The circle of men was icily still. Disapproving. Dangerous.
She tried not to shake. Beneath her, Hart lay still, his body hot and hard, smelling of sweat, blood, and the forest. She was uncomfortably aware of her breasts pressed against his solid muscle.
“You'd risk your life for this bastard?” Rudrick asked. “He killed his own mother.”
Kayla paused. Was that true? If she let Rudrick distract her, she was going to chicken out. Raising her head, she looked him in the eye and played her only card. “I'm Desiree Friday's sister. Her confidante. I know her better than anyone. If Desiree hid this necklace you want so badly, I'm the only one who'll be able to find it.”
Rudrick stared at her. She stared back. He had the same weird violet-rimmed eyes as Hart. Must be some freaky contacts.
The moment stretched out. A billion thoughts raced through her head. If he called her bluff, would he kill her too? Would she die trying to rescue a stranger? Who would the police call to identify her body? There was no one left. Was this how Desi died, recklessly throwing herself into someone else's problems?
She swallowed her fear. She'd already stuck her foot in. There was no backing out now. “The necklace for his freedom.”
Rudrick glanced from her to Hart. His eyes were calculating. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“I . . . yes.” Hart's chest vibrated beneath her. Was he laughing?
“I wonder,” Rudrick said, studying Hart, “if you'll be allowed to pass through the Gate if you die before the blood debt is repaid.”
More nonsense
, Kayla thought. But apparently it meant something to Hart, because he tensed.
Rudrick smiled. “I admit the thought of endlessly fighting your enslaved ghost is the only thing that keeps me from killing you. So be it, Miss Friday. You can have your Wolf.”
Wolf? Another strange reference that shot over her head. Ghosts and bogeymen aside, she didn't trust these men. “Promise you won't hurt him anymore.” As much as a promise from a lunatic would get her.
Rudrick held up three fingers, scout's honor. “You find me what I want, Miss Friday, and I promise not to harm a hair on his furry hideâ”
Kayla let out a breath.
“âbut only if you bring me the necklace by the full moon.”
“What?”
“Three days, Miss Friday. After that all bets are off, and I'll be forced to make an example of you. Remember that as you hunt.” Rudrick pulled out a business card and bent down to hand it to her. On it was a number, nothing else. “My private line. I'm handling this matter personally. Don't talk to anyone else.”
He motioned to his men.
And they began to change. Their pupils expanded, growing outward over their irises and covering the whites of their eyes. Their noses lengthened, either to sharp points or hooked beaks. The black of their dusters stretched and split, changing before her eyes into feathers and wings. Their bodies morphed grotesquely. Men, no longer, but giant birds. Three, including Johnny, became man-sized crows. Two others were monstrous
things
. Feathered and avian, but the size of a pterodactyl. Twenty-foot wingspans. Long, hooked beaks the length of her arm. Claws large enough to pick up a small whale.
Rudrick and the brute Benardâwho had remained humanâswung themselves onto the necks of the two monster birds. Rudrick gave a mock salute.
Beautiful and terrible, they launched into the air. Gale-force wind rocketed through the street behind them. The giant crows followed closely behind.
Kayla blinked, hard, but it didn't clear the sight from her eyes. She watched in horror as they soared across the sky and disappeared behind Capitol Hill.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured. “Oh, my God.”
Her brainâher logical, ordered, rational brainâhad shorted out.
Chapter 3
“You can get up now,” Hart said, his breath hot on her sensitive neck.
Her cheeks flushed, and she scrambled off him. “What the hell? That did not just happen. I'm seeing things. It must be shock. It must be . . . no. I must have hit my head.” That had to be it.
Stiffly, he pushed himself to his feet. He reached down and grabbed her hand. She focused on the sight of his long, strong fingers and the feel of calluses and heat. It made sense.
Men turning into birds did not.
Fear sunk its claws deep into her gut. What if she really had hit her head and was in some sort of coma? She raised her hands to cover her temples as if she could hold together the tatters of her sanity. The world was too crisp to be a dream. Other than her eyes, her senses were functioning. The wind scraped her skin. The salt air chafed her nose. She bit the inside of her cheek and tasted blood. She must be hallucinating. There was an explanation for those birds. There had to be. Grief. Stress. Sleep deprivation. Concussion. Fever. She was too pragmatic to believe in fairy tales. Her mindâthe thing she prized mostâhad cracked.
Hart tugged her up, and she practically flew into the solid wall of his chest. She found herself staring at his collarbone. Another thing that made sense. She understood collarbones, though she'd never before seen one quite so nicely shaped. A sleek pelt of light brown hair covered his chest, running up to the hollow at the base of his throat. Those pecs, even battered, made her mouth go dry. He was too close. She could stick out her tongue and lick him.
What was wrong with her?
“You're not crazy,” Hart said. His eyes held understanding and pity. Or was it only a shared madness? “You're not.”
“How . . .” She licked her lips and watched him watch the movement of her tongue. “How can you be sure?”
His hand shot toward her. She reared back. Too slow. He clamped his fingers around the back of her skull, anchoring her. Suddenly his mouth was on hers. Hot and wet. Domineering. Their teeth collided. Her jaw dropped, and he took advantage. His tongue, tasting of coffee and mint, thrust savagely, once, twice. It thawed the cold shock that had shrouded her body. Her core heated.
Yes
, she thought.
More
. Forget the monsters. Hart was human and male. Temptation beckoned, more alluring, more powerful than she'd ever felt it.
Before she could react, it was over. He dropped his hand and stepped back, leaving her dazed and strangely empty.
“Don't know if that proves I'm dreaming or what,” she murmured.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “Dreaming, definitely.”
He was a contradiction: violent one moment, flirting the next. She didn't know whether to fear for her life or her virginity.
She looked away.
Focus
, she told herself. Now was not the time to be distracted by a chiseled jaw. There had to be a logical explanation. Mental disorder. Brain cancer.
Anything
.
But there on the ground, only an inch from her sensible black clogs, lay a feather, long as her leg and shimmering black like an oil slick. The silver tip narrowed to a razor-sharp point. She nudged it with her shoe. There was no bird big enough to grow a feather that long. “What is this?”
“Thunderbird feather.”
“Thunderbird,” she repeated. “Are you in some sort of gang?”
He snorted.
“No? This is a bird feather.”
“Yup.”
“What kind of bird is a Thunderbird?”
He raised his eyebrows and pointed one finger at the sky in the direction those monster birds had flown in her imagination.
She swallowed. “You saw that too?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Don't roll your eyes at me! What is going on here? Is it . . . is it drugs?”
“Well, now, that's what the medical examiner wrote, ain't it?” He stretched, half turning away from her. Under his breath, he added, “Chump.”
She didn't need that thrown back in her face.
When he turned back, his eyes were crinkled in humor. He met her glare with an easy, conspiratorial look, like they were sharing some inside joke. He knew it wasn't drugs. He didn't act like he thought she was crazy.
She glanced at the sky. The clouds lay strewn across it like dirty snow. The birds had disappeared. If she ignored the feather at her foot, she could pretend it had never happened.
Listen to her! For someone who prided herself on scientific reasoning, she was being awfully closed-minded. How could she ignore the evidence in front of her? “I know what I think I saw. I just don't believe it.”
He huffed out a breath. “Shocking.”
“I meanâ” She scrambled to recover. “I saw those birds, and I can't think of an alternate explanation. It just doesn't make sense. You're telling me that those men really changed into Thunderbirds, which are”âshe searched her memory of Desi's mythology lecturesâ“some kind of Native American myth. I might accept the reemergence of some sort of lost species, but men turning into birds? It defies all logic.”
He made a noncommittal noise and bent to pick up his shirt from the wet ground.
“What are they? How can they exist? I saw them change. If I'm not delusional, that isâthe jury is still out on that one. But seeing is believing, right? So I have to believe it, but . . . what the
hell
?” She watched him shrug painfully into his shirt, and her eyes caught on the exotic gold bands around his biceps. “What are those?”
“None of your damned business.”
Okay then. She pulled her jean jacket tighter. The cold was worse than in Philly. Not by degree, but by intent. It took on a life of its own, damp and insidious. It seeped into a person's bones, and she could imagine it lingering there until a body rotted from the inside out. “Let's humor each other. Let's say you're telling the truth. So tell me what I'm up against. Who are those men? How are mythic monsters flying around Seattle, and it hasn't made the news?”
He studied her for a long moment. “Who's gonna believe it?”
“But with camera phones and the Internetâ”
“You can't capture the supernatural on camera, any more than you can measure the Aether.” At her blank look he sighed and glanced out to sea. He ran a hand unconsciously over his bruised ribs. Finally, he turned back to her. “Okay, I'll bite. Rudrick and his clowns are Kivati shape-shifters. Those stories about Crow, Raven, Thunderbird, and Wolf are all based on the Kivati. Ancient humans worshipped them as semi-deities, because the Kivati protected them from the
Unktehila
.”
“Unka-what?”
“Dragons. It's what the local people called them. You'll hear Drekar now. Old Norse.”
“Dragons,” she repeated. Desi would have been thrilled. For a girl dubbed “the Chatterbox” in school, she sure had kept a closed lid on this secret. They weren't supposed to have secrets, not from each other. It had always been the two of them against the world. “Giant birds are easier to believe. I've seen unexplainable things in medicine, but this is huge.”
He shrugged. “Humans. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist.”
Guilty as charged. She explained away things that seemed impossible. She wanted to do the same to this, but those birdsâshe couldn't forget them. They were burned into her retinas.
“So let's make sure I have this right: Rudrick and company are shape-shifters who are saving humanity from modern-day dragons? But I'm humanâwhy would they threaten me? I'm really struggling here.”
“You're right. Sounds stupid. Forget it.” With brisk efficiency, Hart loaded the pile of weapons back into his pockets.
“I didn't mean that.” He was clamming up again. She had so many questions. “Desi had a symbol carved into her wristâ”
“A Norse rune.”
“I thought you were unconscious.”
“Faking it.”
“Who would do that to her?”
He picked up the holster and slipped the leather straps over his broad shoulders, wincing briefly as the straps dug into his wounds. It must hurt a lot more than he let on. “That's the question, isn't it?”
“Do you think Desi's key and the necklace are the same thing?”
“Do you?”
She fought to rein in her temper. “Look. I'm sorry I'm having trouble understanding this whole story, but I'm trying. Can't you share any information with me? Rudrickâwhatever he isâgave us three days to find the key. We're on the same side. We need to work together.”
He fingered the gun strapped to his waist. He didn't need the weapon to be intimidating. Didn't need the bruises or the cut at his temple to proclaim to the world he was a fighter. Violence flickered in his eyes. Every self-preserving instinct she had screamed,
Run. Run fast and run hard.
But she couldn't. She had to find out what had happened to Desi.
She remembered her little sister at eight, hair pulled back in a dozen mismatched braids, an endless parade of scrapes on her knees and hands, inquisitive eyes straining to take in the world all at once. While playing hide-and-seek in sprawling Fairmount Park, Desi strayed too far and got lost. A late-summer storm hit, and Kayla searched the forest through a wicked downpour, at times fording knee-high water. Hours later, she found Desi shivering under a wilting cardboard box in the deep underbrush, teeth chattering, raindrops dripping from all those braids, big eyes full of relief.
“You came,” Desi said as Kayla pulled her from the soggy cardboard.
“Always,” Kayla promised. She stuck to it, no matter how much trouble Desi found herself in. Kayla was always there to dig her out.
Until now. She'd failed her baby sister. There was no way in hell she could leave Seattle without knowing why.
“You owe me one,” Kayla told Hart. “Tell me what you know.”
He ran a hand through the white patch in his unruly dark hair, letting the silence lengthen. She forced herself to look him in the eye. Finally he spoke, “The necklace could be a key. I don't know, but it's a good guess. I'll ask my bossâ”
“Who is?”
“A businessman.” His eyes slid to the side. “He owns a tea house.”
“And?” She motioned for him to elaborate.
“And . . . he's a politician. And patron of the arts. Respected civic leader.” The mocking curve to Hart's lip said he didn't think much of his boss's fine reputation. He shrugged into his thick jacket. The light rain beaded on his long eyelashes. “Look, your sister made some bad friends. Forget the Kivati, the Drekar are worse. They eat souls. Stay away from them. Stay away from my boss. Just get out of town.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, butâ”
“There's nothing I can say to convince you to leave, is there?”
“Nope.”
“Hell.” He took off down the hill, holding his left arm tightly against his side. “I tried.”
“I consider myself warned, so you can clear your conscience,” she called, hurrying to catch up. He might not need her, but she, unfortunately, needed him. He was her only guide in this crazy place. “Maybe Desi left more clues in her apartment. We should check there, then track down her friends and professors at the university. Then, well, your boss probably knows something.” She paused to note his injured stance. “But if you've got a broken rib, first stop should be the hospital.”
He shook his head. “No hospitals. I'm fine.”
“You're hurt. I can help.”
The look he shot her was incredulous, and a little angry. “Forget what I said beforeâyou
are
crazy. You know that?”
She got the feeling offers of help, in his experience, were either nonexistent or plagued with conditions. “She's my sister. I'd do anything for her. Can't you understand that?”
“No. And you can't trust me.” He seemed deadly serious.
Of course not. The day she trusted a stranger who carried a gun was the day she'd ice-skate in hell. But she didn't have a choice. She didn't know Seattle. She didn't know about Thunderbirds and dragons and things that went bump in the night. She didn't know what the mysterious necklace looked like. Where was she going to find another person who did? Rudrick was out of the question. She had to find Desi's key. Hart was her only hope.
“But you can trust me,” she said. It would have to be enough.
Â
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Emory Corbette narrowed his eyes at the Thunderbird general who sat across from him in the silver steam car. “But would Norgard let him go?”
“None of the Regent's operatives have lived long enough to get this close.” Like Corbette, Jace Raiden wore a sharp three-piece suit and heavy wool duster. Though younger than Corbette by a century, Jace and his brother, Kai, had proved themselves in the war with the Drekar. Strong physically, emotionally, and magically, they had risen quickly through the ranks, becoming the Raven Lord's trusted advisers and each a leader of one of the four Kivati Houses. Every man, woman, and child had a job and a place within the hierarchy of their House. Each House contained a balance of warriors, craftsmen, and strong Aether workers. If anything should happen to him, Corbette trusted his Thunderbirds to take control of their Houses and carry on the fight. The Kivati would not fall apart. Not like last time.