I stare as long as I can. My eyes start to water, burn. Then I can’t help it—I blink.
And he’s not in the same place. Shit!
My eyes search the crowd frantically as I weave through them, dodging shoppers and market workers packing up for the evening. Then I see him again. He’s standing beneath an awning, and I hurry toward him. Eli! I scream his name in my head. Eligius Dupré, goddamn it! I see him. I see people stepping around him to pass by. I’m not imagining this. He’s not a mirage. He’s really here. And I’m not losing my fucking mind.
A slight smile touches his mouth. At first, my heart melts at the sight of it. The memories. The familiarity.
Then it changes. Something snaps in his eyes, and his smile contorts.
The absolute coldness of it sends a feeling of dread clear to my bones. It chills me.
I’m moving fast now, my eyes glued to Eli. When he turns, he fades into the crowd, but I still see his broad shoulders. He’s wearing a black leather jacket. Dark jeans. I’m not losing him this time. As we move out of the market area, the crowd thins, and Eli turns up the street toward the river Ness. High above the city center, the castle lights flicker on ahead, illuminating the red sandstone fortress of Inverness Castle through the wintry haze. Eli’s stride is long. Purposeful. He knows where he’s going. Whether he knows I’m following him, I can’t tell. But he doesn’t look back when he turns off Union and onto Church Street.
He’s barely out of sight when I break into a run. I turn the same corner and pull up short, searching the darkness cast in streetlights and shadows. Few people are on the sidewalk. Not one of them is Eli.
Shit! I break into a run and make it to the end of the street. Looking both ways, I can’t find him. I can’t even sense him. And just as I’m about to take off running again, I’m grabbed by the shoulder and jerked back. My feet almost leave the ground, and I’m knocked against the closed storefront’s double oak doors. My eyes are wide as I stare up at Noah. The streetlight shines on only half his face.
He’s pissed.
“What the fuck, Riley?” he says angrily, in a low voice. “What are you doing?”
Snatched out of my crazed momentary stupor, I shake Noah off and push away from the door. “I’m not losing my mind. I just followed Eli from the market. I saw him totally clear, Noah,” I say. I wait for a couple to pass us, and I glance in their direction and lower my voice. “He’s wearing a black leather jacket, dark jeans. People dodged him. He looked me dead in the eye and I saw his face.” I think about the chilling smile that sent shivers down my spine. “He’s not right, just like you thought. But I saw him. And he saw me. And for a second, I don’t know. He did look like himself.” I look at Noah, pleading for him to understand. “Then it changed. He changed. And when he smiled at me, I felt cold as hell. It was him, Noah. Swear to God.”
Noah’s staring at me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I answer. No hesitation. “Dead sure.”
Noah grabs his cell phone and makes a call. He stares at me as he speaks, and I can hear every word exchanged between him and Jake Andorra.
“She’s sure,” Noah says.
“Jesus. You canna let her off alone,” Andorra says. “He’s unpredictable now.”
That makes my insides ache.
Noah lifts an eyebrow. “What do you want me to do, Jake? Cuff her to me?”
“If you have to.”
Noah swears. “Right.”
“Let me talk to her,” Jake says. Noah hands the phone to me.
“Jake,” I say, “what’s going on?” I figure an age-old vampire like Jake Andorra, plus someone who has known Eli for too long to count in years, would know something. Give me some sort of clue as to what the hell is happening.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he answers.
Give me a freaking break.
Jake reads my thoughts, and chuckles. I don’t think it’s too damn funny.
“Riley, something’s happened to Eli and I don’t know what yet. The fact that he’s appearing to you, although eluding you at the same time, means something. Almost as if he remembers you, and wants to connect. But he’s dangerous. We canna trust him. You canna trust him. Not now. Maybe not ever again.”
My heart sinks. “That’s not going to happen, Jake.”
“Listen to me, Riley,” Jake says. His tone is stern, his accent heavier than usual. That means he’s not only pissed, but worried. And I hate it. “You canna abandon your mission for the sake of Eli. He may verra well be causing the bloodbath there in Inverness. Do you want innocents to die?”
“Of course not,” I answer angrily. “And I’m not abandoning anything. I saw him. I followed him. I want to find out what the hell is wrong with him, Jake. Why Victorian can pop home to Romania safe and sound, and Eli just . . . disappears.” I’m so exasperated talking about this, I almost growl. “And now he has reappeared. And I want him back, Jake. I won’t give up on him, either. He’s my fiancé. Or don’t you remember that?”
“Aye, girl, I remember,” he answers. “But dunna you forget that I know what he is.” His voice is low, edgy. “What we all are. And I know his full potential. You won’t go anywhere alone again. No’ a breath o’ fresh air. No’ a run to the chippy. Nothing. Nowhere without Miles. If I have this problem wi’ you again, I’ll pull you from the mission and fly your arse back to Savannah. Ya ken?”
Noah’s staring a hole through my head. His mercury eyes are all but illuminated in the shadows of the awning we’re standing beneath. My blood is boiling, but what’s left to do?
“Riley?”
“I ken, I ken,” I answer Jake. Meaning, in Scot’s terms, that I get it. I understand.
“Good. And dunna try your mind warpin’ on Miles again. He cares about what happens to you. As do I. And I promise we’ll do everything we can to fix this.”
“Will you come here?” I ask.
“I can’t now. Ginger isn’t stable enough to leave. As soon as I can, though, I will.”
Ginger Slater is one of my WUP team members. She recently transitioned from human trainee to werewolf elite. She’s as unpredictable right now as Eli, I guess, and in the midst of a werewolf war.
“You guessed right,” Jake says, using his capabilities to read my thoughts. “Take care, Riley. And stay close to Miles. He’s the best chance you’ve got right now.”
“I will,” I answer. Jake hangs up, and I hand the phone back to Noah. “I’m sorry,” I say. And I mean it. “I . . . panicked, I guess. I saw Eli. He moved. I followed. I didn’t think.”
Noah jams his cell phone in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Yeah. You just don’t want me to cuff you.” He grins. “To me.”
I like that there’s still some small part of Noah, post vow-making to keep me safe, that is still lighthearted enough to joke around. If anyone wanted to be cuffed to me, it’d be Noah Miles, perverted vampire extraordinaire. I miss the old Noah. Nasty as hell, but fun.
His grin widens as he, too, reads my mind. “Let’s go.”
I guess nothing’s fun anymore. Definitely nothing normal. And none of it will be until all of this crazy shit is fixed.
And Eli is back with me. Safe.
We then hit the streets. I have a sense of unsettledness. It’s hard to explain. I’m on edge, like I feel something is so very not right. Something besides Eli’s unpredictability. With Noah on one side of the street, and me on the other, we search. Listen. Smell the air. Neither of us catches the first sign of a predator. Or a victim.
By nine, Noah holds the door for me as we enter Hush 51. It’s Friday night, and while not many tourists are lingering in Inverness, the local crowd—especially the college crowd—has packed the club. There’s alcohol. Maybe light drugs. Either way, it makes a human vulnerable, as well as an easy target for a vampire on the prowl. Noah had suggested we hit the club, and I’d agreed. Plus, I was a little curious about Rhine and his bandmates.
The dark wood interior of Hush 51 is polished and shining, and the low lights cast an amber hue over the crowd standing and sitting before the band. Rhine sees us enter, and he grins widely and gives us a nod.
“Aye, aye, settle down, ye feisty wicked pub jumpers,” a man with a Hush 51 T-shirt announces at the mic. “Hard Knox, if ye fancy—”
The locals cheer and yell, and Rhine and the guys start up. So their band is called Hard Knox. Pretty cool. The pub is quaking and humming with music, and for a second I’m distracted by Rhine’s voice. It’s pretty goddamn good. I listen to him as my gaze slides over the crowd. I’m now at the bar, and I nod at the bartender. “Aye, lass?” he says with a smile. The gap between his front teeth is endearing.
“Pint,” I respond, and he serves me one. I take a sip. Noah’s right next to me.
Then all at once, everything happens. It’s as if, without my permission, my own tendencies turn on at the same time. Rhine’s voice fades. The patrons’ voices fine-tune, and all their words are going off at once in my head. A cold, icy sensation washes over me, and instinctively, I turn around on my barstool and glance toward the far corner.
Noah’s leather jacket creaks from the motion of him turning, too.
Eli’s there. A woman’s beside him. Tall. Almost as tall as he is. Dark, long auburn hair that falls in waves to her waist. Flawless alabaster skin and pouty full lips. Who the hell is she?
At the same moment my brain sends a message to my legs, I slide off the barstool. My heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest. They’re both looking at me, Eli and the woman, and just as I’m about to start making my way through the crowd, the woman reaches up and grazes Eli’s jaw with her hand. She smiles at me. My eyes lock with Eli’s.
He knows me. I can see it. And I can also see his eyes flash with . . . something. Regret? Struggle? What the hell?