though he gave it a wide berth whenever possible, even after his clan had moved from the Far Realm to the Yorubaland area of the Human Realm. His beast had space to grow and flourish on both realms, even to the point of entering battle—the battle which had cost his sister her life.
“Fuck!” he yelled when he was closed in the room, alone. What was he supposed to do now?
All his life, Steele had been proud of who and what he was. Until tonight, when he’d stood close to that woman, staring into those enigmatic eyes and watching her lips move as she questioned him. In those moments Steele wished he were anything other than the one tasked with leading her to the Reaper. Should he attribute his insubordinate decision to keep her safe to his beast and the way it acted as if it would do anything—even disobey Steele’s commands—for her? That thought made him queasy, even as his beast moved, rubbing along his muscles as if it were proving its point. Steele scrubbed his hands down his face and hoped that wasn’t the case. He prayed his beast wasn’t interfering, not this time. And if it was, he wanted to run as far away from that scenario as possible. Only, leaving her wasn’t an option, because the thought of her dying was more than he could bear. More than he was willing to accept, again.
Chapter Four
Her hands shook and she swallowed back the wave of nausea that rippled through her for the billionth time today. It had been almost a week, dammit, she should be feeling better by now. But no, sweat still dotted her brow, shivers still shook her body and she couldn’t hold down any food or drink. Only stubbornness, resilience and the knowledge that she needed to hurry up and get rid of this knife had brought her out late Thursday afternoon before the pawnshop could close.
“What you got for me today, Ravyn?” Happy Winters rubbed his hands together as he waited behind the counter to see what Ravyn was going to pull out of her bag.
She’d been going to Happy for years, exchanging her stolen goods for cash that went to building and maintaining Safeside. He was a trusted counterpart and they enjoyed doing business together.
“Here,” she said when she was finally able to pull her hand free of the backpack she’d been carrying. She’d wrapped the knife in a wad of dark green material and now slapped it onto the counter with a loud thud. Not on purpose, but because her arm felt so heavy she’d needed to hurry and put it down.
“You okay there?” Happy asked with a lift of his bushy white brows. The hair was a stark contrast to the deep terra-cotta hue of his skin.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she muttered. “How much can you give me for it? Word on the street is it’s worth at least half a million.”
“Whoa.” Happy was already shaking his head even though he hadn’t finished unwrapping the material from the knife. “You know I don’t carry that type of cash. But let’s take a look-see, and then we’ll go from there.”
She did know and she wasn’t actually expecting him to give her that amount of money, but she wanted him to know she was well aware of what was in her possession.
“Hmmmm,” he said when he finally had the knife uncovered. He didn’t touch it but ducked down behind the counter for a few moments before rising with a book in his hand.
Happy had books stacked all over this place—kind of like
