She halted, feeling adrift.
“Where to?” Lore asked. “Back to your home?”
“No. Satire.” She needed to be with people who cared about her, so she didn’t feel so alone.
The blinking, bright neon pink and green lights from the shops lining the street amped up her headache.
Lore put a palm on her back. “Come.” He ushered her down the busy street with new urgency, and Nia had to run to keep up with him. “What is it?”
“The demon is close.” He grasped her hand, hauling her along.
Oh, shit.
Lore rounded the bend into a dank alley, their booted feet splashing in the water running down the asphalt, probably from a broken drain pipe. Some distance away from the entrance, he stopped. Stacked crates rose high on one side of them.
Nia let go of him and gripped one of the crates, her other hand pressed to her heaving chest. “What now?”
“We wait for him.” His cold stare remained on the busy street they’d left behind. “Then I kill him.”
Nia rubbed her hot face, fear strangling her. “What about his minions?” she whispered. “You didn’t sense any demons close to my home or the clinic, did you?”
“No.” His focus shifted back to hers and softened a tad. “Neither he nor his minions will come within breathing distance of you.”
Dammit, she hated this, hated that she was prey for the demon jerkwad. “Look, he won’t come when he can probably sense you with me. Wait here. I’ll head farther down the alley. Shield yourself, or whatever it is you do. When he appears, you come and get him.”
“You will not be bait.” His tone brooked no argument. “I can find him. You, however, will be unprotected if I go after him.”
“Then we’ll be here forever!” She shot him a frustrated glower and stomped off, Lore’s growl following her.
Steam hissed from alley grates, adding to the stench. Grimacing, Nia kept her breathing shallow, marching deeper into the dark alley, Lore behind her.
Dammit. This wasn’t going to work. Lore refused to leave her alone, and Kas would know the angel who broke his neck was close by.
She stopped, shut her eyes, and imagined the park close to her home. The next minute, she was there beneath the low-hanging, moss-covered branches of the massive oak trees. Their dense canopy barely let slivers of moonlight through?—
“Nia!” a snarl reverberated, and Lore appeared in front of her, wings snapping out like otherworldly flames in the dark. “You are being reckless.”
“I can’t continue like this, scared to go home because Kas could appear at any moment. A single error of judgment, and I’m still paying for it.” Her throat swelled with despair. “I want him gone from my life. This is the only way I know how to end it.”
He closed the few yards between them, wings vanishing. “No.”
“Yes! He wants my blood?—”
“He will not touch you.” His gaze chilled to shards of ice. “Not on my watch.”
There was such coldness in his voice that Nia frowned. Why did she have a feeling he wasn’t just talking about Kas? Before she could ask him, he gently brushed her lower lip with his thumb?—
She stopped breathing.
He stilled as if realizing what he’d done. He lowered his hand, fingers fisted.
Her throat tight, she turned away, the hollowness within her expanding. “I can’t do this. I’m going home.”
Nia ducked under a low branch and cut through the massive trees. Lore followed.
She just needed a minute alone, but that wasn’t going to happen. Pointless hurrying when she could never outrun him. She rounded a gigantic tree and crashed into a man jogging. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Suddenly, he snagged her arm. “Got you?—
