Christian slowed to a stop. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He approached the vehicle and circled it, eyes brimming with disbelief. “They didn’t even take the tires!”
Even more astonishing was that the door was unlocked and nothing was stolen from the vehicle. I climbed inside to warm up and take a breather before we continued our walk.
Christian sat in the driver’s seat, and after he retrieved his sunglasses, he stared at the console. “If the battery’s still alive, maybe we can walk to a gas station and get enough fuel to move this thing out of here.”
“Sign me up for that plan.”
When he turned the ignition, the Jeep started up. It didn’t just turn on, it roared.
“Feck me.” He thumped his finger against the panel in front of him. “It says a full tank. Hand to God, it was empty when we left.”
“Maybe Shepherd needs to take it into the shop and get the needle checked. Sometimes they get stuck, or maybe it froze in the cold weather.”
Christian rubbed the back of his neck. “If I were a man who believed in fairies, I’d think one was playing tricks on us.”
That made me chuckle. “Maybe it was a leprechaun.”
He waved his hand. “Don’t start with the Irish jokes.”
“Did you bring your lucky clover?”
Christian gave me a cursory glance before turning the Jeep around. When I switched on Shepherd’s music, the chorus chanted: Let the bodies hit the floor.
“Now there’s some uplifting music,” Christian remarked, changing the station over to classical.
“Air on the G String,” I said, remembering it from music class back in high school. “I didn’t take you for a Bach man.”
“It’s easier on a Vampire’s ears. Be thankful you don’t have to suffer hearing every sound magnified.”
I slowly took off my gloves, staring at Christian’s profile. Sometimes when he was thinking, he would draw in his lower lip and lightly scrape his teeth against it. I noticed his scruffy hair covering the top of his ear and had a strange urge to tuck it back.
“Is it like that all the time?” I asked. “Hearing everything. Does it hurt?”
“When it comes to bright light, I’ve got these,” he said, tapping his finger against the sunglasses. “But filtering sound takes practice. A Vampire learns to block out noise, and I’m quite good at it. I don’t hear the engine running, but I can hear a cat howling in the alleyway. If I wanted to, I could silence every sound in the world but the breath in your lungs.”
My face flushed, and I turned my attention out the window to two men fighting in the street. One Mage blasted the other man with energy, and in a split second, the tall man’s eyes rolled from yellow to black.
“Chitah,” I said, locking my door. Once they went primal, they targeted anyone who looked like a threat.
The Chitah took on a predatory stance, flashing his upper and lower fangs as he circled the Mage. They were worthy adversaries. A Chitah could kill a Mage with his bite, and a Mage could take down a Chitah with enough energy blasts.
Ifhe could get close enough.
The Chitah rushed the Mage, and they rolled end over end across the snow. As Christian drove past them, I turned in my seat to steal a final glance of the violent ending.
A lawless society terrified and intrigued me. The appeal of a place like the Bricks was undeniable, even to the most honorable man. I’d lived in fear of the Mageri for many years. As an illegally made and undocumented immortal, our laws supported my execution. And yet criminals were given a safe haven in a place like this.
During the ride back to the club to pick up Christian’s car, we didn’t speak. The silence wasn’t awkward, and for the first time, it felt like we were two partners out on a ride.
* * *
By the timewe made it back to Keystone, everyone had already eaten. I felt guilty that Viktor had to cook breakfast on my week, but I trudged upstairs and decided to worry about it later—after I took a hot shower.
With my hair still wet, I put on a workout hoodie, jeans, and thick socks. I used cotton swabs to clean out the dried blood from inside my nose, and once I finished that delightful task, I felt like myself again. My blue eye was a little puffy from rubbing it, but no one would ever know to look at me that I’d fought a Mage, dodged a sword attack, escaped an explosion, gone on a subway chase, traipsed around the Bricks, and slept on Christian’s lap.
When I knocked on the door to Wyatt’s office, no one answered. The lights were out, which was unusual.
“That’s a first,” I muttered, heading to the staircase. Why wasn’t anyone monitoring the black market website?
