Текст книги "Marked by Midnight"

Автор книги: Lara Adrian

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But her instincts soothed under Mathias’s touch. Her fears had no place here, when he was kissing her, caressing her, stoking a need in her that she had never known.

He had asked her to give him her trust. Where Nova clung to it so tightly when it came to her past and the life she left behind, now, sheltered in Mathias’s arms, under the gentling power of his intoxicating kiss, she knew only surrender.

She had no fight in her as he dragged her deeper into his embrace, pressing his body to hers. His arousal was obvious, thick and hard at her abdomen. He groaned as he moved against her, tension rippling through him like a current.

“Do you want this, Nova?” he murmured against her mouth. His voice was gravel, a rough, hot growl that should have sent panic into her veins, but instead kindled a higher flame in her core. “Tell me. I need to know if you’re feeling this too.”

She had a thousand reasons to deny it, to deny him.

A thousand reasons to push him away and hope she never saw him again.

But when she parted her lips, only one word slipped off her tongue. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 7

 

He hadn’t truly expected that answer.

But that didn’t keep Mathias from taking Nova’s petite frame up in his arms, then carrying her through the small apartment to the bedroom at the end of the short hallway.

He knew she wanted him. Hell, he knew she was as fevered and hungry with desire as he was. He tasted it in her kiss. He saw it in her pale blue eyes, which had gone dusky with need before he’d even brushed his mouth against hers the first time.

But he’d fully anticipated her rejection, not a breathless surrender.

She was scared to be with him; she’d admitted that easily enough.

What she hadn’t been so forthright about was the reason for her fear. Part of him wanted to believe it was because she was inexperienced with sex, but the few things she’d told him about her past had given him reason enough to understand that Nova wasn’t a virgin.

She’d been misused before, and it made him want to gather her to him like a broken bird and soothe her with gentling words and careful hands.

But Nova was also a fiery woman–a sexy, vibrant female who made everything male in him want to stand up and beat his chest, show her in the most carnal, primal way that she was his tonight, and that no man would ever come near her again without coming through him first.

As he walked over to the bed and sat her down on the edge of it, Mathias struggled with the two warring sides of himself.

The urge to get her naked beneath him had his blood running hot in his veins, his fangs throbbing as fiercely as the erection that strained against his pants, demanding release.

It took all the control he had not to act on that impulse. Instead, he smoothed his hand over her silky black-and-blue hair, let it sift between his fingers. He stroked her creamy, velvet-soft cheek, let his thumb trace the shell of her ear, over the combination of small silver and black hoops that rode its delicate perimeter.

He caressed the satiny lengths of her tattooed arms, committing every colorful inch to memory as both his fingers and his admiring gaze traveled her skin. He studied the Gothic-looking design on her left forearm–the one he’d initially dismissed as a tombstone. On closer look now, he realized he’d seen the image somewhere in the city. Had walked by it a thousand times on his regular patrols of Southwark, in fact.

“It’s the rose window on the remains of the old Winchester Palace, down by Southwark Cathedral,” Nova said, when he stroked the tattoo in silent contemplation. “That’s where I met Ozzy, after I first came to London. The Cathedral only gives homeless people shelter for the night, so I hung out at the ruins during the day, sketching to pass time. Oz was there one afternoon and saw my work. He offered to let me apprentice at the shop.” She exhaled a soft laugh. “Since no one else was going to hire a homeless fourteen-year-old, I decided taking a chance on Oz was better than panhandling tourists.”

Mathias listened, moved that she had opened up this small bit of her past to him. He still didn’t know where she’d been before arriving in London at such a tender age, nor did he know the circumstances behind why she’d run...or from whom. He didn’t know her full name. Hell, he wasn’t at all convinced that Nova was even her true first name.

All things he was patient to wait for, answers he realized he didn’t need to have at all, in order to care for her the way he did already.

He kissed her again, then reached for the hem of her black tank top and slowly drew it up, over her head.

Below the phoenix tattoo with its spread wings and scarlet Breedmate mark at its heart, Nova’s torso was a clear canvas of milky, unblemished skin. Her small breasts were perfect little globes, capped with sweet pink nipples just begging to be tasted. He could hardly wait, but he had to–at least, until he was sure Nova was ready for all he craved of her.

“You’re beautiful, with and without the ink,” he murmured, his voice rasping, thick with want. He took her right hand in his, looked down at the modified tattoo that was no doubt a constant reminder of her past, of all she fought so fiercely to leave behind. “You’re safe with me. I promise you that.”

She nodded, but it was a faint acknowledgment. Although Nova had proven herself unbreakable in escaping whatever horrors she’d endured, there was a fragility in her eyes as she watched him explore her body with his gaze and his touch.

“You can trust me,” he said, then bent down and kissed her, slowly, deeply.

It was too much–that fresh meeting of their mouths after he was already taut with desire for her. Mathias growled low in the back of his throat as his tongue tangled with hers, their lips wet and hot, their slow kiss turning fevered and unstoppable.

He needed to feel her against him.

He needed to be inside her, his impatience held back on the thinnest of tethers.

But her pleasure meant more to him in that moment.

He pulled his mouth away from hers on a snarl. “Lie back.”

She did as he asked, and when she was settled flat on the bed, he prowled onto the mattress with her, straddling her knees. He soaked her in with his gaze, the coal-bright glow of his Breed irises bathing her skin in soft amber.

Slowly, he tugged down her loose black sweat pants, baring the tops of her hip bones and the subtle dip of her slender abdomen. Mathias’s mouth watered as he glimpsed the lace edges of her panties–bright pink, silky, surprisingly girly.

“Always the unexpected with you,” he remarked, grinning through his teeth and fangs.

She smiled up at him. “I’d hate to be boring.”

“I don’t think you ever have to worry about that.”

He drew her pants all the way off and dropped them to the floor. Nova’s lean legs were as clear as her torso, just smooth skin that tempted Mathias’s hands. He stroked the length of her limbs, slowing as he reached the apex of her thighs. Heat met his fingers as he toyed with the lacy scrap of fabric that covered her sex.

He could smell the sweetness of her arousal, could feel the wet warmth of her bloom even more as he caressed her mound. Unable to resist, he followed his touch with his mouth, bending over her and nuzzling his face against the triangle of pink satin.

Nova gasped, shuddering at the contact. She reached for his head, but instead of pulling him away from her, she held on, her fingers spearing into his hair. Mathias groaned, knowing he was lost now.

He caught her panties between his teeth and drew them down, away from the trimmed patch of tight curls. Then he chuckled, having just discovered something else he hadn’t been expecting about his raven-haired beauty. He arched a brow at her. “Blonde?”

She shrugged, shot him a playful smirk. “You never asked.”

He grinned back at her, but he wasn’t about to let her have the last laugh. As payback, he dived into that tempting little thatch with his lips and tongue, wringing a startled cry out of her as he sought–and found–the bundle of nerves nestled between her folds.

He suckled her, kissing her as passionately and deeply here as he’d kissed her mouth a few moments ago. He didn’t let up until she was writhing under him, her hands twisting in the sheets as her body arched against his lips and tongue.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, panting as he took her even higher. “Oh, fuck...Mathias...”

He glanced up as her orgasm rolled through her. She watched him too, her eyes locked on his as her pleasure crested, overflowed.

Mathias held her gaze, giving her a silent promise that this was only the beginning of what he intended to show her.

He wanted to make up for all of the abuses she had suffered at the hands of another, even if it took the rest of his life to help her forget.

Hell, watching her surrender so openly to him now, there was a part of him ready to give her an eternity.

If he had anything to say about it, this moment was already the start.

“Mathias,” she murmured, breathless from the aftershocks of her climax. “I don’t want this feeling to stop. Not yet...”

“No,” he growled. “Not yet.”

Stripped out of his clothing and boots, he then knelt beside her, growing hungrier, impossibly harder, as she drank in his nakedness with passion-drunk, heavy-lidded eyes.

His pulse hammered in his ears, in his temples, his blood running like molten lava in his veins from the intensity of his need for this woman. His glyphssurged with heat, color flooding their swirling, arcing patterns on his chest and shoulders and biceps.

His fangs pressed against his tongue, razor-sharp tips fully extended, and he knew that Nova was seeing him at his most inhuman–in his savage, predator’s form.

She didn’t flinch.

She didn’t tremble.

She reached for him. “Mathias...”

There was nothing more she needed to do or say.

He kissed her, unhurried, and positioned himself between her parted thighs. Her cleft was slick and hot against his shaft as guided himself to her. He couldn’t stop now. His desire for her swamped all of his senses.

He pulled his hips back until he was seated at the core of her ready body.

Then he drove home, inch by delicious inch, into the sweetest, hottest pleasure he’d ever known.

~ ~ ~

He filled her more deeply than she thought possible, cleaving her core with so much heat and strength and passion that she could hardly draw her breath. The sensation overwhelmed her, stunned her.

Obliterated every thought she’d ever had for what it meant to be at the mercy of a man’s carnal needs.

Nova clung to Mathias as he rocked into her with unbridled force.

Her body was still pliant from its release, nerve endings still thrumming from the pleasure he’d given her with his lips and tongue and touch.

She felt that release winding up again as he crashed against her, the friction of his cock moving inside her swiftly becoming more than she could bear.

On a cry, she shattered. Felt herself splintering apart into tiny pieces.

Without warning, sudden tears filled her eyes. Burned the back of her throat.

Mathias went stock-still above her, halting in mid-thrust. His breath sawed out of him, and the curse he swore was abrupt, dread-filled. “You’re crying.”

She gave a feeble shake of her head, struggling to find her voice. “I just...I thought it would be different,” she choked out. “I thought I could handle it...”

“Ah, shit. God damnit.” Every muscle in his body had ceased moving now. His scowl deepened. He started to withdraw from her. “Nova, I’m sorry–”

“No.” She clutched his shoulders and swallowed back the raw lump that was blocking her voice. When he continued to shift his weight off her, she wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs to hold him in place. “No, Mathias. That’s not what I mean. I’m not crying because you did anything wrong. It’s because this feels so incredible. Youfeel incredible inside me. I wasn’t prepared for this–for how we’d feel together. I didn’t expect it.”

In his silence, he stared at her, unmoving. His fiery gaze warmed her face with its heat. “You feel all right, then?”

“More than all right,” she assured him. “I feel...alive. With you inside me like this, I feel whole. For the first time, Mathias, I feel like the rest is really behind me. You’ve given me that.”

He swore again, something low and reverent. Then he kissed her with more tenderness, more aching pleasure, than her heart seemed able to contain.

When he finally broke the contact, he was grinning, fangs glinting.

She frowned up at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, giving his hips a meaningful grind against hers. “I just think it could be amusing, doing other things you’ll enjoy but might not expect. Finding ways to keep you guessing, for a change.”

He was still moving within her, still hard. Getting harder, in fact.

Nova caressed his face, his handsome, otherworldly face. She wondered how long it would take for her to tire of looking at him.

Longer than she dared imagine.

A lifetime and then some.

She held on as he found his tempo once more. Sighed with pleasure as his rising rhythm steered her toward the edges of another crest of sensation. Closing her eyes, she let him take her there, rode with him as his large body began to go rigid and tense, his hips pumping harder now, furious and deep.

She cried out his name. Heard him mutter hers on a coarse shout beside her ear in that next instant, as heat exploded within her and he shook with the force of his orgasm.

Nova’s heart was pounding like thunder in her ears.

Then she heard the rumble again–a rapid drumming, urgent and unsteady. Coming from the other room.

Mathias heard it too, no doubt before she had. He reared back abruptly.

“Nova.” Eddie’s voice sounded oddly thin outside the apartment door.

“Something’s wrong.” Mathias said it before she could voice her concern. His face was grim, nostrils flaring. “There is blood.”

“Oh, God.” Alarm jolted her off the bed. She hurried back into her tank and sweat pants and was racing out to the living area in the next instant. She yanked open the door and shock hit her like a punch to the gut. “Eddie...oh, my God!”

The boy was white as a ghost, his eyes dilated with shock. Blood stained the front of his T-shirt and jeans. A lot of blood.

Nova grabbed him and hugged him close. She felt for injuries, but he seemed unharmed. Her hands came away sticky and red. “What happened to you? Where’s Ozzy?”

“In the shop,” he murmured, his voice thready. “I couldn’t do anything, Nova. He told me to hide. I wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let me.”

Panic seized her. “Ozzy?” she shouted into the silence of the building.

Mathias stood behind her now, bare-chested, dressed only in his black pants. Nova swung her gaze up at him, a raw sob hitching in her throat.

“Oh, God. What the hell is going on? Oz!”

She lunged past Eddie, only to be halted when Mathias took hold of her arm. “Nova, stay here. Let me–”

She wrenched loose on a miserable cry and bolted for the stairs leading down to the studio.

CHAPTER 8

 

“Ozzy...oh, no. No!”

Nova found him in the empty tattoo shop, lying in a pool of blood near his station. Dropped in a ragdoll sprawl on his back, his body was motionless, his eyes frozen wide. His throat was gashed open, hideously savaged.

“Oz!” she cried, standing barefoot at the edge of the blood pool, her hands covering her mouth as a howl of anguish tore out of her. “No, Ozzy. No...”

“I was sweeping the back room after Ozzy finished with a client, when I heard a man come into the shop,” Eddie murmured from behind her at the bottom of the stairs. “He was looking for someone. Looking for you, Nova.”

Confusion jabbed through her grief as she stared down at the savagery done to her beloved mentor. “Looking for me? Are you sure?”

“He didn’t seem to know your name,” Eddie went on, “but the man knew what you looked like. He told Ozzy, asked if he knew you. The man said it was important that he find you. He said you were in trouble.”

She frowned, trying to make sense of the horror in front of her. Even in her state of numb shock, she could scent the lie in what the attacker told Ozzy. “Did you see who it was, Eddie?”

“No. He was wearing dark clothes, had a hooded jacket on. I only saw him from the side, as he walked over to Ozzy’s station.” Eddie released a shuddering breath. “He was big, Nova. He sounded mean, angry. I could tell Ozzy was scared of him too.”

She closed her eyes, fear pouring into her veins. “Was he human?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “I tried to look, but I couldn’t see his face. The man didn’t see me standing in the back room. I wanted to tell him to leave Ozzy alone, but Oz motioned for me to stay put. He mouthed for me not to say anything, to hide...” The boy choked on a sob. “So, I did. I crawled into a cabinet and I hid, Nova. And then I heard the man hurting Oz...”

She glanced behind her at Eddie, and saw Mathias, now arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

“You did the right thing,” he told the kid, who had dissolved into wracking tears. “If you hadn’t done what Ozzy told you, both of you would be dead now, Eddie.”

The boy looked up at him. “You were here last night. Were you upstairs with Nova just now?”

Mathias gave a slight nod. His gaze was solemn, grave. And in the pools of pale green that met Nova’s eyes now, she saw the crackle of amber sparks. She saw the tips of his fangs too, and the flush of color that was slowly seeping into the dermaglyphson his bare chest.

The sight of so much spilled, fresh blood could not have been easy for him. His Breed nature must have been clawing at him, yet Mathias held his vampire side at bay with remarkable control. For Eddie’s sake, no doubt. Maybe for her sake too.

Nova’s own jagged sob scraped in her throat as she looked down at Ozzy again.

She didn’t hear Mathias move up behind her.

She didn’t know he was close enough to touch her, until his warm palm settled lightly, tenderly, on her shoulder. “Nova–”

“Don’t.” She shrank away from his comfort. The idea that she had been mindless with passion, crying out in pleasure with Mathias while Ozzy was being attacked and murdered right under them was a pain she could hardly bear. She stared at Mathias in abject misery, guilt and grief shredding her from the inside. Her voice came out flat, forbidding. “Don’t touch me.”

He frowned, letting his hand fall to his side. “Eddie, did the man say anything else to Ozzy?”

“No. He wanted to know where to find Nova. Ozzy wouldn’t tell him, and then the man got really mad.” Eddie sniffled. “Is the man going to hurt Nova next?”

“No,” Mathias answered sternly, swiftly. “I’ll never allow that to happen. I won’t let anything bad happen to you either, Eddie. But the two of you can’t stay here now. I’m going to call in some people who can help me look after Ozzy, then I’m going to bring you both someplace safe with me.”

He reached for Nova as he said it. She couldn’t curb her knee-jerk reaction, the jolt of denial and grief that sliced into her at the thought of going anywhere without Oz.

“I’m not leaving him.” She pulled out of Mathias’s reach. Cold, thickening blood was slippery under the bare soles of her feet as she moved closer to Ozzy’s body. “I need to know what happened. I need to know who did this.”

She dropped down on her knees beside him.

Mathias saw what she was about to do. He scowled, started to shake his head. “Nova, don’t–”

His caution was a distant echo in her ears as she reached out and took hold of Ozzy’s lifeless hand.

The final moments of his life played out behind her closed eyelids, just as Eddie had described them. The immense man in dark clothing, his face all but obscured by the hood of his black jacket. The demands he made of Ozzy, his low voice deadly with menace.

Then Ozzy’s courageous, foolish, effort to protect her. To lie for her, even when he knew it would likely cost him his life.

Nova saw the sharp blade coming up from behind Oz as the man overpowered him. Sliced deep into his throat. Let him drop to the floor in a convulsing, sputtering heap, Ozzy’s last conscious memory the swift, retreating form of his killer as the assailant vanished from the shop with inhuman speed and agility.

Because he hadn’t been human.

“He was Breed,” Nova murmured, as the connection to Ozzy’s death faded from her grasp. “The man who killed him...he was Breed.”

~ ~ ~

Twenty minutes later, fully dressed and grim with scarcely contained menace, Mathias waited for his backup to arrive. He’d called his squad of warriors in from chasing their tails looking for Rogues down in Lambeth to assist him with a real problem. An immediate one that he meant to deal with using all of the manpower and resources in his reach. That included his friend Sloane, who’d offered to put a full taskforce on the case when Mathias spoke with the JUSTIS officer a short while ago.

Hell, if Mathias had to call in favors from every Order commander in the United States and abroad to shake out his quarry, he damned well would.

The man who killed Ozzy, and was very likely still on the hunt for Nova, was going to pay.

With his lifeblood, if Mathias got to him first.

Seeing Nova’s pain–Eddie’s too–there was nothing that would satisfy Mathias more than to be the one to personally slay the son of a bitch.

That the killer could be Breed only made it more crucial that they find him. Bad enough to know there were human thugs like Doyle and his scarab-marked colleagues skulking around London with the potential to do harm to Nova. To think she could be in the crosshairs of a predator with the Breed’s deadly appetites and skills?

Mathias snarled through his fangs, prowling the studio like a caged animal as he waited for Thane and Deacon to arrive. The third member of the patrol, Callahan, would be hoofing it across town to meet them at the shop. Thane informed Mathias that the impulsive young warrior had gone off to find a blood Host and feed, after the team’s Rogue hunt had proven a bust.

As for JUSTIS, Sloane had been tied up on another investigation, but expected he could be there with his unit within the hour.

In the meantime, the waiting was making Mathias crazy.

The sense of helplessness wasn’t something he was accustomed to, but that feeling had less to do with the anticipated reconnoiter with his team and JUSTIS than it did with Nova.

After using her ability on Ozzy, she’d come away viciously nauseated, barely making it to the restroom in the back of the shop before she lost her stomach.

She’d been in the back room with Eddie ever since, a closed door standing as a barrier between them and Mathias in the studio.

That door wasn’t the only obstacle between Nova and him now.

She didn’t want to be near him.

She didn’t want his comfort or his concern.

She didn’t want anything from him.

And not that he could blame her. He’d been sick with himself too, cursing himself for the recklessness that had not only cost Ozzy’s life tonight, but had left Nova in the crosshairs of a killer. One who might be closing in on her even now.

As much as Mathias hated that she’d used her ESP gift to try to identify Ozzy’s murderer, he had to admit he’d been hoping the vision would have given him something useful to go on in his pursuit of the bastard.

He hadn’t wanted Nova to do it. He tried to stop her, knowing what that horrible glimpse would cost her. The experience of Ozzy’s death would be one she’d have to carry with her forever.

She’d already known enough pain and ugliness in her life. Mathias wanted to shield her from any more. Difficult to do, when she wasn’t even speaking to him now.

He cursed and sent his fist into the nearest wall.

He’d failed her tonight.

If he hadn’t been so caught up in his enjoyment of Nova’s body, of her sweet but fiery passion, maybe he would have heard the confrontation taking place in the shop two floors down. Maybe he would have scented the blood in the air before Eddie came to the door. Maybe he could have stopped Ozzy’s killing and spared Nova the grief that was tearing her apart now.

Maybe...

Fuck. All he had was maybes when it came to that woman.

His woman.

To his astonishment, he realized he couldn’t think of Nova in any other way.

He was about to turn around and tell her when the Order’s black Range Rover rolled up to the curb outside the tattoo shop. As Thane and Deacon jumped out, Sloane blazed in behind them in an unmarked vehicle with its dashboard LED flashing, another JUSTIS unit pulling up behind him. Not a few moments later, Callahan emerged from somewhere in the darkness and came jogging up to the shop.

Mathias walked out to greet the arriving warriors and his friend from JUSTIS.

His talk with Nova would have to wait.

Right now, he had a killer to hunt down and destroy.

~ ~ ~

Nova had done her best to clean up Eddie and herself in the shop’s small restroom.

There wasn’t enough water in London to wash out all of the blood that stained the shell-shocked kid’s shirt and trembling hands. She’d tried to scrub it off her too, from her fingers and bare feet, the knees of her dark sweats gore-soaked from when she’d knelt down beside Ozzy to relive his last moments of life.

The sink had run red down the drain for fifteen minutes straight before she’d finally given up. Nothing to do for their clothes but burn them.

She dropped Eddie’s ruined T-shirt in the restroom trash bin and gave him a tender look. “You okay?”

He nodded weakly, then shook his head. His eyes were still puffy and moist from his tears. His mouth quivered as he spoke. “What are we gonna do, Nova?”

She offered him a smile, but it felt wobbly and uncertain on her lips. “We’ll figure it out.”

The same words Mathias had spoken to her earlier that night, when she’d finally admitted to him that she didn’t have her shit together at all, that she was scared.

She was still scared, even more so now. Not only because Ozzy was gone, and she didn’t know what her life was going to be like without the old man being part of it, but because she had somehow let another man into her life.

Into her heart.

Mathias.

How had she been so careless as to let her guard down with him, after a lifetime of keeping herself safely closed off, her wants and desires sealed up behind steep, unbreachable tower walls?

How had he managed to crash the gate, when she’d barely had time to prepare for the battle?

As much as Nova wanted to blame herself–blame him–for Ozzy’s suffering tonight while they’d been so blissfully, selfishly unaware, there was another part of her that wanted nothing more than to open the door and run to Mathias. For his comfort, for his strength.

And yes, for his love.

She needed all of those things from him, and she wasn’t afraid to admit, if only to herself.

Looking at Eddie, standing there half-dressed, his scrawny chest and shoulders shuddering under the weight of his shock and fear, Nova knew that she also needed Mathias’s protection. For the kid.

For herself as well.

Amid all of the horror and anguish tonight over the loss of Ozzy, she couldn’t afford to forget that there was a killer searching for her.

A savage Breed male who’d shown very clearly that he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way of finding her.

Not even an innocent boy.

So much the worse, if Ozzy’s killer knew that Eddie had been nearby the whole time, close enough to hear him, and to know what he’d done to Oz.

What if the killer decided to come back to the shop?

What if he was somewhere outside, watching, waiting for a chance to make another move?

What if it was someone sent by her father–someone worse than Doyle or his other human thugs?

Each possibility seemed more awful than the next. The one thing she was certain of, was that the shop was no place for Eddie to be right now. Mathias had offered to take them somewhere safe tonight. Maybe she should let him.

She wrapped her arm around Eddie. “Let’s go talk to Mathias, okay?”

The boy nodded, and she started to guide him toward the closed door leading out to the studio.

Started to, but stopped.

Mathias was no longer alone in the shop.

And as the din of male voices grew louder out there–Mathias’s colleagues from the Order and JUSTIS, all now arrived–Nova’s heart froze in her breast.

A glance over at Eddie confirmed her dread.

His freckled face had gone ghostly white, his eyes wide with fear.

“You hear him too?” she whispered.

Eddie nodded, silent.

The voice Nova heard when she relived Ozzy’s death. The voice that had terrified Eddie from inside the cabinet where he’d hid during the murder.

The man it belonged to was in the other room with Mathias now.

He had to be warned. But how could she do it, without exposing herself and Eddie to Ozzy’s murderer at the same time?

Nova pushed the boy back, away from the door. Then she gently, soundlessly, opened it just the tiniest crack. Her heart lurched, dread like ice in her chest.

Mathias was conversing in low, serious tones with the other men. He was obviously friendly with them all.

Friendswith them all.

Including the one whose voice went through Nova as sharp as the blade that had slashed Ozzy’s throat.

That man and a few others now broke away from the others with Mathias and started heading for the back room.

Were there more than just the one involved? Could Mathias possibly know?

And then, a sickening, worrisome thought: Is that why he had tried to stop her from touching Ozzy? Because he was afraid of what she’d see through Ozzy’s eyes?

She didn’t want to think it.

She wanted to believe her trust in him was well-placed, that it was real.

But Mathias was still approaching, leading Ozzy’s killer right to her.

No. Oh, God...no.

She couldn’t let him see her. She couldn’t let him get near Eddie.

Nova retreated from the door.

“Come on,” she whispered, barely making a sound. “We have to get out of here. Now.”