Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,37

of you can come out too,” he announced to the landing at large as he knocked on a door that had clearly seen better days. Just as the worn surface with its flaking white paint swung open to admit us, Thorn and Snap materialized behind me.

“Omen wanted to survey this and the surrounding buildings more closely,” Thorn informed us in an undertone as we headed inside. His mouth was set at a displeased slant, his near-black eyes scanning the room we stepped into even more warily than usual.

Our charmed Italian host waved us on into a small living room with threadbare chairs, a scratched up coffee table, and a window so big the warrior could have stepped through it with arms outstretched without brushing the frame. It looked out across sprawling parkland toward the grandiose ruins of the Colosseum.

“Wow,” I said, needing to catch my breath. Ruse hadn’t been lying about the sights. I walked right up to the glass as if drawn by a magnetic pull, taking in the full view up close.

Snap joined me, looping his arms around my waist and pressing a kiss to a sensitive spot just behind my ear that sent a welcome tingle through me. Even the impressive view couldn’t distract him from offering the public display of affection, although afterward he leaned his head next to mine, his chin brushing my temple, and considered it with widened eyes.

“That building—it’s very old even by mortal standards. Thorn says he was young when he saw it newly built. I don’t believe I had come into existence yet.”

Shadowkind, not being the type to celebrate birthdays seeing as they weren’t quite born and, y’know, the whole lack of concept of time in their own realm thing, didn’t tend to keep very close track of their age. Snap might have been only a little older than me or decades more. But in the mortal world, he was still pretty much a newbie.

“Lots of battles fought in that place,” I told him, trailing my fingertips over his knuckles. Was his embrace even more insistent than usual? Maybe seeing Ruse grope me on the elevator had woken up his possessive instinct with a fiercer edge. “Mostly for fun, though—for the people watching, anyway. Like those soccer games you saw on my TV, back when I had a TV.”

And an apartment to house that TV in. I couldn’t even blame my shadowkind companions for that loss when I was the one who’d set the place on fire. Of course, they’d been the ones who’d brought the Company to my doorstep attempting to kidnap and possibly kill me. But who was keeping score?

Thorn came up at my other side. “Mortals do have strange priorities at times.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Says the wingéd who fought in some immense war for reasons he can’t even remember?”

He let out a grunt as if accepting my point, but his frown made me wonder if I’d gone too far with my teasing. Or maybe something else was bothering him. He’d looked a little more serious than usual since he’d appeared, which for the warrior was pretty dire.

I shifted in Snap’s embrace, and the devourer let me go with only a faint noise of discontent. I stepped closer to the wingéd and tucked my arm around his muscular one. Sometimes it was easy to forget how passionate a heart lay under all this bulk and brawn, but in some ways, my warrior lover was the most deeply affected out of all of them.

I twined my fingers with his. “Is everything okay? Did Omen notice something that made him think we could be in trouble here?”

Thorn shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of. I believe he simply meant to confirm there were no signs of Tempest’s presence, as he’s best equipped to identify that.” He let his hand come to rest on my hip with an affectionate stroke of his thumb, but his gaze shifted to the horizon beyond the Colosseum. “There is at least one other nearby who might remember what we fought for.”

Another wingéd? Thorn could sense when any of the few remaining members of his kind were nearby—that was how we’d found Flint. It made sense that he’d be encountering more of them as we jetted all across the world. He didn’t seem all that happy about it, even though he’d already revealed his nature to the rest of us.

I squeezed his hand. “Maybe they’d join in, like Flint did. You persuaded him