Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,96

best use me this final time.

As soon as the terms of my deal with them were fulfilled, I was slipping this leash and running free, and they could forget it if they thought they’d ever get a reason to have me kowtowing to them again.

“I’m at your service,” I said. It might disrupt our plans to take on the Company in the moment, but that would be worth it to shake off my shackles. “What is it you need?”

“We would like you to find the being named Ruby and inform us of her location.”

Ah. Well, that was good news in that I’d have liked to find that being too, but less so in that I’d already given it a pretty good go and had little to no luck so far. No one seemed to even know Ruby had ever existed except the Highest themselves and the shadowkind they’d informed of the fact. Were they setting me up on an impossible task so they could keep me chained to their will forever?

I resisted the urge to produce my fangs and dipped my head in acknowledgement instead. “I’d be happy to do so. I’ll be able to accomplish that task faster if you could let me know her last known location and any other details you have about her appearance and behavior.”

The Highest made a grumbling sound between them as if they were offended by my request, but they obviously wanted this Ruby more than they cared about any impudence they thought I was expressing.

“She slipped through our fingers many years ago, shortly after we first became aware of her existence. We’ve had no further information since. That is your responsibility. As for the rest, you must be aware that she is highly dangerous, although she may not appear to be at first. Avoid direct contact at all costs. As soon as you have identified her, come straight to us.”

Oh ye of so little faith. I sighed. “That’s really not much to go on. Presumably if this shadowkind is so adept at hiding herself, she won’t be going by the name you’ve been asking after her by anymore. What type of being is she? What mortal appearance does she take? What are these horribly dangerous secret powers of hers?”

There was more grumbling as the Highest appeared to confer with one another. Had they really thought they could send me off on this ridiculous quest without giving me a single hint about who I was looking for?

Probably, yes.

Finally, someone else spoke up from their immense huddle. “We can tell you more, but if we discover that you have spoken of this matter to any other being, our deal will be forfeit and you will be at our mercy.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Yes, yes,” I said. “That’s fine. Just tell me.” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t kept plenty of other secrets—like the fact that the Highest had any sort of grip on me at all—from my companions.

“Very well. The one named Ruby may not appear to be a shadowkind at all. That is part of what makes her so treacherous. When a shadowkind abases themselves to a mortal level, it is in rare circumstances possible for them to bear a child with a mortal. As few beings would lower themselves in such a way to begin with, we are aware of only three such unions in all existence. The first two we were able to deal with promptly. With this third, we have been foiled so far.”

A nauseous chill started to unfurl in my gut. “And this Ruby… is the shadowkind who produced that child?”

A harsh sort of chuckle echoed through the space. “No. That one and her mortal partner met the fates they deserved. But some accomplice of theirs escaped with the child. That is Ruby—the name they gave her. As if she were a jewel and not a menace to all existence.”

I tried to find the words, but for a moment I could barely think, let alone speak. They couldn’t really mean—Sorsha had never given me the impression she thought she’d had another name. That was the sort of thing that would have come up while searching out her history. And from what I’d seen, she was more a danger to her own existence than to anyone else’s.

Had we gotten the wrong information somewhere in our search? Mixed wires that had crossed her history with this shadowkind-human hybrid? But she did have powers no full human should have been able to