Fierce Dawn (25 page)

“
I don’t suppose you happen to know, is Elijah angry with me?” There. She’d said it. Not that the human hater would answer.

“
I wouldn’t know,” Astrid said softly, removing her chill hands.

Sadie took care rolling onto her back again. The way Astrid looked at her encouraged her. Could the hate be gone? “Why hasn’t he come back?”

Astrid shrugged. “I’m not the person to ask. I’m no longer a part of them.” She stood to leave.

Sadie sat up. “You don’t have to like me. But will you please tell him to see me?” She swallowed. “It’s about my family. It’s important.”

“
I’ll give him my final analysis when he returns.” She turned toward the door. “I can tell him then.”

“
Can you tell me?” Sadie blurted out. “What your analysis is, I mean?”

Astrid’s face lit with something akin to surprise. “He was right. You’re no longer human.”

Sadie’s hands went to her stomach. Not human? Immortal then? She hadn’t realized she’d held to the slim chance none of this was true, until now. “When will he be back?”

Astrid shrugged and left her.

“
Great,” Sadie said and went to the far window. She separated two blinds and peered at the dark sky. The moon sat high in the sky. “Where are you out there, Elijah?”

“
Uh-oh. We aren’t talking to ourselves now, are we?”

Sadie spun around. Lyric stood at the door. “You startled me,” she gasped.

He put his hands up. “Sorry. I’m a bit of a specter that way.” He walked into the room. “Astrid said you were getting a little stir crazy. Am I too late?”

Sadie frowned. “Too late for what?”

“
Have you lost your mind trapped in here?” He put a hand to his forehead and fake swooned into the armchair.

Little did he know how on the mark he was.

“
How about a tour of the grounds,” Lyric said, looking like a rake from a romance novel.

“
That depends,” she said, crossing her arms. “Are you going to try to eat me?”

His deep laughter echoed off the walls. “I haven’t used blood in more than six months, Sadie. I’ll admit I tested you a bit at the mall. I assure you I have no interest in your blood, sweetling.” He sniffed. “Not quite human anymore. Might end up poisoning me instead.”

Lyric’s tour included every room in the gigantic house and a tale for each. Tale might be a loose term for all he shared, feeding certain portions into her brain for a nice, firsthand flavor she’d rather have skipped.

The third floor bathroom, for instance. Bisque marble pillars adorned a deep oval tub sunken into the floor and dripping in ivy vines. Sadie could almost feel the steam rising off an imaginary bath. Bubbles on her toes, a glass of Merlot. The bitter taste of the wine. “Lyric, stop it,” Sadie said, pushing against the image he’d obviously fed in.

“
Elijah once caged a rabid vampire caught during a small human murder spree, drinking and bathing in their blood,” Lyric said, pushing scarlet dripped walls and screams into her mind.

“
I’m serious,” she said. “Keep your crap to yourself.”

Lyric chuckled.

Not all of the rooms had stories of gore and bloodshed
,
though. The smallest second floor bedroom, vacant save for an intricately carved wooden trunk, for example. Lyric called it the music room and said when he wanted to obliterate memories of each hunt, he came here.

“
If I sit for long enough, I can hear a song so sweet that nothing I have seen, nothing heavy or dark in my heart can survive.” He snapped his fingers. “Like a charm, as they say, every time.”

Sadie had a hard time imagining Lyric sad. He acted too cocky for sadness.

“
So, how does all this work
?
” she asked at the close of his tour. “Do you four live here? Is it like some sort of headquarters?”

“
No. We haven’t actually lived here for ages. Only Astrid has. She prefers existing outside the immortal realm. Aiding hunters when needed.” He motioned for her to precede him through the kitchen door. “Before Crusoe disappeared—well, before then, we were a team. Like human bounty hunters, we tracked immortals trespassing in the human realm, took them back. But now…” He opened a mammoth refrigerator.

She decided not to press for more. For one, her stomach screamed for food.

For another, the light glinted off of him in such a way that she saw the sadness she hadn’t wanted to. “What kind of immortals?” she asked.

Lyric pinned her with his obsidian eyes and a shiver ran through her. “Feeders gone vampire mostly. Blood junkies,” he said.

Sadie swallowed and decided she didn’t need any more stories tonight.

“
Hungry, cupcake?” he asked, his eyes filling again with humor so instantaneous that she wondered if she’d really seen the sorrow.

“
Starving.”

*

Flames streaked past Elijah’s left flank. The old Thunderbird creaked on impact, the fireball crimping the rusted metal
,
then fizzling into wisps of smoke. “Damn it.”

Holly would have to aim better than that to catch the changeling. They didn’t have room for error. Sadie had changed. Her kiss last night had left him senseless. It had taken everything he had to stop it.

He’d wanted her. And that meant all these months of tracking Crusoe and the Book of Sorrows could soon be over. He couldn’t name why
,
but his urgency to find Crusoe had inflated in the last few days.

He lit to the ground and shook his head. Holly strode toward a hollowed out Ford truck. The cloak of night worsened their odds. And the rusting, old junkyard held plenty
of
dark corners for a changeling with vanishing powers to hide in.

Holly’s breath came out in hard
,
steamy puffs in the cold night air. Sweat trickled down her brow. “She’s too fast,” she said, looking ready to give up.

“
Don’t give me that,” Elijah said, grabbing her arm and pulling her up short. “Look. I know neither of us is used to this. We’re used to hunting as four, not two. But more is riding on this than on any bounty we ever brought in.”

Holly pulled her arm free. “I know.”

Elijah let her stalk away, and bounded skyward again. They should have brought Lyric. But Elijah didn’t want Sadie unprotected. He didn’t trust Astrid’s anger.

Needing to clear his head, he’d left after kissing Sadie. He’d found and tracked the changeling’s vibration. They didn’t have Lyric to image locations and didn’t have Crusoe, another seeker, to bookend Elijah.

Holly shot another whirling flame. A scream tore into the air.

“
Good girl,” Elijah whispered, swooping toward the source. If he could isolate the changeling before she vanished, he could transport them far enough away to face off and keep Holly safe, too.

Holly shouted something behind him.

Elijah couldn’t decipher her words. He caught a glimpse of movement and didn’t hesitate. He tackled her. The junkyard blurred. Cold wind swiped his skin. He brought their bodies to a stop, hitting dirt and rolling.

He’d taken them too far and his body was suffering for it. His arms were weak and the fiend squirmed free. Elijah let it. There was no place to go.

He took a moment to focus on the curled form that rolled away from him.

“
You,” she said, her pale skin glowing luminously in the dark. “Not very original, are you?”

He could guess easily enough she meant the desert he’d transported them to, again. Elijah snorted. “It works.” She’d escaped him once, but she wouldn’t again.

Within a blink, she charged him. Making contact, she scraped her nails over his cheek. Elijah flashed his arm out, grasped her wrist and stopped her from passing him. She was fast, he’d give her that. But this time, he wouldn’t let her disappear.

He pinned her arm against her back and locked her head into a chokehold. “You’ll tell me the truth this time.” He tightened his hold. “Or I’ll see to it you never have the chance to lie again.”

Sadie’s face raced through his thoughts unbidden. Her eyes, filled with hope and desire. He had to protect her.

“
Who says I lied?” she asked, not a lick of fear in her voice.

“
I can see it for myself. You’re still after her.”

She twisted in his arms, untangling with an agility Elijah had never witnessed. She faced him, one hand smacking out to claw his chest. Elijah growled and sped forward. He tackled her feet, gripped her ankles then soared into the air. Some hundred feet up, he flipped her. She screeched as he caught her waist and suspended mid-air.

“
Okay, okay. Whatever you want to know, okay? Just don’t drop me.”

He liked that. “Start with what you really are.”

“
I am what I told you. A changeling.”

He let her drop several feet, caught her again. “Try again.”

“
I used to be human,” she screamed. “Now I’m not. I can camouflage. Like a Chameleon. I can take on my environment, use it. But I’m not very good yet. All I’ve done in the last five months is try to find someone else like me. I won’t give up trying to find her. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“
What is your connection with the Illeautians?”

“
The who?”

Again, he dropped a few feet. She screamed. “I swear! I don’t know. I wanted to find another changeling!”

Elijah flipped her body again so that she faced him. “Wrong answer.”

Her eyes widened. Elijah let go. She scratched and clawed, falling down his body, screaming so piercingly that it tore through his anger. He shot downward, the dusky dirt spiraling up at him, a backdrop to her flailing body. Seven feet before hitting ground, he snatched her back into the air.

“
You bastard!” Her fist connected with his right eye, sending shooting pain inward. “How dare you. She deserves to know. Once she becomes like me, she’ll need to know.”

“
Enough!” he shouted. “You’re going to make me crash.”

She stopped fighting.

“
Look, I believe you,” he said. “How long have you been following her?”

“
Since I found her. A few weeks is all.”

“
Who else knows about her?”

“
How should I know?” Her mouth set in a firm line. “Okay, okay. There was this freaky chick but she could have been following me. There are some freaks that find me and like to follow me. Okay?”

“
Define freak.” Elijah set down to the ground. He released her.

She stepped back and for the first time didn’t face him in a battle stance, merely crossing her arms and jutting a hip out. “To be honest, I thought you were one of them,” she said. “If it means you aren’t, I’ll tell you whatever you want. But in exchange, I want protection.”

“
From?”

“
If I stay in one form too long, like pale like the desert or dark like the night, I can feel one getting close. Close like they’re coming for me. Like a pull in my chest, some sort of invisible hook, you know?”

Charity. “Why do they want you?”

“
I don’t know. Aside from my new little freak show talent for hiding in plain sight, I’m nobody. No family. Only a couple friends I lost when I became this. Whatever they want, I don’t like it. And I don’t want to face it alone.”

Elijah’s neck hair rose. A strange foreboding and awareness ran over his skin. Two human changelings? Charity after both? Why?

The prophecy of realm lines collapsing whispered in his mind. The Illeautians wanted lines collapsed, humans gone. If humans were on the brink of evolving, what would that risk for them? If they had kidnapped Crusoe, or worse, converted him, could two changelings double their chances of finding him?

He knew one thing, the idea of leaving this girl to her own devices filled him with icy dread.

“
Don’t take it personally, but until I know I can trust you, you’ll have to settle for protection by default,” he said, preparing to transport her with him back to Holly. “As my hostage.”

*

Two cold barbeque chicken sandwiches later, Lyric’s head snapped up from his food. He licked his fingers. “They’re back.”

Adrenaline shot through Sadie. She chased her chewed food down with ice water. She couldn’t help wondering if things would feel different between her and Elijah. Her stomach clenched.

Holly and Elija
h
entered with a bang. Immediately, both called out for Lyric, which sent the feeder rushing out to the foyer. Sadie followed, but fell short when Elijah came into view. His clothes were tattered, claw marks covered his arms and exposed abdomen. He spoke so quietly to Lyric that she couldn’t make out the words.

Sadie forced her feet to move, coming to stand beside Lyric and listened. Waiting for Elijah to acknowledge her. To notice her. Instead, he looked past his shoulder and nodded. All four followed his gaze where a woman materialized out of thin air.

Sadie gasped.

The woman looked at Elijah uncertainly but stood her ground. “This is Monica,” Elijah said.

Sadie’s heart sank to the floor. Had she thought Holly beautiful? Or Astrid? The woman before them had the loveliest, creamiest skin she’d ever seen. Wide
-
set, pale lilac eyes stared at them. As though aware of her stare, her gaze turned proud as she leveled it on Sadie.