Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,83
a little oddly at the end of our last meeting… Monica reached out to your original branch of the Fund to check in about you. Apparently the things they told her left her rather disturbed.”
“Oh.” I swallowed thickly. Huyen—or maybe even Ellen—had given these people the idea that I was some kind of menace? Or just off my rocker? They didn’t know about my fire powers… but they could have shared plenty about the destruction that had followed me across the city. “Everything that happened back home—we didn’t have much choice if we wanted to take on the Company of Light. They’re way too vicious to just sit down and negotiate with or something.”
“I can imagine. And I’m not judging you. I’ve been around in this scene longer than any of the others—I’ve seen how horrible we mortals can be to each other and to the shadowkind.” He paused with a rustling sound as if he was rubbing his beard. “I don’t know what exactly you’ve gotten yourself into, Sorsha, but I know your father was a good man, and I think you deserve a chance. And I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for the shadowkind who had the kindness to stop and help when my wife and I got lost on a trip through the desert ages ago, so I figure they deserve whatever I can offer too.”
“Thank you,” I said around the constricting of my throat. “I appreciate it.”
“I wish I could convince the others, but youth do like to dismiss their elders. You’ll at least have me, and I’ll do what I can. I think your Fund leaders might have reached out to the branch in San Francisco as well, so I’m not sure you can expect much help from that quarter either, but I may be able to weasel my way in there without them realizing I’m working with you. I told my people I’d cancelled my plans so they wouldn’t pass on any additional warnings.”
That was something. I summoned all the gratitude I could manage into my voice. “We’ll make the best of it. Thanks again—I mean it.”
“Of course. I’ll touch base once I’ve touched down on the west coast.”
My fingers clenched around the phone before I dropped it back into my purse. As I drew my hand back into my lap, a burst of sparks leapt from my palm, prickling across my thigh. I squeezed my hand into a fist to snuff any lingering ones out.
I was a menace, wasn’t I? The Fund folks back home might not have known exactly why people should be cautious of me, but they hadn’t exactly been wrong.
Omen was going to be just ecstatic when he heard this news. I could already hear the “I told you so” lilt that would creep into his voice. Damn it.
Damn Huyen and Ellen and the rest of them who hadn’t even wanted to try. That was what the Company relied on, wasn’t it? The fact that everyone who might have supported the shadowkind they were set on eradicating was too scared to tackle enemies as big and brutal as they’d built themselves up to be.
Snap was watching me, a half-eaten pizza slice dangling, shockingly forgotten, from his hand. “What happened?”
I opened my mouth, and Thorn materialized by the door. I braced myself for the hellhound shifter to join him, pulling together the words to reveal yet another failing of mortal kind. But Thorn strode over alone.
“Where’s Omen?” I asked.
The warrior frowned. “Is he not here? He was when I left.”
Ruse’s forehead furrowed. “We assumed he went with you. I haven’t seen him since just after we pulled in here.”
“Same.” I glanced at Snap and the others.
The devourer shook his head, his mouth slanting at a worried angle that looked all wrong on his beautiful face. Antic scrambled up with a sharp salute. “I can go looking for him!”
Thorn considered her with unveiled skepticism. “I think you’d better stay here and let me do the searching, little one.” He glanced around at the rest of us. “I’m sure he can’t have gone far. Perhaps he discovered something nearby that caught his interest.”
As Thorn vanished into the shadows, an uneasy tremor ran over my skin. If my stomach had been knotted before, now it might as well have been one solid lump of limestone.
It wasn’t like Omen to get distracted, and he’d been determined to make it to San Francisco as quickly as possible. Even if he’d wandered off for