Even if it meant walking right into their den.
She stopped pacing long enough to grab a notepad off the counter. Her voice trembled when she spoke. “I have to find Lena.”
I watched her knuckles whiten around the pen. The smallest motion, yet it hit me harder than a sword through the gut.
“Sit,” I said quietly. “Breathe.”
She didn’t. She wrote something down instead. A name. A list.
Watching her struggle for control affected me more than I could have anticipated. “I’ll help you,” I said finally. “We’ll find her.”
She looked up sharply. “Are you sure you want to help me with this?”
“Yes.” I didn’t add that I had no intention of letting her leave my sight.
My thoughts turned dark as I studied her face. Lena’s disappearance now, just after Ambrosia’s reappearance—it stank of orchestration. The Sovereign Court didn’t act by chance. But why, Lena?
The more I thought about it, the clearer it became. They didn’t take Lena for Lena. They took her, thinking she wasNadia.
My hands curled at my sides. Fury rose sharp and cold. They wanted me to come for her. They wanted leverage.
Nadia’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Something happened right after she left. She was on call and never clocked in for work. That’s not her.”
“She was taken,” I said. “And not by chance.”
Her head snapped up. “You think this has to do with you?”
I met her gaze. “I know it does.” The silence between us sharpened, and I turned to the door. “If Hammond or Ambrosia were nearby, I’ll find them. Their scent will linger, and perhaps Lena’s too.”
“You can track them?”
“Yes.” I paused, my hand on the doorframe. “But we must go now. Before the trail fades entirely.”
She grabbed her jacket, already moving. I told myself it was duty that made me lead her into the dark. My own safety being linked to her life. But it wasn’t.
It was something far more dangerous.
The city was a riot of odors.
Smoke. Oil. Human sweat. A thousand different perfumes fighting to be first. Tracking one scent through this reek was near impossible—except hers. Nadia’s scent cut through everything. Warm, nervous, alive. The heartbeat of a creature who didn’t belong anywhere near the Sovereign Court’s nest.
Still, I managed to track them through the city, the stench of their corruption lingering and growing stronger the closer we got.
Their manor loomed over the block, all rotted grandeur and too much money. Ivy strangled its walls, gargoyles leered from the roof, and some fool had wired neon under the eaves. It looked like a brothel designed by a deranged priest.
Nadia stood just behind me, arms crossed, pulse hammering. “Are you sure you can just walk in there?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Safely? They’re vampires.”
“So am I.” I turned to her. “I’m not like them, Nadia. I’m stronger than every one of those leeches combined. And I won’t let them fool me again.”
She looked unconvinced. Her throat worked once, and I could hear the tremor in her pulse.
I stepped closer, holding out my hand. “Contact?”
She nodded and took my hand. Our fingers intertwined, her pulse steadying against mine. I brushed my thumb across her lower lip—a habit I seemed to be forming.
