Movement in my periphery has me looking up, as does the sound of the fire door slamming against the wall. Asher runs out into the alley and stops dead when he sees me.
The troll mutters something under his breath. I feel a sudden pressure, like the air is getting heavy, then hear a pop as he vanishes, leaving me behind.
Asher doesn’t move. I don’t move.
He’s just as I remember him. Njáll took almost everyone’s attention when he strode into my challenge and demanded Augustine’s surrender, but I couldn’t help but stare at him.
And why wouldn’t I? He oozes control, sheer confidence, and if I want to trace all the tattoos that peek from the edges of his clothes, then that’s no one’s business but my own. He takes a step towards me now, though, and I startle, taking my own back.
He pauses, raising his hands like he wants to calm me.
“Asher!” a voice calls from within the pub. His companion. The vampire. I don’t want to deal withhim.
“What is it?” Asher shouts back. He doesn’t look away from me. That’s the only thing keeping me here, and I think he knows it.
“Any sign of them?”
Them. Not me. He’s not after me. He can’t be.
The twins. One went this way, but they’ll both be long gone now.
“No,” Asher shouts back, the sound startling me. My heart beats, staccato, against my ribs. I should go. Ineedto go. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The vampire doesn’t reply, and Asher doesn’t seem to care that he doesn’t. I can’t scent him from here, and I don’t know if that’s because he’s suppressing his scent or I’m panicking too much or if it’s just the general dulling of my senses that’s been creeping up on me over the past several months.
“Quinn,” Asher murmurs, taking a step closer.
My name in his voice startles me more than anything else so far. I know he recognises me, of course, but I wasn’t expecting him to remember my name. I don’t know why he’d have taken notice of it at all.
I can’t go with him, though. I can’t be escorted back to my pack like some naughty child. Bad enough they don’t know what I’ve been doing; I’m sure Kieran will be furious to find out that I’ve been here, and even more so that he found out after everyone else.
Asher’s closer now, but he jerks to a stop when I step back again, like I’ll mirror him, like I’ll stay just because he wants me to.
“Quinn.” More warning in it this time, but that’s just a sign for me to go.
“Asher,” the vampire calls again, and it’s just enough to have me moving. I spin on my heel and run before I can think twice about it.
If Asher chases me, I’m sure he’ll catch up, but by the time I’m a few streets away, I accept that he stayed behind.
He has bigger things to worry about. Far more important things than me.
Chapter Three
Asher
Ispendfartoolongwatching the space where Quinn was standing. So long, in fact, that Vlad comes out to get me, frowning when he finds me staring at the shadows.
“You said there was no one here.”
“The high fae weren’t here,” I say, though we both know only one of them came this way. I tear my eyes from nothing and focus on Vlad instead. He’s got a scratch down the side of his facethat is already healing. He made it past those trolls, if only for a second, which is what had the two fae running in the first place.
Twins. Maybe soulbonded, close as they are—soulbonds aren’t picky as to whether they’re romantic or familial or platonic, as far as I’m aware.
Doesn’t matter. They’re powerful, and they’re using that power to… what? Put on fights?
“Let’s go back,” Vlad says. Worry hangs heavily in his gaze when I meet his eyes again. I sigh and nod. It isn’t like me to get distracted, but I can’t explain the strange horror I felt when I saw Quinn fighting in that cage.
I sure as fuck can’t explain the pride I felt when I saw him holding his own against that troll, either. Or at the way he clearly helped him out of there.
