Page 42 of Wicked Thirst
Zinnia looked to the three of us, and I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t ready to tell them all that I’d sent my best friend, who was a human, to live with their murder happy friend.
Maze locked eyes on me, then turned to Zinnia. “She’s handling business for me.”
Zinnia glanced at the three of us. “Ominous.”
“I always find it best not to ask questions,” Beckett interjected. “We’ll get the answers later.”
Maze nodded and held the bag of chips over his mouth and dumped the crumbs in, then he threw two more pizza rolls in on top of the crumbs. “Precisely.”
When she looked like she was going to question me next, I had to stop her before she got the words out. My mind scrambled to give them something else to focus on. “Besides, we have bigger problems. Atlas, Grayson’s best friend, is going to hunt him down and kill him.”
“WHAT?”
“Why?”
“How?”
“That’s insane.”
Their words all rushed out at once and I gave a heavy sigh. “It’s some kind of messed up vow he made. Grayson made him promise that if he fell to the curse, then Atlas would put him out of his misery and kill him. It’s a matter of honor to Atlas. And I can’t lie, Atlas is pretty much a legendary assassin among the vampires.”
“Not just the vampires.” Beckett stepped in closer to the table and leaned over to rest his elbows on it. “If that guy wants you dead, you’re as good as gone. He’s like death himself.”
“Who’s like death?” Another guy walked into the room and the others all went quiet. “I didn’t realize we were having a meeting.”
“We were trying to let you rest.” Beckett walked over to him and clapped him on the shoulder, then guided him toward the table with the others.
The guy had longer shaggy blond hair, a five o’clock shadow, and circles under his eyes. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black and they looked haunted. He gave me a half-smile that seemed to almost pain him. “Hey, I’m Logan.”
“Hey, I’m Piper.” I gave him a little nod, but I felt the power rolling off him. It was so enticing, like I wanted to listen to whatever he said, but at the same time so dark and twisted.I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell happened to him that brought him such inner turmoil that it practically spilled out of him. The others clearly gave him a wide berth.
We all stood silent for a moment, then Logan gave a humorless chuckle. “So, you were saying someone is like death?”
“Atlas, Grayson’s best friend. He’s hunting him and I knocked him out for a bit, but he’ll be awake soon, and when he is he’s going to be pissed. We have to get to Grayson before he does.”
Logan chuckled. “How exactly do you knock out death?”
“Umm.” They all stared at me. “Pin him down and give him enough sedatives to knock out an elephant and pray it works?” They all laughed and shook their heads as though this were acceptable. “He was asking for it.”
“I bet he was. If we could capture Grayson, it would help to get a feel for the curse and what it’s doing.” Zinnia glanced around at the rest of us. “Because so far Adrienne and Niche haven’t found what this curse is, or who cast it, or how it works. There’s like no record of it in any of our books.”
“I’m sorry, who are Niche and Adrienne?” I glanced around the room feeling like I missed someone.
“They’re not in the room at the moment. But Niche is our trainer, kind of like a guide to help us along the way. She’s super brilliant. And Adrienne is one of our Guardians. She helps protect us. As a daughter of Athena, she’s also crazy smart and knows more about Evermore and how it all works than any of us.” Zinnia waved her hand over the map. “She’s been working with us since the beginning.”
“Hold up. Athena as in the Greek God Athena? That’s like a real thing?”
Astrid shook her head and sighed. “Man, when Gray gets better, imma give him such a hard time about that lack of knowledge he gave you.”
It wasn’t my fault I didn’t know. “I’m sorry?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. But there is so much to learn about how everything works in Evermore, and it’s overwhelming unless someone explains it all. Try to think about it like a hierarchy. At the top you’ve got The Fallen. They pretty much rule all of Evermore, which is every supernatural creature in the world, then right below them you’ve got the Greeks. They love to think of themselves as gods, but really they’re just wicked powerful supernaturals who for a time made humans believe they were gods.”
Beckett nodded. “And got into a shit ton of trouble for it too. That’s why we have to keep our world a secret.”
“Right, okay. Got it.” I mentally took notes.
Astrid continued. “Then you’ve got all the other supernaturals of our world. The royals, like the Witch Queens and Vampire King, all answer to The Fallen and are responsible for their subjects.”
