Page 16 of He’s A 10 But… He Bites

"We have company." I move Riley behind me with one arm. "Don't run. Running tells him you're worth chasing."

"He's already watching us, genius."

"Not certainty. Give him doubt." I sweep the ridge for a second shape, a third. One observer is a scout. Several is a net.

Riley does what I do not expect. She laughs, loud, leans into me like a tourist delighted by a view, and steers us both back toward the car at the lazy pace of two people who found nothing. "Lovers' ruin," she murmurs, still smiling at the sea. "Nobody chases bored lovers."

It is good craft. Better than good. The figure on the headland does not move, and I move away, slightly grateful for no drop of blood spilled.

My phone wakes against my chest before we reach the car. Cassandra. I answer driving.

"You still have the relic," she says, her voice level the way still water is level over depth.

"I have it. And potentially a watcher."

"You'll have more by morning." A pause, weighed. "Lucien Moreau broke cover an hour ago. A statement, through every channel that matters. He's stopped using The First Voice as a sealed signature and declared it openly."

"Openly."

"Publicly. Inside our channels, yes. Not to humans. Not yet. He's offering a reward for the relic large enough to turn enemies into partners. He's accusing the leadership of burying the vault to keep their thrones. He's telling every faction in Europe that secrecy is a chain we forged for ourselves and the vault is how we break it. Nico. He sounds reasonable."

I look across at Riley—bruised, bright-eyed, the satchel held tight to her side, the only living thing the stone will answer.

"Then they'll be hunting her, not it," I say.

"They'll hunt both. I don't trust her. But I understand her worth now, and so will they. Keep her breathing."

The call ends. Riley is watching me, and she has heard enough.

"That voice," she says slowly. "It was talking about me."

"It was talking about the relic."

"It said her." She doesn't look away. "What did I just become?"

I have always believed humans are something to move out of harm's way and forget. But my grip has gone hard on the wheel, and I am already plotting the fastest road to Venice that keeps her out of the open, it'll take hours to get there but it's better that way. Beneath the duty I have never once questioned, an older instinct is counting every way I could lose her—and refusing, absolutely, to allow a single one.

11

RILEY

We've been moving all night, changing cars once and names twice. Venice doesn't trust anyone, which is the only reason I like it. We come in by a side canal as light turns the color of old brass and the tourists thin into knots of painted faces and wet footsteps. There's two bridges behind us, a boat mooring to the left, and a dead-end alley that isn't dead if you can climb — and oh can I climb. Reflections stack in every window, doubling the street, so I read the city twice: once for what's there, once for what's behind us.

Nico is walking the same distance as he did since I've been with him. Especially, since Lucien's name was dropped with a price attached to my head.

"You're crowding me," I say.

"I must do that."

"Knock it off. If somebody's watching, two people glued together is the easiest thing in the world to follow."

His silver eyes cut to the canal, to the reflections, to the rooftops — checking my work, I realize, not dismissing it. "Then walk like you belong here," he says. "You're reading every doorway like a thief."

"I am one."

"Stop advertising that."

I hate that he's not wrong. I drop my shoulders, slow my hands, become a bored woman belonging to a beautiful city. It's a costume. I've worn worse.