Page 36 of Never Run from an Immortal

The Vampire’s voice carried through the warehouse, but Aidan was almost at the door.What’s going on out there?he asked Baelin. There were wards in use, lots of them blocking his Provident abilities from casting as far as he’d have liked, which could only spell trouble. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t in this district.

Orion has sent Second Unit to investigate.

Aidan didn’t reply to Baelin as he got back in his car. Instead, he sent his instructions to Orion and the rest of his First Unit.We’re going on a little hunt.

Chapter eighteen

Rae wasn’t willing to sit around a minute longer. Not when Nim was out there somewhere. Not when dozens more had gone missing, her reports had told her. Though she was certain Baelin had tapped her PAD, he wouldn’t have noticed just yet that she’d spelled it to give him multiple different location readings. As far as he knew, she was currently in seven separate areas of the city.

Two more nights had passed without any word from Nim, and a permanent, sickening weight had settled in Rae’s stomach. Two nights holed up in that manor like every other human pet she was so used to observing at Rush. Two nights and already she craved daylight; she didn’t know how the Vampires could stand it. Though she’d barely slept since everything had gone down at Cosia, she’d been out as early as she could, eager to make use of her freedom before Aidan and the rest of his household could locate her.

The day had already slipped away, and despite the very pressing need to shut her eyes for just a minute, if anythingjust to try and silence the pounding in her head, she’d already arranged to meet Baxter to see what he could make of Zeke’s data. Nothing was her guess, and she was already silently rebuking herself for not giving it to Baelin, even though she had no reason to trust what he or Aidan would do with the information or that they’d even share it with her.

She tried Nim’s number again, but it went straight to voicemail just as it had all of the other hundreds of times she’d called it. The weight that had settled under her ribs pushed against her lungs, her breaths painful. Rae made her way down a side street towards Silver Star as she tried Nim’s boyfriend next, pausing in her tracks when it rang once before going to voicemail like the asshole had just hung up on her.

“Reed,” Rae seethed as his voicemail picked up. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind worrying about Nim.” Baxter waved at her from across the busy street, day workers eager to get home or to one of the Quarter’s many restaurants and bars rushing past him. “Call me back, asshole.” If Reed was fine, Nim was fine, Rae repeated to herself silently as she crossed the street, the weight pushing harder.

Bax rested his helmet on his bike, making no attempt to hide the way he looked her up and down. Goddess, what she’d give to erase having slept with him from her brain. Rae made no effort to conceal the package she handed him from her backpack: the cuffs she’d managed to finish in the early hours of the morning.

“Are you ever going to tell me what the real plan is with all of these?” He shoved the package into the bag strapped behind his seat, raising an eyebrow.

Rae waited for him to tap away at his PAD, waited for theka-chingfrom hers to let her know he’d paid. “You’re smart, Bax. I’m sure you can work it out.”

He might work it out eventually, but it was already too late for that. Rae knew from the number of cuffs she’d issued preciselyhow many members of the factions were wearing at least one of her pieces now and no longer needed to merely hope. She’d cast her net wide and spun her web so that it covered most of the city, exactly how she wanted it.

Rae’s jewellery offered the humans a small layer of protection, but protecting them wasn’t her only goal. The Fae wanted Demesia for the same reason she handed out her charmed jewellery like sweets, for the channels of magic running beneath their feet. And the Fae understood something the Vampires had long since forgotten: all magic was connected by those ley lines, spreading out in every direction beneath the city like a spider’s web.

Rae was going to remove it. Nullify it. To douse every Order’s ability to use any magic of their own, like throwing water over a fire. She intended to level the playing field, to give humans a fighting chance for once. Retribution for the lifetimes of being bottom of the food chain and to give her brother the head start he needed.

Bax raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer he wasn’t going to get. Not tonight anyway. She didn’t need him for any of that, only for everything that came after levelling the Orders. Getting the factions to work together, to set up a council of their own, putting a voting system in place so that every human could have their voice heard. There was no such thing as a just ruler, there would always be unhappy citizens, but a coalition might just work, provided they could get the majority of the Vampires out of the city. Keep the Liberalist Fae out too.

Rae fumbled with her keys, hoping Bax would leave before she opened the workshop, but as she rested a hand on the doorknob, she knew at once that something was wrong. Baelin had mentioned a delay in setting up the new security system, and Rae had assured him she didn’t need it. Perhaps she’d been too quick to jump to that conclusion.

“What is it?” Bax asked beside her, far too close for her liking.

“The wards are down.” She looked up at him, at the way his blue eyes searched hers, and wondered, not for the first time, if he was playing her. “How long have you been here?”

He glanced up and down the busy street, a few strands of hair falling across his eyes as he tracked a group of Hooves heading their way. “About ten minutes. Are you armed?”

Rae shook her head. She’d considered it when she’d left the manor earlier, but a gun wasn’t exactly easy to conceal, and she knew Bax didn’t mean the single dagger tucked into her boot. She’d considered asking herhusband, but that meant seeking him out in the manor, and Rae hadn’t trusted herself to do that since their last meeting. The Hooves walked by without incident, a young group—students, Rae presumed, given they’d been coming from the direction of the university—but Bax still didn’t relax.

“I’ll go in first.” He eased her aside before she could object, turning the key and readying his gun. Fine, if he wanted to get himself killed, she wasn’t about to protest.

Rae clicked her tongue. “There’s no one here.”

Bax didn’t ask her how she knew. She kept her spell work to a minimum around him: had never unlocked a door without a key in his presence, and had never let him see her work on her jewellery. But she’d made no secret of the fact that she used spells; her changing appearance was enough evidence of that, enough of a cover that Bax never questioned her.

Glass cracked as he pushed the door open.

The workshop had been turned upside down, equipment strewn across the floor, the remnants of her work catching the fading sunlight. It could only have happened in the last few hours, and as she toed a piece of broken glass with her boot, she sifted through each of the contacts she’d told about Zeke’s stolen data, wondering which asshole had betrayed her.

Rae knew without a doubt that Aidan had no need to pull something like this. He would, however, be the one to replace it all, if he wanted a shot at getting his missing abilities back.

Not for the first time since becoming his Odalik, she shoved aside the nagging feeling she’d been wrong about him. He’d killed Calder without question, but together, they’d just taken down most of the facility. He’d taken out some of the quieter Vampires back at Cosia, but Rae hadn’t been inside to witness it, and he’d helped her when she was alone on the balcony with Kuron after keeping an eye on her the whole night. He was always watching her, studying her closely.

Rae sighed as she picked up a shattered picture of her and Cillian, shaking off the broken glass and hanging it up on the wall beside the others. He’d set her on this path. Convinced her that Demesia would be better off if the Vampires and Fae fighting over it had no access to their magic. Bolstered her plan whenever she’d come to him with a problem. And now he was gone too. She cleared her throat before the emotion could rise and righted a stool. “Any luck with the data?”

“Shouldn’t we address the fact that your studio has been turned upside down whilst you’re sleeping with the enemy?”

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