I roll my lips before I answer. “Not particularly, no. There is no doubt in my mind that Jakob is the worst kind of predator, but he killed those vampires at Eirian’s behest. If her focus is elsewhere, experiments finished, then he will have no need to kill them.”
Margot blinks rapidly, then takes a step back. “Fucking hell,” she mutters. She turns on her heel and storms off, and Rachel hesitates for only a second before she chases after her.
I sigh and sit on the bench next to Grant. Asher has one arm around Quinn’s shoulders, his posture loose. “Not your best work, Vlad.”
“I would have thought the answers to her questions obvious.”
“We should’ve killed him,” Grant says, and I look up at him sharply.
“Jakob?”
“Yeah. I wanted…” He stares down at his hands, flexing them for a second. “I want him dead. She’s right. He’s dangerous. He was glad Eirian planned to kill me.”
I growl in much the way I did earlier, and though Quinn does not jump this time, his shoulders tense. Asher sighs.
“We can deal with him once we’re done with Eirian. Fuck, we’ll send the Council out here if we have to. They should’ve been expanding their reach anyway. Otherwise, you end up with people like Margot and Rachel running around, completely unprepared and getting themselves into all kinds of situations—”
Grant’s head jerks up. “Wait.”
“Wait? What are you—”
Quinn nudges Asher with his hip and Asher frowns but falls silent. Grant is staring north, in the direction of the sea.
“Magic,” he says and hops off the bench.
I grab his arm before he can walk off without us and he blinks as though he forgot about my presence. His power might be stronger than ours, but I think it often overwhelms him.
“Whose magic?”
“It’s fae.”
“Eirian?”
Grant frowns but nods. “I think so. Feels like it could be.”
I look at Asher, who shrugs and looks back. We want to capture her, and of course I am considering the possibility that she is luring us in, but we will take every chance we can get.
“Very well,” I say and let go. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Nineteen
Grant
VladandAsherslipahead as we approach the beach. I don’t know how to explain to them exactly what I can feel. Fae magic is different to death magic, different to earth magic, different to… It goes on, I guess. I don’t know enough, yet, to really pick each one out at a distance, but fae magic resonates in a way the rest simply don’t. Is it because the power I have originally comes from the Huntsman?
Who knows. Doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is keeping low as we emerge onto the street, the beach just across the road. The moon is high, but the stretch before us seems weirdly shadowed.
“Careful,” Vlad murmurs. The word is for everyone, maybe, but his eyes flick briefly to me. I feel a tremor down our bond, too. It’s been more responsive over the last day than it has during the entire last fifteen years. I don’t think that’s just because I’m paying more attention to it.
I think telling Vlad I love him changed something, same as it did when he said it back. Something in our magic, maybe.
Something to explore later.
Quinn is right by my side as we cross the road, and I let out a breath when I step onto the beach, sand shifting beneath my shoes. For a moment, I’m struck by memories—I spent so much time here as a child, perhaps even more once I hit my teens. They’re memories I’ve tried not to revisit but here, now, there’s no escaping them.
Maybe that’s why I don’t notice the kelpies until they’re upon us. That and they’ve been hiding behind some curtain of magic, I’m sure, because they burst out of nowhere, one tackling Asher to the ground. Quinn lets out a cry that is more anger than concern. He jerks forward but stops at the last second when Asher twists and tries to pin the kelpie beneath him.
Vlad is faring better but only just. My scalp tingles, power fizzing through my body. This isn’t it. I didn’t sense two kelpies from half a mile away. Even now, I know they’re not strong enough to have caught my attention like that.
