“I’ll be there,” I lied, giving her a small wave, and then exiting the storage closet with a pit in my stomach.
Back in the kitchen of the office building, I worked quickly to make a portal back into the sanctuary in New York City.
After stepping through, I eyed the portal to Avalon. I took a moment to gather my thoughts.
I’d legit just watched Apollyon in two very different scenarios. One where he was the seemingly loving husband having a baby with my mother, and another where he was paying a Shade woman with a drug problem to have his baby. Then I’d spoken to Sam herself and learned that Harley was left with the Shades. It was a lot of information to learn in a short amount of time.
I took a deep breath.
Harley. My sister’s name is Harley.
It was real. It was happening. I had a sister. Now I just needed to get to LA and find her.
CHAPTERTHREE
“There you are,” a deep voice said. I looked up to see Gage leaned up against the doorframe of my dorm room. His muscled arms were crossed over his chest, straining against the sleeves of his black t-shirt. I swear he’d gotten even bigger since fully shifting into a hellhound, but I didn’t want to mention it. Whenever I brought up anything hellhound related, some of the fire in his eyes dimmed.
“Here I am,” I said back, and rose from my bed with a smile. The ends of my hair were still wet from my shower and my mind was reeling over what I’d just learned about my sister, but even so I was glad to see him.
Gage shoved off of the doorframe, and as if knowing I needed his arms around me, he pulled me into his embrace.
“Hard day?” he asked.
I huffed out a half-laugh into his chest and then pulled back enough so that I could look into his eyes. “You have no idea.”
How did I even start to explain everything? Did I tell him about the Hall of Angelic Records and how I’d slipped into Apollyon’s memories and then found Sam’s soul in an office building, or should I just come out and tell him it was true that I had a sister and go from there?
“I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth falling into a frown.
I shook my head. “Not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry about anything that puts a frown on your beautiful face.” He traced my lower lip with the tip of his finger and a tremor worked its way through my body. Feeling my reaction, a slow grin grew on Gage’s face. Part of me was embarrassed he could read me so well, but the other part didn’t care and just wanted a kiss.
Mmmm. Gage kisses make everything better.
My gaze dropped from his eyes and strayed to his perfect pair of lips.
“I’m taking you out for dinner,” he said suddenly, breaking the fog of lust that had dropped over me.
I cleared my throat.
“Like a date?” I asked, taken aback.
Gage was so important to me that calling us boyfriend and girlfriend seemed too mild a term for what we really were, but even so, we still hadn’t been out on an official “first date.” I don’t think he’d ever taken a girl out on a date in his whole life.
“No. Not like a date,” Gage said, and my heart sank.
“Oh.” He must be taking me on a group dinner hangout.
I lowered my head, trying not to let him see the disappointment that was surely reflected on my features.
Placing two fingers under my chin, Gage lifted my face to his. He swooped down and brushed his lips over mine in a tease of a kiss. Just enough of a touch to make my heart rate spike.
“Notlikea date,” he said again. “An actual date.”
“Oh!”
Joy reigniting in my gut, I couldn’t help but grin like a fool. I know I needed to make a game plan on how to find my sister and tell him all about that, but right now I only had a starting point, and Los Angeles was a big place. So maybe, just maybe, we could take a time-out tonight and enjoy each other in a normal setting like I’d been hoping we could do for weeks. Then tomorrow I could focus on the daunting task of putting out feelers to where my sister might be now. Dash would be the obvious first person to ask, but that could wait.
