I swore softly, wrapped my fingers around my keys, and called to the Aedh within. She came with a rush that literally blew me away. Energy tore through every muscle, every cell, numbing pain and dulling sensation as it broke them all down, until my flesh no longer existed and I became one with the air. Until I held no substance, no form, and could not be seen or heard or felt by anyone or anything who wasn’t reaper or Aedh.
In that form, I swept out of the house and into the sunshine, speeding away from peace and quiet of the rolling hills, heading toward Melbourne and the Collins Street building that housed Lucian’s apartment.
I didn’t re-form as I neared the building – there were too many people walking along this end of Collins Street to risk that. I didn’t immediately go into the building, either, but scanned it carefully, looking for anything that seemed odd or out of place.
It was one of those grand old Victorians the top end of Collins Street was famous for and, like many of them up here, only five stories high. Lucian’s apartment was on the top floor, at treetop level, and would have been beautiful once it had been finished. Not that being unfinished had ever stopped us from using the place – and we’d certainly shared many good times within the half-constructed interior walls. But it had all been a lie.
Well, not so much the joy he’d gotten out of sex – in that area, at least, he’d been real and honest. And yet the sex had been nothing more than a means to an end for Lucian. What he’d wanted – what he’d always wanted – was the keys.
The keys were everything. To Lucian, to my father, to the Raziq, and Hunter. Hell, even Azriel…
I cut the thought off abruptly. Don’t think about him, I reminded myself fiercely. Just don’t.
But it was hard not to when I was carrying his child.
I cursed and moved warily into the building. There didn’t seem to be any traps, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here. After all, Lucian’s other lover – and his partner in key-stealing crime – was a dark sorceress. And while we had no actual proof Lauren had been working with both Lucian and the key thief, my father certainly hadn’t denied the possibility, and that was good enough for me. And given that, she’d want to protect his identity just as much as Lucian had. After all, the game was far from over – for them, as much as for us.
I slipped under the locked gate and into the building’s foyer. New marble had replaced much of the old, but the floor was covered in dust and the breeze rustled the plastic sheeting still covering some of the walls. There were no workmen here, despite the fact it was only early afternoon. With Lucian dead, I guess they’d have no choice but to shut the site down – at least until his estate was sorted out, anyway.
That’s presuming he’d made a will. Lucian had never suffered from a lack of confidence, and he certainly wouldn’t have expected to die as he had – especially by my hand. But it might be worth doing a search through the probate office records. If he did have heirs, maybe he’d left information with them.
There would be something, somewhere, of that I was sure. Lucian had been betrayed once, and it had cost him his Aedh powers. He wasn’t likely to let anything like that happen again. He would have had some form of insurance.
I moved forward again, but tiredness washed through my particles and I stopped. I might shift to Aedh with far greater accuracy and power these days, but it still took a lot of energy to hold this form, and I wasn’t at my best. Not to mention the fact I was now pregnant. I had no idea how far along I was, but even if it was little more than a week or so, it would no doubt drain my strength faster. After all, there were now two beings for the energy to alter. I just had to hope that being in this form wouldn’t affect my child. But Azriel was energy rather than flesh, and I was half werewolf and half Aedh, so our child belonged to all three. Surely something that was part of my child’s heritage would not harm him or her.
Still, given the building site was closed, there was little reason to remain in Aedh form. I called to the transforming magic once again, and it stormed through me, rearranging cells until I was once again wearing flesh.
Dizziness immediately swept me, and I had to grab at the nearby wall to remain upright. But the pain that raced through my being was next to nothing when compared to my usual state after a shift.
My clothes, however, came through the change as disastrously as ever. They always disintegrated just fine, but re-forming them was trickier, as the magic didn’t always delineate bits of me from the other particles. Which meant I often ended up with a dustlike sheen covering my skin rather than fully formed pieces of clothing. My jeans generally came through relatively intact, although the breeze teasing my left butt cheek suggested a rather largish hole around that area. My underwear, as usual, hadn’t fared all that well, given both my knickers and bra were little more than fluff that clung to my skin and itched like hell. My sweater had also survived – a good thing, considering the state of my bra. Being nearly naked on a building site probably wasn’t a great idea, even if the building site was currently empty.
But I’d barely pushed away from the wall when a familiar scent teased my nostrils. I swore softly and turned around, my gaze scanning the plastic sheeting. As I did, Jak Talbott stepped out from behind it and said, “Well, that was certainly one hell of an entrance. Care to explain how you did that, exactly?”
“No,” I bit back. “Care to explain why the hell you’re here?”
Because he was certainly the last person I wanted – or had expected – to see here. Not only was he my first love – though one, thankfully, I’d finally gotten over – but also a reporter with a nose for a story. I did not want said nose sticking in this particular story, even if I’d been using him – and his resources – to help find the ley-line gate.
His answering smile was slow and sexy. At five ten, he was pretty much the average height for a male werewolf, and while he wasn’t what I’d term drop-dead gorgeous, his rough-hewn features could certainly be classified as handsome. His hair, like his skin, was black, but there was a whole lot of gray in it these days. More, perhaps, since he’d become part of my quest. As for the smile – well, it had certainly enabled him to slay more than his fair share of maidens. Me included.
“Where else was I supposed to be?” he said, his dark eyes showing little of the amusement evident in his expression and his voice. “You wouldn’t answer the phone, Tao threatened to cut my nuts off if I went near you, and Ilianna – well, heaven only knows what she would have threatened had I contacted her.”
Amusement bubbled briefly. Given Ilianna’s opinion of Jak’s reappearance in my life, her threat would probably have been a whole lot nastier than Tao’s. “None of which explains your presence here.”
“Where else might I be given the Directorate’s reticence about answering questions concerning Lucian?” He eyed me for a second, the amusement fading. “I figured that, given your involvement with the man, sooner or later you’d come here.”
A statement that made me wonder just how much he knew about Lucian’s death. “You could have been waiting a long time —”
“I doubt it. Now, it’s your turn.”
I grimaced. “Look, the way I reappeared… it’s not something —”
“Don’t try that,” he cut in. “We passed the whole ‘it’s not something I need to know’ thing around the time we were attacked by hellhounds. I deserve some honesty, Ris, if nothing else.”
I sighed. He was right. He did. After all, I could hardly bitch about people lying to me when I was doing the exact same thing to him.
“You know how Azriel comes and goes —”
“You’re not a reaper.” His gaze swept me, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. When Azriel wore flesh, it wasn’t obvious he was anything else.