I THREW THE covers off me and shivered in my T-shirt and shorts. Rolling out of bed, I quickly changed into jeans and a long sleeve top. I pulled a warm hoodie over the top and hunted around for a pair of socks. It almost felt like I was back in Idaho. “Damn, I thought LA was supposed to be warm,” I grumbled as I opened the bedroom door.
“Morning, sleepy head,” Roland called from the kitchen. “We thought you were going to sleep all day.”
I looked at the clock on the TV, surprised to see it was almost 11:00 a.m. “Why didn’t you guys wake me?”
Peter stirred something in a pan on the stove. “We figured you earned a good sleep after last night.”
The door opened and Greg came in carrying a bag of groceries. He handed the bag to Roland and came over to me. He still looked tired, but less haggard than yesterday. It was probably going to take a little while for last night’s shock to wear off. Suddenly finding out you’re safe after weeks of living in fear was a lot for anyone to process.
“Hey,” I said before he pulled me into a tight hug. “What’s that for?” I asked when he released me.
“I think I was too stunned last night to thank you for what you did,” he said hoarsely. “I still can’t believe it’s over.”
“You were too busy yelling at me for going to Draegan’s, remember? And then you drank half a bottle of rum.”
He winced. “Oh, yeah.”
Roland snickered. “And then you threatened to take her over your knee if she ever did anything like that again.”
“I’d kill to see that.” Jordan laughed as she set glasses on the table.
I started to retort, but the set table caught my attention. “Are we celebrating?”
Roland raised an eyebrow at me. “You forget what today is?”
I gave him a blank look.
“Happy birthday!” He sang and the others chimed in.
My birthday? How could I have forgotten that?
Greg nudged me, and we went to join the others at the table. “I didn’t have time to get you a present yet,” he said.
“Spending my birthday with you and knowing you’re safe is the best present you could give me.”
“Oooh, better not let Mr. Tall, Dark, and Moody hear you say that,” Jordan teased when I took the chair next to her.
Roland and Peter piled my plate high with French toast, sausages, and every other breakfast food I could imagine. I tried a bit of everything, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. Roland and Peter were more than happy to finish off the food that was left.
After breakfast, Jordan figured out how to work the espresso machine and treated me to a birthday latte. The coffee was heavenly, and I cradled it to ward off the chill in the apartment.
Greg sat beside me, drinking his coffee. “Sara, you don’t seem worried that Draegan might come after you for killing his other demons.”
I smiled over the top of my cup. “I’m not. And I have a strong feeling Draegan won’t be collecting any more blood debts.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Last night when we left Draegan’s, I asked my friend David to contact the Mohiri and let them know about the dangerous demon living in that building. I’m betting the world has one less gulak demon in it today.”
“Three less, actually, if you count the two we took out.” Jordan looked very pleased with herself.
Greg crossed his arms and frowned at me. “I feel like I should be mad at you for going to see Draegan after I told you to stay out of it.”
“But you see now that I was right and we were the best people to handle this.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Roland chuckled. “Dude, it’s easier if you just nod and move on. Trust me.”
Greg opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by his phone. He smiled when he saw the number. “Hey, buddy.” He looked at me and mouthed the word Danny before he went to sit in the living room. Hearing Greg sound like his old self again made my heart swell.
We stayed close to the apartment that afternoon. After lunch I made a quick call to Nate and Tristan because I knew they’d be upset if we didn’t talk on my birthday. They spent half the time trying to get me to tell them where I was. I reassured them we were doing well, and I asked Nate to pass that on to Roland’s mom, Judith. The boys couldn’t call their families because they were afraid Maxwell would order them home. They couldn’t refuse a direct command from their Alpha, even over the phone.
I talked to David twice that afternoon, and both times he told me there was still no sign of Madeline. Her trail had gone cold after she left Albuquerque. That news left me dejected and wondering how long it would take to locate her again. My whole reason for being here was to find out what Madeline knew about the Master.
David had other news the second time we spoke. “Kelvan heard that vampires attacked Orias’s place last night. His receptionist and a couple of his clients were killed. Orias got away, but he took out two of the vampires first.”
My stomach dropped. “Why would vampires attack a powerful warlock like him?”
“Word is that a well-known vampire was killed there five days ago… on the same night you went to see Orias, in fact.” He made a disapproving sound. “You told me it went well. You didn’t say anything about a vampire.”
I scuffed my toe on the rug in front of the couch. “We might have run into a little trouble, but we handled it. I didn’t want to worry you.”
David sighed heavily. “Sara, we’re supposed to be in this together, remember? That’s the agreement we made before we started this. How am I supposed to help you if you keep things like this from me?”
I had no argument because he was right. “I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t do it again.” I heard him typing and waited for him to speak again. “According to Kelvan’s friends in Albuquerque, the vampires wanted to know about a girl who supposedly killed Stefan Price. When no one could tell them who she was, they started tearing the place apart. They torched it when they left.”
I remembered how proud Orias was of his establishment, and I was sorry it had been destroyed. I felt worse about his poor receptionist and the others who had been killed.
“Did you really kill that vampire by yourself?” David asked.
“I had some help.”
“Kelvan said there is a rumor among the demons about a girl warrior who slays only vampires. The other night a vrell demon and his friends were attacked by vampires in LA, and the girl came out of nowhere to save them.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”
I almost laughed at the way people blew things out of proportion. “We were there, but it was my friends who killed the vampires.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Listen, I get that you want to help people, but you need to be even more careful now. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself.”
“I know.” As far as we knew, the Master still believed I was at Westhorne. If he even had the tiniest suspicion we were in LA, this city would be swarming with vampires. Not only would it put my friends’ lives in grave danger, it would scare Madeline away. “We’ll lay low until you pick up Madeline’s trail again.”
We spent the day hanging out at the apartment, watching movies, eating until we couldn’t move, and laying low as I’d promised David we would do. By midafternoon, I tired of movies and went to look for a book from Leo’s bookcase. His copy of White Fang kept me engrossed for an hour before I lost interest in that, too. I paced around the apartment feeling out of sorts and bursting with nervous energy as if I’d drunk five lattes instead of one. By the time dinner rolled around, I was nursing a small headache – something I rarely had – and I’d discovered that sitting around waiting for news was not fun.
Greg went out and picked up steaks for dinner and we grilled them on the roof. It was a beautiful night, even if it was a little chilly. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, and I caught Jordan frowning at the half-eaten steak I slid onto Roland’s plate. She gave me a questioning look and I shrugged it off.
After dinner, Greg brought out a cake, and I laughed when they sang “Happy Birthday” to me. I wish you were here, I said silently as I blew out the candles. It was a silly wish since I was the one keeping us apart, but I could think of nothing I wanted more in that moment.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Jordan said a little while later when we carried our dishes to the kitchen.
I didn’t try to deny it. “Yes.”
“Call him,” she urged. “Talk to him.”
“I… can’t.”
She fixed me with a hard stare. “You know you want to. You’re just being stubborn. If I had a man like Nikolas, you wouldn’t have to tell me twice.”
Greg opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Who is this Nikolas you guys keep mentioning?”
“He’s my…” How did I describe Nikolas? Friend, protector, trainer: he was all of those and more. Boyfriend was too weak a word for someone like him, but soulmate felt like something out of a romance novel.
“He’s her mate,” Jordan answered, not having as much trouble as I was in summing up my relationship with Nikolas.
Greg choked on his beer. “Mate? You’re married?”
“No, of course not.” I couldn’t stop the blush that crept up my face. “We’re… dating.” Interesting choice of words considering Nikolas and I had never been on anything remotely resembling a date. “It’s different for the Mohiri. I don’t know how to explain it.” I gave Jordan a helpless look.
She smiled at Greg. “Sometimes, a Mohiri male and female have a special bond between their two demons. The male starts behaving like a Neanderthal and growling at anyone else who looks at his woman. The female tells him to get over himself even though she is secretly crazy about him. Eventually, the two of them do the deed and live happily ever after.”
The look on Greg’s face made me groan silently. I should have known better than to trust Jordan with something so delicate.
“Nikolas and I care about each other, and he’s very protective of me.” I explained the Mori bond without going into too much detail, particularly about the mating.
Greg relaxed when he realized I hadn’t become a child bride since we last saw each other. I think, in his eyes, I was still the girl he’d sat with at lunch in high school.
Roland grabbed two beers from the fridge for Peter and him. He took a long drink from his before he said, “So if two Mohiri get drunk and have sex, are they mated for life? That would totally suck. What if you wake up the next day and realize you don’t even like the other person?”
“It doesn’t work that way, thank God,” Jordan said. “The bond has to be there already for the couple to be mated. No bond, no mating.”
Peter leaned against the counter. “So what happens if you meet your mate when you’re five? Does the male beat up the other kids for playing with you?”
Jordan laughed. “Bonds don’t form until we’re mature.” She nodded toward me. “Or close to it in some cases.”
I sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. “It’s kind of like werewolf imprinting except both people feel the bond instead of one.”
Jordan sat beside me. “Only one werewolf bonds to the other? I didn’t know that.”
Roland picked at the label on his bottle, looking uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “A male werewolf imprints on the female their wolf claims as their mate. The female doesn’t have to accept him, but she usually does.”
“What happens if the female werewolf doesn’t want the guy?” she asked. “Can he imprint on someone else?”
“Only if his wolf does,” Peter said. “And if they haven’t… you know.”
Jordan looked between them. “And what if the guy doesn’t like who his wolf chooses?”
Peter shook his head. “Same deal, but the wolf almost always imprints on someone they both like.”
“Wow, that totally sucks,” Jordan declared, and I couldn’t help but agree. Being bound, for the rest of your life, to someone who didn’t want you sounded like a miserable existence.
Greg whistled. “That’s rough.”
Roland nodded unhappily. “You’re telling me.”
“For a guy who hates the idea of being in a relationship, you date an awful lot,” I teased Roland. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll imprint on one of those girls?”
“Werewolves don’t imprint on humans.” He smiled. “That’s why I only date human girls.”
Peter snickered. “And he stays the hell away from the Knolls when they have pack gatherings there.”
“Why?” I asked.
Roland shuddered. “Because every eligible female between sixteen and thirty is there looking for a mate. Thank God, Uncle Max doesn’t force us to go to gatherings. He’s a tough Alpha, but he says it’s up to you if you want to mate or not.”
“So all those times you slept on my couch to give up your room for company, you were hiding from female werewolves?”
He blushed. “Um, yeah.”
Jordan and I laughed, and his brows drew together. “You wouldn’t think it was funny if it was you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Hello?”
Jordan snorted indelicately. “You poor, poor girl. I can see how being bound to a smoking hot warrior would be such a hardship.”
“Says the girl who vows she doesn’t need a man.”
“I might be willing to make an exception if he came in a package like that.” She let out a gusty sigh. “But I think Nikolas is one of a kind.”
My chest squeezed. He is.
Roland finished his beer and got another one. “Enough of this mushy crap. Let’s watch movies and get drunk since we can’t go out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Peter said.
“You guys don’t have to stay in, you know. Jordan and I are the ones who have to hide.”
Roland, Peter, and Greg laughed at the same time.
“You two were out of our sight for less than an hour last night, and you started a fight in a room full of demons.” Roland shook his head. “We’re staying together.”
Jordan followed us into the living room, wearing a cocky smile. “We didn’t start the fight, but we sure as hell finished it.”
I made it two thirds of the way through the first Fast and Furious movie before restless energy sent me prowling around the apartment again. I read the titles of the books in Leo’s bookcase so many times I could have recited them by heart. I checked my email half a dozen times. At one point, I wandered up to the roof for some fresh air, but the cold soon drove me back down again. The others kept shooting me questioning looks, which I ignored. I couldn’t have explained my state of mind to them if I wanted to.
Jordan gave me a knowing look two hours later when I grabbed the laptop and headed to our bedroom. I sat on the bed and laid the laptop beside me. My hand hovered over the keyboard for a long moment before I hit the button.
“Hello?” said a warm male voice I’d missed more than I thought I would.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Sara? Jesus!” Chris whispered hoarsely, alerting me to the fact that he wasn’t alone. “Are you alright? Where are you?”
I pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. “I’m fine, and you know I’m not going to tell you where I am.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
The concern in his voice made tears prick my eyes. “I’m okay, really. I just wanted to check in and say hi.”
He released a slow breath. “I’m surprised you have time. You’ve been pretty busy the last week.”
“Busy?”
“Orias, Stephan Price, the gulak demons last night.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “How do you know I had anything to do with those?”
Chris laughed softly. “Let’s just say your handiwork is hard to miss, Cousin. And we got your friend’s call last night.”
That brought a smile to my lips. “Did the Mohiri take care of Draegan?”
“Oh, he’s been taken care of. When we got there he was yelling about the girl who cheated him and killed his men. Then he started describing what he was going to do to this girl when he found her.”
I grimaced. “That bad, huh?”
“Yes. Nikolas thought so, too.”
“Oh…”
“Nikolas has been as surly as that wyvern of yours since you left, and it doesn’t take much to set him off. Do you know what it’s like being around him when he’s like this?”
“Sorry.”
Chris groaned. “No, you’re not. If you were truly sorry you would tell me where you are right now and save me from this torture.”
“Chris, I –”
“At least talk to the man,” he pleaded. “Give him something.”
I took a deep breath. “Is he there with you now?”
“He’s nearby.”
My pulse quickened. “Okay.”
I heard Chris walking and a door opening and closing. There was a muffled sound as he handed his phone to someone. Then a deep impatient voice said, “Hello?”
“Hi,” I replied hesitantly.
“Sara.” He said my name so softly it was like a caress. Warmth curled in my stomach. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
“Chris?”
“The gulak demon.”
“He didn’t touch me.”
I could hear his exhale. “You didn’t call last night. I didn’t know what to think.”
I closed my eyes, wanting to kick myself. Last night had been crazy, and we were all so excited about getting the contract for Greg that I hadn’t thought Nikolas might be expecting me to call him like I’d been doing every night. God, I’m an awful person.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay and that you’re talking to me.”
The ache that had lingered in my chest for days began to ease. I tugged the blanket closer around me and curled up on my side, facing the laptop. “Me too.”
He sighed and I imagined him running his hand through his black hair, his gray eyes dark and intense. “I know you’re angry with me, but this isn’t solving anything. Tell me where you are, and we’ll talk this through.”
“I’m not angry about that anymore.”
“Then tell me where you are.”
“If I do, will you try to stop me from looking for Madeline?”
He didn’t reply.
“This is important to me, Nikolas. I’ve gotten closer than anyone else to finding her, and I can’t stop now.”
“We’ll look for her together,” he said, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could believe that.
“Does that mean you won’t have any problem with me going to see warlocks and demons and anyone else who might lead us to Madeline?” Working together meant he’d have to stop trying to protect me from anyone who looked at me funny. It meant us being equals. I didn’t have his fighting abilities, but I’d proven that I had my own strengths.
“We’ll work something out.”
I heard clicking in the background, and it took me a few seconds to realize he was using a computer. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was doing. I should have been angry he was trying to trace the call, but I would have expected nothing less from him.
“You can’t trace me. I made sure of it.”
The clicking stopped. “So I see. You picked up a few tricks.”
“Yes, and some new friends.” It was strange thinking of a demon as a friend, but that was what Kelvan was becoming to me. “Listen, I have to go.” I wanted nothing more than to lie there all night talking to him, but I didn’t know how good Mohiri technology was or how long it would take them to trace my call. It was foolish to risk them finding me just because it made me feel better to hear Nikolas’s voice.
Nikolas surprised me when he didn’t try to keep me on the phone. “Call me tomorrow.”
“I will,” I promised. My heart felt lighter now that we’d actually talked. “Good night.”
“Good night,” he said huskily. “And, Sara, happy birthday.”
* * *
“Are you going to stay in bed all day?”
“Mmm.”
“Sara, wake up.” Jordan pulled the covers off me, and I shivered as cold air touched my arms and legs. I opened my eyes to glare at her, and my head began to pound with a fierce headache.
I reached for the blankets and pulled them back up to my chin, burrowing beneath them until only my eyes were visible. “Go away,” I moaned. “I don’t feel well.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have a splitting headache, and I feel achy and tired.”
Her brows drew together. “You didn’t drink last night. Why are you sick?”
“I don’t know,” I retorted miserably. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
Roland entered the room. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s sick.” Jordan rooted around in her backpack and carried the can of gunna paste over to me. “Here, this will make you feel better.” She stood over me as I dutifully took some of the bitter paste. Anything to get rid of this headache.
“Sick?” Roland repeated. “Sara never gets sick.”
“Maybe it’s the flu,” Peter suggested from the doorway.
I didn’t remember ever having the flu so I couldn’t say if he was right or not. I closed my eyes and hoped the gunna paste would kick in soon.
“Go back to sleep,” Jordan said, shooing Roland and Peter out of the room. “I bet you’ll feel one hundred percent better when you wake up again.”
When I opened my eyes again, it was three in the afternoon. My headache had eased a bit, but the rest of me felt like I’d just done a few rounds with my old trainer, Callum. My body was stiff and sore, and getting dressed made me so tired I wanted to lie down again. I was also freezing. I dressed in layers and wrapped the comforter around me before I left the bedroom.
“Hey, look who’s up,” Roland said when I joined him on the couch. “Feeling better?”
I tucked my legs underneath me and leaned my head against the cushioned armrest. “A little better,” I said when I saw his look of concern. “It’s freezing here.”
Greg came over to stand beside the couch. “You must have the flu because it’s not cold here. It’s seventy degrees outside today.”
“Oh.”
He left the room and came back carrying the thick comforter from his bed. “Here. Maybe this will help.”
“Thanks,” I said as he laid it over me.
“Are you hungry?” Jordan asked. “You haven’t eaten all day.”
I wasn’t hungry, but I said I could eat a little. She went into the kitchen, and I heard the microwave. A few minutes later she came back with a mug of hearty chicken soup. I sat up and took the mug between my cold hands, blowing on the soup to cool it.
“We went to that diner to get some of their soup,” she explained. “It’s homemade, and these guys said that when someone is sick, you’re supposed to feed them soup.”
I took a sip of the rich broth. “It’s delicious, thanks.”
I drank the whole cup of soup to make her happy, and then I lay back and took a nap, buried beneath a mountain of comforters. It was dark out when I woke again, and the others were sitting around quietly watching TV. Jordan got me more soup and added in some crackers. When I finished, she tried to tempt me with my favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but my stomach couldn’t handle anything else. I watched part of a movie before I dozed off for another hour.
“This makes no sense,” Jordan said the next time I woke. “You’re Mohiri… and Fae. You shouldn’t get sick. And the gunna paste should have made you better by now.”
“Maybe she picked up something from one of the demons at that party,” Roland suggested. “Is that possible?”
Jordan chewed her lip. “I don’t know.” She looked at me. “Did you get bitten by one of those demons you fought?”
“No. The ranc demon’s horn scratched my palm, but it didn’t draw blood.” I held up my hand. “There isn’t even a mark.”
“Still, we should look them up to make sure their horns don’t have poisonous tips or something,” she said.
“Can you bring me the cell phone I’ve been using to call David?” She went to get it for me. I called him and asked him to ask Kelvan about ranc demons. It didn’t take long for him to come back and tell me ranc demons were not poisonous. So much for that theory.
It was hard to hide my illness from Nikolas when I called him that night. He asked me twice if I was okay and I lied and said I was only tired. He tried again to get me to tell him where I was, and for a moment I was tempted. I was miserable and I wanted nothing more than for him to come and take me home. I said goodbye soon after that because I knew I’d regret my moment of weakness once I felt better.
I slept fitfully and woke the next morning feeling worse than the day before. The headache was back and my stomach hurt now, too. And I couldn’t get warm no matter how many blankets my friends piled on top of me. I didn’t say anything, but my illness was starting to scare me. I found my vial of troll bile and took a small drop. If anything could make me better it was troll bile. It was even nastier than gunna paste, but I knew from experience how potent it was. After that, I took a nap on the couch, hoping the bile would work its magic.
By the time evening rolled around, I knew the bile wasn’t helping. If anything, I was worse. I felt like someone had syphoned all the energy and heat from my body, and I could barely stomach the smell of food. The only thing my stomach could handle was water and a few dry crackers. I could barely keep my eyes open for five minutes at a time, and when I slept it was fitful and full of strange dreams I couldn’t remember.
My Mori was upset, too. I could sense its distress and I tried to assure it that we were going to be fine, but it’s not easy to be convincing when you aren’t sure if what you’re saying is true.
When I began to shiver uncontrollably despite all the blankets covering me, Greg stood up and said he was taking me to a hospital. Jordan told him he couldn’t do that, but I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. If I could have spoken, I would have told them that human medicine would not cure whatever was wrong with me.
I passed out a few minutes later. The last thing I remembered thinking was that I’d broken my promise to call Nikolas and he was going to worry again.
