choice away from them completely?
If we were going to outmaneuver the sword-star bunch and rescue their boss, it’d take all the wits and skills we had between us. Going in alone could be both a suicide mission and a guarantee of failure.
“We’ve gotten this far,” I said. “No way are they stopping us now. Tell me exactly how the building is laid out and where we need to go, and let’s work from there. We need to pull this jailbreak off before the sun comes up.”
32
Sorsha
The steel struts of the construction site loomed above the lower rooftops of the neighboring buildings, reflected moonlight making them visible even from two blocks away. They gleamed faintly against the darkness of the night sky like the bones of some massive creature that had settled there to die and had its carcass picked clean. That image fit my mood perfectly as Ruse put the car into park.
“The end is nigh, but I’m holding on,” I sang, but not even the inspiration of Blondie could stop my voice from sounding thin in the silence. At this hour, no other vehicles passed us on the road. Not the slightest breeze stirred the warm air. My shoulder still throbbed from the silver bullet Snap had pulled out of me.
The end of our mission was up ahead, sure, but for all we knew it could end us.
Out of all of us, I had to admit the one most likely to meet some dire fate was the owner of a mortal body—a.k.a., me. I was prepared for that, but a tightness wound through my ribs as my shadowkind trio moved to get out of the car.
I gave Pickle one last scratch between his wings where he’d perched on my lap and then shifted him to the middle seat so I could get up too, resisting the urge to cuddle him so close he’d squawk. We’d brought him and all my belongings with us because regardless of where this night led, returning to the motel after we faced off against the sword-star bunch directly seemed unwise. Leaving him there in the car, the constricting sensation crept up into my throat.
The three men had gathered around me on the sidewalk. I turned to them when I’d shut the car door.
“If something happens to me tonight,” I said, “promise me you’ll look after Pickle? He won’t get very far on his own.”
Snap’s expression turned pained. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he insisted.
Thorn raised his chin, adding to the immense sense of his height. “I don’t intend to return without you, but if it eases your mind, you have my word the little creature will be taken care of.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose with the implications of his initial statement. I knew he meant not just that he hoped to make sure I came out alive, but that if I didn’t, it’d only be because he fell too.
We had a plan, and I didn’t think we could have come up with a better one, at least not without days longer than the hour or so we’d actually had. But so much was still uncertain. Our enemies had caught us off-guard more than once. We intended to turn the tables on them tonight, but we hadn’t pulled off anything quite like this before.
An impulse gripped me that I let myself follow, because who knew whether we’d have another moment of relative peace. I grasped Thorn’s shirt and bobbed up to give him a light peck on the lips, swiftly enough that he didn’t have the chance to return it or pull away, whichever he’d have decided on. I had no idea how he’d feel about the others seeing any softness from him.
The warrior glowered at me after, but the heat in his gaze felt at least as hungry as it did annoyed. Ruse was smirking, wider when I turned to him. He reached for me and tugged me to him by the waist, his eyelids lowering seductively.
“I’ll take a little more than that, Miss Blaze,” he said in the chocolatey tone that still made my skin tingle. But he let me be the one to lean in the last few inches between us and capture his mouth.
I’d almost forgotten how much skill the incubus could bring to a simple kiss. The press of his lips, languid as if taking his time and yet passionate as if reveling in every second, set a whole lot more tingling than just