‘Will do.’ The fringe nodded, fidgeting a bit, then walked back toward the car.
She shut the door and returned to the journal she’d set aside. An hour into reading, her gaze caught on a sentence.
And so, I had found a way to the Aurelian outside ordinary means.
Chrysabelle read the sentence again. And again. Then she read further, devouring the information. To think, all this time …
Journal in hand, she ran upstairs to her suite, skidding down the marble-tiled halls. Before her angled dressing room mirrors, she dropped her robe, turned halfway, and lifted her hair to study the gold markings covering her back. Her signum shone like living stars, glittering and moving with each breath she took.
Holy mother, if what Maris said was true, there was no need to return to Corvinestri to get to the comarré historian.
At last she could tell Mal she was ready to pay her share of the debt and take him to the Aurelian, the one person who might know how to break his curse. The way was written on her skin.
Doc shivered in the freighter’s murky hold. Not because of the dark or because of the need to change coursing through his body on this second night of the full moon, but because of the fear that Fiona wouldn’t show again. And that if she did, he wouldn’t be able to help her.
Of all the hard realizations of his life, the most recent had come to him last night as he lay in bed replaying over and over the ethereal scene he’d witnessed.
He loved Fiona. He’d never said it out loud, but it was the straight-up truth. No one had ever got him the way she had. So what if she was human? Or a ghost. He didn’t care. He just wanted her back.
And so he fought the change that had bested him last night, because he needed to speak to her, and holding on to that ability meant holding on to his human shape. If he had to stand here all night, dripping sweat and shaking with the effort, he would.
He didn’t have to.
A soft flicker of white broke the darkness up ahead. Doc strained to see, his varcolai eyes catching every stray mote of light. A shape emerged. A girl with a flashlight and a backpack and the most beautiful face Doc had ever seen.
He positioned himself in the beam of light. ‘Fiona, it’s me, Doc. Can you hear me?’
She faltered, her translucent brows furrowing. She glanced over her shoulder.
Doc waved his arms. ‘Right here, Fi. I’m right here.’
She spun her flashlight around. ‘Is there someone here?’
‘Yeah, me. Doc. Maddoc.’ He moved closer. She had to hear him. Then maybe she could tell him how to help her.
Her gaze hesitated on him. Then her eyes widened in what he could only hope was recognition. ‘I know you.’
Relief swept through him so quickly he almost shifted right then. ‘Yeah, baby, it’s me … Doc. The leopard-shifter. I live here’ – he spread his arms wide to indicate the freighter – ‘with you and Mal, the vampire. Or you used to live here, until … ’ Maybe he shouldn’t tell her she’d died a second time.
She laughed. ‘Leopard-shifter? Vampire? That’s silly. There are no such things as vamp—’
A thin, dark shape lunged up out of the tangible blackness surrounding her and grabbed hold.
Mal. The scene from last night was repeating itself.
Her mouth opened in a piercing scream. The flashlight tumbled from her hand and landed with the beam pointed at her.
‘No!’ Doc shouted. He reached for her, but his hand passed through her like she was nothing more than a dream.
Not a dream. A nightmare. Last night’s gruesome scene replayed in hellish detail.
Mal was almost a skeleton. Just bones with a little skin stretched over them. He clung to Fi and sank his fangs into her throat, tearing the flesh like paper. Blood gushed down the front of her college sweatshirt. He gorged himself as the fight drained out of her body. Her fists flew against him, their pummeling turning into weak flutters. Her feet twitched on the stone floor of the nightmare’s ruins.
Helplessness made Doc’s hands tremble. Mal raised his head and stared through him with hazy eyes. A remnant of flesh hung from Mal’s emaciated jaw. Once again, Fi lay dead at his feet.
Doc dropped to his knees and tried vainly to reach her a second time. Her image flickered around his hand and then she and Mal were gone.
Exhausted by the effort of holding off the change, Doc slumped forward and shifted instantly.
In cat form, he panted, grieving, until sleep crept over him.
A woman’s voice calling his name woke him up. Fi? He wasn’t sure. He opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a meow. The change was too fully seated for him to shift back to human now. He must have been asleep for only an hour or two. He shook himself and ran toward the voice.
Again, the female voice called out for him. Then for Mal.
It wasn’t Fi. It was Chrysabelle.
He bounded up the stairs as she continued to call out. He ran down the passageway toward her, but the hatch ahead of him was shut. There was no way he could open it without hands. He cried loudly and scratched at the door.
‘Doc? Is that you?’
He meowed in answer.
The door opened and Chrysabelle walked through. ‘Why are you locked in here? Where’s Mal?’
He rubbed against her legs, unable to help himself. She kneeled down and scratched behind his ears. Man, that felt good. A soft grumbling vibrated from his chest.
The scratching stopped when she stood up. ‘Can you take human form? This is very important. I need to talk to Mal.’