Page 150 of Lover Forbidden
He sounded the same, maybe deeper somehow—and as she narrowed her eyes on him, her instincts screamed that he was… not human. Not human, at all. In fact, he was nothing she had ever encountered before, not vampire or Shadow, not even asymphath.
He had just hidden behind a mask of being human.
“Go.”
Right behind her, the blackout drapes parted without anyone touching them, and the window sash lifted on its own. “Fuck, will you justleave—”
The door was kicked open, and thelesseron the far side locked on her, a smile on its pasty face, two guns up front and center, in its palms.
“Gotcha,” it said.
Except then its pale eyes shifted over to Dev. Instantly, everything changed, the weapons lowering, an expression of confusion taking the place of all that satisfaction.
And then the words she’d never forget:
“Holy shit, your father’s been looking for you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Some ten blocks away, Shuli was in full pursuit of the enemy, and his two boys were with him. They were very careful about the trail, though, because none of them were supposed to be in the field tonight.
Grief. Injury recovery. Yada, yada, yada.
Except they had work to do. This pair oflessersthey’d tracked starting down on Twentieth Avenue had been on a slow walk—but for only a block or so. Before there could be any proper interception, the shorter of the slayers had checked his phone, said something that didn’t carry, and things had suddenly sped up as the enemy had taken off at a quick jog to the north and west.
If the goal was to get one and work it over for intel, anything more than a sololesserwas complicated and unnecessarily dangerous. So the plan had been to try to split the pair up, with L.W. doing the abducting.
On the other hand, however, if thelessershad been called home to the master? Well, then wasn’t that the lottery win they hadn’t expected.
Of course, L.W., who had the impulse control of a handgun with no safety, just wanted to reach out and touch the targets. But this was the agreement the three of them had made: No hotdog bullshit. Logic over emotion, always—and theyalwaysstayed together.
And so they ran. Quietly.
As the rows of shitty walk-ups changed to better housing, and then stores, businesses, and restaurants, he had no fucking clue where they were headed. Until he caught an inkling. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when he realized where theymightbe going—except his brain just refused to work the coordinates because, really, what were the chances.
And then, as thelessersmade the turn off Market, went down another couple of blocks, and linked up onto Lincoln…
Their targets passed right in front of the apartment building they’d all fought behind just the other night.
That was when he started to get worried.
A quick look at Rhamp’s face, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. L.W. didn’t seem to care either way—at least until the slayer rounded the corner to the rear of the address and entered the parking area that was still marked with CPD evidence tags and yellow tape. Then even he seemed to catch on.
They pulled up short behind a pickup truck.
At that precise moment, up on the fourth floor, a set of drapes opened and a window sash lifted, without any visible hands moving things around. But the magician shit wasn’t what he was worried about.
“Oh, fucking hell,” he muttered as a figure stepped into view.
There was only one person in the world who had long blond hair like that—and then Lyric jumped back in alarm. As her arms raised over her head and shock distorted her face, he had a really bad fucking feeling about all this.
At that moment, Rhamp shot forward—
L.W. grabbed him and held him hard. “Let me go in—”
“She’s my fucking sister—”
“And that’s why I’m going in—”
