Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,28

for the moment, even if it was mostly because of the stern glance Talon sent his way. Omen might not be terribly pleased if I thrashed one of our potential allies in the middle of negotiations either.

Or perhaps we were already at the end of those negotiations. The basilisk turned back to us, his mouth still twisted at a not-at-all-promising angle.

“I hear your concerns,” he said. “But I’ve already offered plenty of assistance within the city bounds. My base of power is here—I can’t say I have any resources on the other side of the ocean. I’m not about to leave my operations here untended, and I’m hardly going to ask even the employees I can spare to traipse off across the world on some potentially suicidal quest.”

“Not tackling the Company of Light as soon as we’re able to could be even more suicidal,” Omen said, but I could tell from the weary edge to his tone that he was even less optimistic now than he’d been going into this place.

When he’d first brought us together, my old associate had said the four of us would be enough to see through his mission, that the shadowkind who refused to recognize the impending catastrophe would only slow us down. The urge gripped me to say we didn’t need any of these buffoons, that we should continue as we had been after all. Suggesting otherwise had made me uneasy to begin with, as much as Sorsha had proven her case before. I’d chosen to follow Omen on this path because I trusted he would lead us well.

And I knew far too well the consequences of questioning one’s superiors. It was because I’d gone to seek out another possible solution to the conflict—against the orders of the wingéd generals—that I hadn’t been there for the final slaughter in the wars that had demolished my wingéd brethren. I’d chased a hope of a better way rather than standing by my comrades, and they had died without me standing by them while I’d lived with fewer scars than I’d deserved. If I’d been dedicated enough to stay the course, would it have gone differently?

I’d thought that if this time I devoted myself completely to a figure smart and strong enough to be worthy of that faith, it would be my redemption. But this course had turned out to be much more complicated than I’d expected.

“You could at least tell your underlings about the problem and see if any of them would be willing to pitch in without being ordered to,” Sorsha said. “Or is your grip on your operations so shaky you couldn’t spare even a few shadowkind to make sure you don’t all end up in cages?”

“No one is going to cage me,” Talon retorted, a threatening hint of a hiss creeping into his voice. “You can make your own invitations. I have better things to do than cater to your crusade.”

“Fine,” Omen said flatly. “Can you at least answer one question before we leave you to your oh-so-important business? I hear the Highest were making inquiries with the mortal-side shadowkind some twenty or thirty years ago, looking for a powerful and potentially dangerous being. Possibly by the name of Jasper or Garnet or similar? Did you catch wind of any of that?”

Talon frowned as he appeared to consider. “That does ring a bell of some sort. I remember the word going out… I seem to have gotten the impression the search was mostly to the south.”

“Do you remember if you heard that the being was apprehended?”

“No, nothing more after the initial questioning. What do you want with that one anyway?”

Omen’s lips curled with the subtlest of sneers. “I’m wondering if he’d have the balls to go up against a conglomerate of mortals, unlike some others I won’t mention.”

He turned on his heel and stalked out without another word. Sorsha and I followed, my lady shooting a derisive glare Talon’s way for good measure. As we headed back to the vehicle where Ruse had stayed with our befuddled Snap, she gave herself a little shake as if to release the tension of the encounter, the sunlight flashing in her lovely hair.

The stresses of our mission had appeared to weigh on our lady more than usual these last few days, even before we’d discovered the devourer’s unexpected predicament. I hadn’t wanted to impinge on her honor by revealing that I’d noticed when she clearly was attempting to master those concerns on her own. Still, I