Page 43 of Wicked Thirst
“It’s actually pretty clean if you think about it,” Zinnia added. “But we all have a purpose. And to get us back on track right now, our purpose is to capture Grayson, and we all know what that means.”
A collective sigh filled the room and Zinnia’s was among them. “Beckett, if you would please get Kylian here.”
His lips twisted up into a shit-eating smile. “With pleasure.”
He opened his hand and blue magic swirled all around him. He held it out and an oval shape began to take form, and my eyes widened. I thought mirror travel was weird. This was so much weirder. A swirling blue vortex appeared out of thin air. Beckett twisted his hand to the side and blue smoke poured from his hands and twisted the oval shape to hover high above the ground and face down toward the floor while being plastered on the ceiling. The magic swirled and twisted violently, and there was a collective cringe in the room.
“So violent,” Astrid chided him. “He’s going to puke.”
“Wouldn’t that be the point.” Beckett wagged his eyebrows. “A bit of humbling for his cocky ass.”
A huge guy fell through the portal. His arms pinwheeled and his body twisted mid-flight. He dropped to the ground, landing on his arms and the tips of his toes as if he were getting ready to do a push-up. His head snapped up and his dark hair flew back from his face. When he looked at me, his green crystal eyes flashed with annoyance. He sprang to his feet so fast he was a blur.
“You fucking rang?” Red smoke seeped from his fingers, and he seemed to take up the whole room.
A moment later a twin-sized mattress fell through the portal and landed on the floor with a loud thunk. Beckett lifted his hand and that blue smoke all filtered back to him. “Damn it.”
There on top of the small bed was an even smaller woman with tiny green scales on her temple that ran down her neck and over her shoulder. Her head was a mess of short black hair and a single long braid that ran down the side. She was huddled on the bed wrapped in a blanket with pillows tucked all around her as though she made a nest for herself. She didn’t open her eyes for even one second. She just continued to sleep. I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone sleep so soundly in my life. I stared down at her, getting the hint that she was not from here.
When no one explained the sleeping women on the mattress, I tilted my head. “And this is?”
“Soto,” Tuck, Beckett, and Kylian answered at the same time.
I tilted my head to the side to study her better. “That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. She’s my friend and that’s all you need to know.” Kylian turned to Zinnia, cutting off any other questions I might’ve had. He gave her a dark look. “What am I doing here, witch?”
“We need you to find Grayson.” Zinnia got right to the point and matched his sharp tone.
He crossed his arms over his chest and took a few steps back to lean against one of the tables. “So, the leech needs me now. Why should I help?”
I was about to tell him if he wanted to keep his throat in his neck he would help. I wasn’t against threatening, bullying, or even harming anyone to get Gray the help he needed. But Zinnia narrowed her eyes at him, and I knew she was going to get her way on this. “Because you live here, eat here, and generally are a nuisance all for free, and if you go home, you’ll be thrown into a prison that you won’t get out of. You have no place else to go, and you get to stay out of the kindness of our hearts. I’m not in the habit of my kindness not being returned, so you can either help or I will match energies with yours.”
“Fair enough.” He turned toward me with those uncanny eyes full of interest. “And who are you?”
“Piper.”
His lips pulled up into a smirk. “Ahhh, Piper, we finally meet.”
He licked his lips and looked me up and down with a satisfied smirk on his face that I wanted to slap off. I lifted my chin and hardened my gaze. “Yes, we do.”
“You are a cute little leech. Well worth a curse if you ask me.”
“You two know each other?” Tuck glanced from Kylian to me.
“We’ve had business,” Kylian answered with a vague tone in his voice.
“What kind of business?” Tucker pressed.
Kylian shrugged. “The kind that’s none of yours.”
I didn’t need him spilling our little deal about Dice. I was grateful for how he got her to safety, or at least with Ophelia, though I had no idea how safe that was. “Can you help us or not?”
He chuckled and winked at me. “Yeah, I can help you, little leech. But I don’t need a whole contingent following me around to do it. I can catch one vampire myself. It’s nothing I can’t handle on my own.”
“He’s stronger than any vampire you’ve ever seen.” I walked over to a metal chair in the corner of the room and picked it up. With my bare hands, I crumpled it into a tiny ball the size of a can of soda. “You’re gonna want me with you.”
Kylian’s eyes widened, and he shoved away from the table and gave me a nod of approval. “Fine, then let the hunt begin.”
