Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,11

I grabbed her phone and moved back to the counter, sipping my tea as I went through her device.

There was the usual assortment of photos, but nothing very recent, which was odd. She wasn’t a lot younger than me, and I sure as hell took plenty of pics when I was out partying with Mia and Ginny—or had, before the world had decided to go crazy. And I guess she did have the same excuse, even if she was working with the other side.

I flicked over to her contacts and started scrolling through them. One number in the C section immediately jumped out at me. Not only because it was an unusual name—Charna, which meant dark, and had in the past been used as a nickname for Darkside—but because the last five digits matched the partial number we’d found in a carryall that belong to Tris—a former boyfriend who’d not only used me to get information for Darkside, but who’d recently been murdered in order to stop us questioning him.

That a similar number was stored in Noelle’s phone could have been nothing more than a coincidence, of course, but in honesty, it was also highly unlikely.

I called the number. It rang a couple of times then flipped over to voicemail. The voice that answered was electronic rather than Max’s, as I’d been half expecting. Which, given he’d used a concealed number this morning, didn’t actually mean anything.

I jotted the number down in the notes tab of my phone and then continued scrolling through the list. Nothing else jumped out at me.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket, checked my captive was still asleep, then propped my butt on the counter and scrolled through social media to see what was happening on the other side of the world.

Luc arrived twenty minutes later. He was a gorgeous man with lovely wide shoulders, well-muscled arms, and the build of an athlete. His short hair was as black as sin, his eyes the most startling shade of jade, and his face as close to angelic as any mere mortal was ever likely to get.

As I let him in, an indefinable force fizzed between us. It was more than mere awareness and deeper than simple desire—it was a connection that whispered of destiny and age, of a bond not just weeks in the making, but decades.

It was, according to Mo, anima nexum, which basically meant soul connection. Apparently there were three different types—one that was little more than a meeting of gazes and a recognition of fate, one where souls are doomed to battle each other through time eternal, or a final version where two souls were destined to meet through multiple lifetimes until whatever had gone wrong in their initial relationship was rectified.

Luc and I were the third type, and our connection ran back to the soon-to-be wife of the very first Witch King and the Blackbird who’d abandoned her when their affair had become known. And it had been Vivienne—incensed that the Blackbird had walked away from love rather than overturn duty and confront the king—who’d laid this curse on us.

“You got here fast.”

“Kit was already prepping for another trip, and it wasn’t much of a detour. Where is she?”

I motioned to the still form on the floor. “Mo spelled her asleep, but she didn’t escape without permanent injury, I’m afraid.”

“How bad?” It was flatly said but the air burned with the force of the emotions he was suppressing.

“She’s missing a part of her left hand, including her last two fingers.”

Just for a moment, anger flared deep in his eyes. Anger at me for my actions, and anger at himself for not being able to protect—or at least shield—his younger sister from something like this.

“I’m sorry, Luc,” I said softly. “I really had no other choice. I also had no idea is was your sister until after it was all over.”

He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. The anger disappeared from his eyes, and a somewhat wan smile twisted his lips. “This is not your fault.”

“It’s not yours, either.”

“No.” But the edge in his voice suggested he didn’t actually believe that. “Have you talked to her?”

I shook my head. “And if you want to, I’ll need to call Mo down to wake her.”

“Already here,” Mo said, as she came down the stairs. “Heard the copter fly in a few minutes ago. How are you, dear boy?”

“Disbelieving.” He grimaced. “It seems the tendrils of darkness are far wider than any