“Sure.” I didn’t accept his arm, and my defiance delighted him. I could tell by the quick shine in his eyes and the swipe of his grass-green tongue over his lips. “Were you here for the party a few days ago?”
“Madam ordered us all away,” he pouted. “I heard about it, of course. Pity to have missed it.”
“Yeah.” I recalled the bodies sprawled on the sidewalk. “A real shame.”
“I feel I must warn you, lovely, that there are those among us who keep an eager eye on you.”
“I get that a lot.” Gooseflesh rose down my arms at the implied threat. “Mostly from people trying to kill me.”
“You helped one of us, and now I will help you.”
Aware I couldn’t speak Bishop’s name, I didn’t bother, but I did wonder if that was who he meant.
“I appreciate that.” I scanned for the court he mentioned. “Where did you say Blithe was again?”
The man took me by the hand and whirled me into a quickstep that spun me out the exit onto the street behind the club.
“Don’t come here again, lovely.” A ripple made his outline blur, and then he was the man with long black hair from the blood whorehouse where Linus had instructed me to leave Bishop after we sprung him from the cage the coven put him in. “Next time I might not be the one to spot the wolf among the sheep.”
“I need to speak to Blithe,” I protested, ready to push past him. “You don’t understand—”
“No,” he sighed. “You don’t understand.” He touched his fingers to my forehead. “You will.”
Glittering trails fanned in all directions, entering and exiting the club, streaming down darkened streets and through alleys.
“What am I seeing?” I braced a palm on the building to anchor myself. “What did you do to me?”
“I opened your eyes a crack. Just as I did before.” The curtain of black hair slid over his shoulder. “It won’t last long, only until dawn. I suggest you hunt while you can.”
Wrapping himself in what I now realized was glamour, he returned to his green costume and shut the door.
Ambrose hadn’t moved a muscle since the fae dropped his glamour, and now he studied the air around us. He pointed in one direction and yanked on me through our bond to urge me on.
Despite the fact he had saved my life, thereby saving his, I recognized the danger in accepting help from him.
“One trail,” I warned him. “We’ll see where it goes, and that’s it.”
The shadow leapt and kicked its heels together.
Anything that put him in that good of a mood was bad business, but I didn’t have any other leads. Given recent events, I did apply common sense and text Bishop an update.
Hit Greenleaf. Bumped into your BFF. He gifted me with the ability to see glowing trails leading to goddess knows what to keep me away from Blithe.
The distraction was a good one. Masterful even. He had offered me an opportunity I couldn’t ignore.
>> #@$%*
Just thought I’d let you know.
I pocketed the cell before he found his words and let me have it. Accepting gifts from the fae? Dumb. Really dumb. But the guy hadn’t exactly given me a choice. If I was going to pay for it somewhere down the line, I might as well use it while I had it.
Curious about the trails, I reached out, expecting my hand to pass through the nearest one, but it was solid as twine. I gripped it, yanked on it, and experienced an odd sensation down its length. As if I had tapped someone on the shoulder, and they had turned to look at me.
“On second thought…” I dropped the trail Ambrose had chosen. “Let’s try this one instead.”
Whatever I had disturbed when I touched that particular thread would be on alert. I sensed that much. I didn’t want to bump into it when it was expecting company, whatever it was.
The next trail I kept well away from, and we followed it with care not to tangle in the other threads crisscrossing the streets and buildings. Whatever the fae man had done to me, he had more than opened my eyes. He had altered my perception, made the intangible tangible.
As we gained on the person/thing at the end of the trail, I noticed its glow brightened, and the motes grew less defined, more scattered. As though its past were set, but its future was as yet undetermined.
“This is too weird,” I told Ambrose, and for once he agreed with me.
The trail ended in an abandoned building, the motes diffuse around me, but nothing else moved.
“Well?” I risked the question out loud to Ambrose. “What do you sense?”
Hisses filled the darkened corners, and a clicking noise sent gooseflesh racing down my arms.
That was all the warning the Martian Roach gave me before launching its chitinous body at me.
Two thoughts battled for top billing in my head.
One: Frakking hell, that fae had given me the good stuff.
Two: Frakking hell, I was alone with a pissed-off Martian Roach.
Ambrose glided over to it and ran his hand down its spine.
The creature whipped its head toward him and issued an earsplitting shriek that summoned more motes, enough to turn the blackened ceiling into a starlit sky.
The roach had called for backup, lots of it, but all I had was Ambrose.
The shadow coiled around my shoulders, waiting for my play. I only had one, and we both knew it.
“Drain it.” We needed the specimen, and I had to be alive to call it in. “Don’t kill it.”
I couldn’t put off feeding him forever. Not after the energy he expended saving me during the explosion. That came with its own issues. I might as well get it over with, then worry about draining him to a manageable level.
Given the order, Ambrose dove into the creature, devouring its magic in chomps that filled my stomach with sympathetic pangs. Hungry as he was, he made quick work of it, and the creature went down hard. That was
