Ava checked her work e-mail for the first time in weeks. Mostly junk, but there were thirty messages from her usual clients. A dozen or so from magazines she’d worked with occasionally. And another from an online publication she’d been considering approaching on her own. She liked their subscription numbers, and one of their regular photographers had won several prestigious awards last year. Things were moving online, and she didn’t want to be left behind.
A few months ago, she’d considered leaving her human job behind and following Malachi around the world. She didn’t know what they would do, but they’d be together. That dream was over. She’d have to find another. And with the knowledge she’d been learning from Orsala, the skills she’d learned from Mala, with a little preparation and a lot of caution, Ava thought she could probably have her old life back. At least a little bit. After all, what else was she going to do? Hunt the Grigori who had killed her mate? The attack in Bergen had shown her the foolishness of that. Join some war she didn’t understand for a race of people she barely belonged to? She had no ties here. No family.
She’d been living in a dream world in more ways than one. That wasn’t real life.
She needed her cameras, her computers, and an assignment that took her far, far away. Maybe going back to Antarctica was an option. The Galapagos. The Brazilian rain forest was probably Grigori-free.
And if it wasn’t, oh well.
“Damien,” she asked, “where are my cameras?”
“In Cappadocia, I believe. Didn’t you bring a small one with you?”
“I need my full-sized—never mind,” she muttered. “I’ll just buy new gear in Oslo.”
Maybe instead of taking one of the assignments the magazines were offering, she’d tag along with her dad on his tour. Take pictures of the rock music world for a while. He’d offered during his last tour of Asia, but their relationship had been too new. Too raw. It was still awkward to think of him as her father. But a few years had passed. They talked regularly… well, if every six months or so with the occasional e-mail between was regular.
He said he wanted to know her more. This might be the perfect opportunity.
Damien sat down beside her. “You seem…”
“What?”
“Distant. Did anything happen?”
I woke up from a dream. I realized the love of my life is really gone. I gave up pretending I was anything special.
“Nothing much. Just checking mail. I need to call my dad.”
“You talked to your mother last week, didn’t you?”
“She informs on me, but I should call him directly. He’s in London right now.”
“Hmm.” He was eyeing her with suspicion, but Ava ignored him. She ignored the pang of guilt. Damien would probably go batshit insane if she talked to him about following her dad on tour. But he wasn’t her boss. Sure, they said she was family, but she wasn’t. Not really. They had a political war to fight that didn’t include her. She didn’t even want to get involved. There were other girls like her out there? Fine. She’d survived. They would, too.
“I know you’ve been cooped up in here. Do you want to go out for a walk?”
And scope out Grigori soldiers for you, so you and Sari could kill them? Make myself even more of a target?
“No thanks. I’m fine.”
He was on to her, but Ava didn’t care. She was just… done. She could rebuild the wall Malachi had pulled down. She’d have to. Then she’d move on with her life. And if the Grigori caught up with her?
She didn’t really care anymore.
There were pounding footsteps on the stairs. The door burst open, and Sari rushed in. She stared at Ava, then her eyes darted to Damien. Then back to Ava.
“What’s the deal?” Ava was trying not to feel freaked out, but something was obviously wrong.
Sari blinked and closed the door behind her. “We need to get to Oslo.”
Damien frowned. “Why?”
“I’ll explain more in the car. But… we need to go.”
“Now?” Orsala asked. “The sun is almost down. It’s a six-hour drive. We’ll go in the morning.”
Damien was more cautious. “What is happening in Oslo?”
Sari glanced at Ava again, but Ava looked back to the computer. She’d follow along to Oslo, there was a large airport there. After that, she’d catch a plane to London and make her way from there. She was done with the Irin fantasy world. She needed to get back to her own.
“Some of the Istanbul scribes arrived at the Oslo house. There is… news you need to hear.”
Her heart twisted a little. Part of her would have liked to see Rhys, Leo, and Max again. But even the thought was too painful. They looked at her and saw Malachi’s mate. She looked at them and saw his brothers. It was too much.
Too much.
She was done.
“Pack up,” Sari said. “I promise I’ll tell you more in the car. I’m… not sure of everything that is happening. Renata is meeting with them tonight. We’ll talk to her after we get there. She’ll know more. Ava, are you ready to go?”
She closed the computer and shrugged. “I don’t have much stuff. I’ll throw it in a bag and we can disappear.”
Damien shot her another suspicious look, but she ignored it and started packing.
Oslo. She’d get to Oslo. And then she’d be gone.
V.
Göteborg, Sweden
“Oslo,” Volund said, stroking the neck of the woman who lay naked across his lap. “The woman is in Oslo.”
“What woman?” the human asked, blinking sleepy eyes.
“Shut up.” Volund looked up at Brage. “She was spotted in Bergen by one of your brothers. Pure coincidence. Jaron had been concealing her there in one of the Irina communities.”
“The Irina?”
“The compound has been found. It’s empty now. They killed the soldiers I sent, but the Irin left anyway. They’re not unintelligent.”
“How do you know they’re in Oslo?”
The sound of the woman gasping was the only clue that Volund was angry. His grip had tightened on her throat and she kicked and flailed while Brage stood in silence, considering his mistake. He’d had too many questions swirling in his mind, and he’d made a foolish error. Volund wouldn’t send him there unless he was certain.
“Forgive me, Father.”
The angel released the hold on the woman’s neck, but she only lay there with tears running down her face. Volund tossed her to the side and stood, growing as he stepped closer to his child and his human mask fell away.
“Find the woman.”
“Yes, Father.” Brage fought to control his physical response as the angel towered over him and the woman whimpered on the couch.
“Find her and kill the scribe. They are stronger together. But do not harm the woman. She is mine.”
Brage trembled before the Fallen.
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you have any messages for me?”
A trickle of urine ran down his leg as he remembered Svarog’s message.
“A message from Svarog, Father.”
“Yes?”
“His words were ‘I know what he is doing, and I want no part of it. If he thinks I will roll over as Jaron did in Istanbul, he is mistaken.’”
Brage stood motionless before Volund, bracing for a reaction, though he could not predict what it would be. There was only the whimpering of the woman, the stink of his own urine, and the white tile that covered the floor as he kept his eyes trained down.
Finally, Volund threw his head back and laughed.
“Svarog…,” he muttered, stepping away from Brage and sinking back into his human facade.
Volund lifted the woman on the couch and passed a hand over her neck, healing the red marks before he gave her a smile and kissed her on the lips. His fingers brushed away the tears on her cheeks and he cupped her flushed cheek in his palm. “Look at you,” he said. “What a pretty one.”
Brage said
nothing, waiting for his Father’s leave to speak. Volund never gave it, but he spoke to Brage over his shoulder.
“Go to the house in Oslo. I’ve already sent some of your brothers there. Kill the scribe. Capture the woman and bring her to me. No harm must come to her. Do not fail me this time.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Feed from one of the women in the house before you go.”
“I will.”
“And tell someone to clean up your piss. It stinks.”
Brage pinned the woman down with his body as she moaned in pleasure, keeping as much skin contact as possible between them. It was heady, the rush of energy that flowed from her limbs and into him. He drew from her as he thrust in and out. She gasped and moaned in pleasure, but he could feel her weakening under him. He needed more.
He needed everything.
He captured her lips, breathing in the rush of her soul’s life. It was the only magic he owned, this terrible hunger. The woman’s soul fed him, filled the hollow in his chest. He could almost picture it. A great black hole that lived where his heart should be.
Hungry. It was so hungry.
He came in a rush after the woman peaked, giving up her climax to the greed of his body. It was the final ecstasy for her, and the closest that Brage would ever feel to satisfaction in anything. For the seconds it lasted, he felt alive.
The woman was unconscious when Brage pulled out of her. He lay back on the bed and pulled her body over his, spreading her arms across his chest to maintain contact.
She would die. But then, she would have died anyway. Humans were fragile. One this beautiful should have been a delicacy to be savored. But he’d been hungry. He hadn’t fed since Budapest, and the visit with his father had drained him.
A soft sigh escaped her lips as he felt the last of her energy soak into him.
For a moment, he recalled the woman and the scribe. Remembered how he’d seen them in Istanbul, embracing. He’d held her against his body and, instead of fainting, she’d grown stronger. He fed her as she fed him.
“Find her and kill the scribe. They are stronger together.”
As the Irin always were with their Irina. It was the reason his father had led the attack that had almost eradicated the females of the race. They were stronger mated with their own kind. Mating was a privilege never given to the Grigori. They could only take and take and take until there was nothing left.
The woman’s heart stopped and Brage pushed her body to the floor, ignoring the bitter taste on his tongue.
Chapter Nineteen
The streets of Oslo later that afternoon were just as cold as Malachi expected. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to keep the Grigori inside.
“Another one,” Rhys grunted, turning down an alley behind a bar on the outskirts of town, following the scent of sandalwood.
Malachi and Lang slipped into the alley behind the other scribe, and Malachi pulled down his leather glove to trace the edges of his talesm prim. Within seconds, he could feel the surge of power. He’d slept fitfully that evening, and his dream walk with Ava was murky. He’d woken from a brief nap with a feeling of dread and loss that chased him out of the scribe house and on patrol with Rhys and Lang.
Urgency stalked him. Some instinct warned him that something very dark and very dangerous was heading toward the cold city on the edge of the fjord. The sky hung bitter and grey, and the clouds were low.
They reached the end of the alley to see two Grigori with human women wrapped around them. The women moaned with pleasure, but as the Grigori turned their heads, the twin expressions on their faces chilled him.
Dead. Malachi had never seen colder eyes. No smirk of pleasure. No vengeful gleam. They were animals, feeding from prey. They shoved off and stepped away from the women in unison, turning to the Irin scribes as they zipped up their pants and pulled out their knives.
“Rhys,” Lang called, “get the women inside somewhere. They’ll die of exposure with this wind.”
Rhys waited until the two soldiers were distracted by Malachi and Lang, then he bent down and tried to help both of the humans up with gloved hands, careful not to touch their skin for fear of harming them further.
The Grigori didn’t stop. They didn’t charge. They walked steadily toward Malachi and Lang, no expression on their pale faces, no caution in their steps. Their dead faces were eerie. Malachi and Lang spread to opposite sides of the alley and the two Grigori split to mirror them.
Malachi raised his dagger, feinting right before he lunged left, flipping the dagger to his left hand and trying to slip under his opponent’s arm, which had lifted to stab him. He felt a quick slice along his shoulder, but within seconds, the Grigori was shoved up against the wall of the alley, and Malachi’s blade was piercing his spine.
The soldier said nothing in his last breaths. Then his dust rose to heaven and the silent monster was gone.
Malachi turned to see Lang with the other soldier propped against a wall. The Grigori’s face was bloody and his hands hung limply at his sides.
“Who sent you?” Lang didn’t yell, and his voice was all the more frightening because of it. “Hmm? I understand what you need. Do you think I do not pity you? To have to touch these… humans, just to feel alive. No one pities you more than I. But tell me, who sent you to my city, eh?”
The Grigori soldier said nothing, perhaps sensing Lang’s false sincerity. He looked exactly like his brother. Pale and ethereally handsome, the two could have been runway models. Their light brown hair was close-cropped and their skin unlined. The two humans would have been entranced by the sight of them, Malachi was sure.
Undiluted by generations, Grigori were bred from the Fallen themselves. Direct descendants of the ancients, and their looks proved it. Not even the Irina were immune to their unnatural charm. But for Malachi, Grigori perfection prompted an instinctive revulsion.
“There are more of you this past week,” Lang continued to speak softly, but the Grigori still had no expression. “Is there a master in the city? Has Volund come for a visit?”
With any luck, Rhys would have both of the women at the hospital. Human medicine couldn’t do much for them if the Grigori had drained too much of their energy, but the doctors would provide a safe place for the women’s bodies to heal themselves if they were able.
“Tell me what is happening,” Lang said, “and I will let you go. You can chase after the human again. She probably didn’t go far.”
Finally, the Grigori’s expression changed. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Why run after the humans, scribe, when far more delectable flesh awaits those who please my father?”
The air might have been sucked from Malachi’s lungs.
“We know…” The soldier grinned, the smile of a predator assured of his prey. He sang, “They’re baaaack. We know—”
He broke off when Lang’s fist met his mouth. But the Grigori only spit out blood and smiled again.
“My brothers look forward to welcoming the Irina home.”
Lang did not hesitate. He pulled the soldier forward by the ear and smashed the monster’s nose into his knee. Then the silver knife plunged in, and the Grigori dust rose.
The watcher said nothing, staring at the grimy wall while music and voices from the bar filtered through the alley.
“It’s happening again,” he said. Spinning around, Lang walked quickly, his long legs eating up the length of the alley while Malachi hurried to keep up.
“Find Rhys. Keep hunting. I need to make calls. We’ll not be taken by surprise again. Look for Max and Renata. If anyone knows what the Grigori may be up to, it will be Max. And Renata will be able to contact Sari.”
“I’ll keep hunting,” Malachi assured him, halting near the car while Lang opened the door.
“This will not happen again,” Lang said. “Not in my city.”
Then he got in the car and shot out into the street. Rhys found Malachi only a few moments later.
“Hey.” Rhys’s breath froze i
n the night air. “Where did Lang go?”
“The Grigori know the Irina are back,” he said. “He went back to the house.”
“Damn.”
“We need to find Max.”
Rhys shrugged. “No need. He keeps a flat downtown. He’s not nearly as secretive as he’d like to think.”
“Is it far?” It was cold, and Malachi didn’t relish trudging through the dark streets, though it was possible they would pick up a few more Grigori kills along the way. The two they’d just hunted had been their sixth and seventh of the night. The city truly was flooded with the creatures.
Rhys watched the taillights of Lang’s car turn left at the light. “Does it matter? We’re walking, whether we like it or not.”
“Lead the way.”
They turned in the opposite direction and began walking. Silent, at first, then remarking on the streets they passed and the human traffic, which didn’t seem to slow, even so late at night. They passed many young people, but no other Grigori crossed their path. By the time they made it to the nondescript apartment building where Max kept a flat, Malachi was ready for a drink.
“Do you think he has beer?” he asked Rhys.
“You know, even without your memories, you’re still remarkably you.”
“And even though I don’t remember you, I know that statement should annoy me, and yet it doesn’t.”
The two scribes entered the building smiling, only to be met in the lobby by a muttered curse. Malachi lifted his eyes to see a stunning, dark-haired Irina, as tall as he was, though far better dressed. He didn’t know how he knew she was Irina. Some instinct drew him. Her aura radiated power.
“Ren, do you know where I put my—” Max stepped out of the stairwell, breaking off when he saw them. He halted in the act of wrapping a dark red scarf around his neck and practically shouted, “You’re here!” His smile made no mystery of their welcome. “We were just about to drive to Oslo house to find you.”
Max walked over and embraced Rhys, slapping him on the back, but Malachi’s eyes never left the woman that Max had called Ren.