Page 7 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

“Aura,” John whispered in my ear. His voice was coarse and low, but my heart pounded a few beats out of order at the sound. “Are ye hurt, lass?”

I shook my head, stunned.

John’s grip eased, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the stranger looming over me. He was enormous—a tower of muscle, clad in a long black shirt and loose-fitting pants that did nothing to downplay his physique, accessorised by a belt of weapons and eyes that shone like solid gold through the dark. He folded his arms across his chest as he stared down at me, a strand of his tousled hair falling across his forehead.

“You arejoking,” the strange man said. His voice was deep, disbelieving and unnervingly familiar. “I told you to run…and you just come rightback?”

That voice. I clenched my teeth to keep my mouth from falling open.

He washereearlier tonight!

John swore quietly behind me. “Isnae the time,” he muttered.

The stranger arched a sculpted brow, but his eyes remained locked with mine as he spoke. “Fine. Get her out of here.”

“Nae.” Throwing his hands up, John stepped in front of me, pointing at the window behind the tall man. “There’s still two out there with the portal wide open—”

“I’ll deal with them.”

“And if more slip through when ye go back?”

The stranger’s golden eyes flashed. “Then I won’t go back.”

Blinking furiously, I managed to tear my gaze from the molten eyes that hadn’t moved from my face and set it upon the old man at my side. He looked frazzled, distracted, and…frail.

John was unwell, and he’d declined rapidly since the last time he visited. I should have realised, judging by the thickness of his accent—it was always stronger when he was stressed, distracted, or in poor health.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded softly.

His dark eyes darted towards me as if he’d somehow forgotten that I was right there. “Alarm went off,” he mumbled, gesturing non-specifically to the contents of the bookstore.

“We don’t have an alarm system,” I reminded him.

“Wasnae that kind of alarm.”

I threw a helpless look at the strange man. His full mouth quirked to the side, eyes glinting with wicked amusement.

John began pacing from the display window to the staircase, leaving me within striking distance of his new companion, who was looking at me with near-predatory intensity.

“I should call Trish,” I decided, peering around the dark-clad body of rock positioned between us.

“Nae. Keep the lass out of this,” the old man replied, shaking his head. He stopped pacing and turned to me. His facewas illuminated in the half-light from outside, and there was guilt written all over it in a language universally understood. “Ye must go, Aura. I’m sorry, lassie, but ye must go.”

My forehead creased. “Are you...firingme?”

John looked as though he didn’t understand the question, but before I could clarify, a guttural scream rang out in the street, and I remembered that I’d left Jonah by the car.

All of a sudden, the display window beside the counter behind me exploded in a spray of glass, sending books and ornaments flying as something large and heavy landed on the floor with a dull thud.

I didn’t have time to react before the golden-eyed man snatched me with hands that felt like they were made of steel and spun me into the nearest wall, away from the shrapnel. The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs, but one of his hands curled around the back of my head, softening the blow. His other hand was fastened around my waist, putting his nose a hair’s breadth away from mine.

Despite the fear that had a chokehold on me since dusk, something warm awakened in my chest and stretched soothing tendrils throughout my body. It caught the scream in my throat and replaced the burning, acrid tang with a flood of honey-sweet relief. Musk and ink and midday sunlight wrapped around me, the scent emanating from my unsuspecting assailant like cologne. And his eyes—I saw the colour moving, shifting like his irises were truly made of smouldering gold.

The moment, the feeling, lasted for no more than a single heartbeat before he jerked away from me so quickly that I couldn’t be sure of what I’d seen, scented, or felt.

Heavy breathing filled the silence, followed by the crunch of glass and wood coming from the broken window.

I smelled it first—that putrid, festering decay that had blown towards me across the bridge, carried by the breezewafting inside through the broken window. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shadowed, deformed figure from the street beginning to haul their large and lumpy body into the bookstore.

---