“Then stop advertising them so loudly. Also, you are a very complicated woman. You veer from one emotion to the next so swiftly, it’s almost hard to keep up.”
“Guess what emotion I’m experiencing now?” she growled.
The bastard chuckled. “All right. Shutting up.”
The jittery feeling within her increased suddenly. It was almost sunrise. Taking a deep breath in and exhaling slowly, Echo did this over and over as Elijah drove them through the early-morning London traffic. Traffic she could only hear.
Past landmarks she’d visited as a human in the daylight.
William had allowed her to travel much while she was human, to see Europe, its culture and history, in the light ofday before those experiences were stolen from her forever. He’d never used the wordstolen,of course.
But Echo did now.
She would never see Buckingham Palace or the Queen’s Guard in their bearskin hats in the daylight ever again. London would only ever be visible in the darkness by artificial light.
Her grief seemed to grow every day.
As did her bitterness and thirst for revenge.
“We’re here,” Elijah said, and the car slowed. “And as per bloody usual, there are hardly any fucking parking spaces. I’ve offered to buy them a new house so many times, but they stubbornly refuse to m—space!” The car braked harshly, and Echo slammed into the back seats. “Sorry about that.”
She couldn’t speak. Fear that she hated crept over her as the car maneuvered into the spot.
“Right, we’re three doors down from my parents’ place. Are you bundled up tightly?”
Echo exhaled slowly. “Doing it now.” She tightened the blanket around her, the fabric suffocating over her face, so much so that she had to remind herself she couldn’t die of suffocation anymore. “You’ll need to make sure it’s tight around my legs.” Her words were muffled by the blanket, but thanks to his supernatural hearing, Elijah answered in the affirmative.
Only a few seconds later, she heard the rear of the car open and then his hands were on her legs. The blanket was pulled so tight, she felt like a mummy.
“Right, I don’t sense any danger around us, love, so I’m going to lift you now.”
Sense danger?
He could sense danger?
Something to ask him later.
Abruptly, she was pressed against the hard heat of him, his heady scent too close. Her incisors ached all of a sudden. If theheat of the sun through the fabric didn’t make her feel so bloody weak, Echo was sure her incisors would have sliced out of her gums of their own accord.
The fae’s blood was too much of a damn temptation.
The trunk clicked shut, followed by the beep of the car locking.
“Walking swiftly as I can without drawing attention,” he murmured. “Though there’s no bugger about at this time.”
Then there was a crack, like the splintering of wood.
“I now owe my parents a new door.” There was a slamming sound, and she was being laid on something soft. “Closing all the curtains before we take off that blanket.”
“Bill, call the police.”Echo heard the faint whisper from upstairs.
She sighed. “Elijah?—”
“I heard … MUM, DAD! It’s me!”
From above, Echo could hear Elijah’s parents’ movements. The tug of fabric brought her attention back to her companion, and suddenly she was staring up at him from a sofa in the middle of a living room. The curtains were drawn, though cracks of sunlight still spilled through at the edges. He’d switched on a few lamps.
To her surprise, his brow was creased with concern. “Are you all right?”
