Page 40

Her gaze doesn’t waver despite her state. “And if you’re wrong?

“I’m not.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Because it’s my home,” I say simply. “I know how those fossils work. Veraxia’s likely already had to take a sedative just to calm down from the stress of even issuing this. Why would she come and get me? It’s far too much effort for her.”

I reach out, pulling her lip from the desperate grip of her teeth until the skin’s free and gleaming.

She flinches, swatting my hand away as if my touch burned worse than the sigil.

“Your little cleansing kit will arrive in a matter of days,” I say, reclaiming the room’s energy by flicking the tip of her nose softly. “And then you can... wash the coating away. That little mark will vanish along with it. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in no time. Nothing to worry about.”

“But you said it wouldn’t work,” she whispers, her eyes still clouded with panic.

“And you said it would,” I counter, finally stepping back and letting the cold air rush into the space between us. “Now, can you please find me something to wear? Unless, of course, you’d prefer the alternative,” I drawl, hooking a thumb into the knot of my towel and letting it loosen just enough to be a genuine threat to her sweet, mortal sanity. “I’ll bare-ass it around your apartment. I have a lovely set of cheeks, Eden, and they do look better when wet, if I do say so myself.”

“No,” she stammers, her face finally regaining a flush of color. “No. I’ll... I’ll find you something.”

“Good mortal,” I murmur. “You do that. And then go find something to ice that sigil with. It’ll ease the burn.”

I retreat to the doorframe, leaning against the wood with a casualness I don’t entirely feel as she moves toward her dresser, yanking open a drawer with trembling fingers. I ignore the phantom itch in my palms to reach back for her, to pull her against my chest until the shivering stops and look away, focusing instead on the way the morning light catches the dust motes dancing in the air of her cramped bedroom.

Fuck the sigil. Fuck the Ninth. Fuck Veraxia and her empty threats.

Right now, I have bigger fish to fry.

Chapter 15

Eden

My boots clatter against the damp sidewalk as I step over piles of rotting leaves and dodge the late-night stragglers.

The entire day’s been a blur of lying through my teeth to Piper and trying to ignore the itch of the sigil on my ribs that’s dulled from a burn to an ash-blackened mark.

Now it’s past midnight, the city has become a skeletal version of itself, and I’m chasing a silver-skinned nightmare through the dark.

“Malachi!” I wheeze, lunging forward to grab the edge of his sleeve, fingers bunching in the heavy fabric of the hoodie I managed to wrangle over his head when he bolted for the front door half an hour ago. “Talk to me. You’re acting like a feral bloodhound in a public street.”

He stops so abruptly I almost slam into his back.

“I’m tracking,” he says, chest heaving as he sucks in a deep, lung-bursting breath of the urban rot.

Before I can even get a ‘who’ or a ‘why’ or a ‘what the fuck’ out, he’s gone—sprinting with a terrifying speed that forces me to scramble just to keep the sickness from ripping me in two.

He rounds the corner of a damp brick building, hauling me in his wake like a tail on a kite, and skids to a halt behind a row of industrial dumpsters where the air’s thick with a gag-inducing cocktail of garbage, wet cardboard, and rust.

“Stay quiet,” he commands with a lethal whisper as he points one long, silver finger past the rusted edge of the bin.

I squint into the dim, flickering light. Standing near a pile of discarded crates is the environmentalist guy—the one with the smug, self-righteous clipboard and the ‘Save the Earth’ tote bag who’d tried to corner us on our way to the pharmacy.

My brow furrows, and I open my mouth to ask why we’re out in the middle of the night tracking a guy whose only crime was being overly passionate about recycling. But before a single syllable can escape, Malachi’s hand slams over my mouth. He presses me backward with a force that leaves no room for argument, until cold, wet brick meets my spine.

The environmentalist lets out a sound—a wet, clicking noise that makes the hair on my arms stand up.

What the…

Then, he reaches into the dumpster and pulls out a rat. It’s still twitching, its pink tail lashing feebly against his wrist, before he shoves the whole thing into his mouth with a disgusting, desperate greed.