We reached the door, and I put a hand on it, felt for any magic inside. Found nothing but the belligerent whine of a cat who was angry either that we’d left her behind or that we were trespassing in her fortress of feline solitude.
I unlocked the door, let it swing open. The loft was dark and the hallway was empty but for the pile of mail on the floor and the angry goblin-cat. Eleanor sat in front of the threshold as she so often did, tail swishing furiously.
“I’m here to feed you,” I said. “Do you prefer we leave again?”
She flicked that tail in the air and disappeared into shadows.
“She’s probably a fairly good guard,” Connor whispered. “But let’s go check.”
I nodded and we slipped inside, closed the door as quietly as possible. I picked up the mail, and we crept through the hallway, looked right and left. He motioned me toward the bedrooms, gestured toward the kitchen area.
We split, searched our areas, found nothing and no one out of place. And she hadn’t peed in my shoes, which was its own miracle.
Mood lifted, I made my way back to the kitchen. “Clear,” I said aloud, when I found him standing in the loft, hands on his hips, looking around.
“Same.”
Still. There was something mildly creepy about being in here; like the loft had been abandoned and left for dead. Something dystopian. “Let me feed her and check her water, and we can leave.”
“No argument,” Connor said and rubbed his belly. “I could eat.”
“Pizza and coffee.”
“No. And you have a problem.” He nodded toward the pile in my hand. “Any more notes?”
I flipped through it, found the usual advertisements and garbage. “Nothing,” I said, but that didn’t make me feel better. The stalker might not have found Connor’s town house, but he knew we weren’t staying here. He’d been watching.
Goose bumps lifted on my arms, and I shook the fear away, put down the mail. Fear was what he wanted, and I wasn’t going to give him that victory.
“Good girl,” Connor said, trailing his fingers over my hair, as if he’d understood my silent battle and the result of it.
His screen buzzed, and he pulled it out. “Damn it. Fight broke out in the bar.”
“As they do,” I said.
“Yeah, but this time two humans were hurt, and they’re threatening to sue the shifters they fought with. I need to make a call, and it’s likely to get loud and magicky. I better step outside.” He glanced at me, frowning. “Will you be okay in here by yourself?”
I dumped old water in the sink, turned on the tap. “Alone in my empty apartment? Yes. I’m pretty sure I can handle that difficult assignment.”
“I’ll just be outside.” He came toward me, covered my mouth with his, left me little doubt of the extent of his affection, his concern. “Be careful. Or I’ll mete out the punishment.”
I heard the door close, replaced the water dish, filled the cat food.
And wondered that Eleanor of Aquitaine didn’t come running. Fresh food, even if not the delicately sautéed line-caught Atlantic salmon she preferred, was a beckoning she rarely ignored. Probably still pissed.
Still. It was weird. I walked back into the loft, looked around. The cat had disappeared. “Eleanor of Aquitaine?”
I didn’t know there’d been magic until it was gone; I didn’t know I hadn’t been alone until I heard the voice at my ear.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Elisa.”
And then the world went dark.
NINETEEN
I felt pain before I could hear, before I could see. Then tried to move, to shift against new pains, and realized I couldn’t.
I blinked my eyes open, vision blurry from the strike, and knew from the ringing pain that radiated down my back, my arm, that he’d struck my neck. Hit the vagus nerve, probably, and I’d gone down. I was still in the loft, sitting in a chair, shoulders pulled back, hands bound behind me with what felt like fabric. The room spun, and I shook my head to clear it, used the fingers of one hand to pinch the other. The bright pain helped clear the fuzziness away.
“You’re awake.”
I looked up at the man who stood in front of me, stared at his face until it resolved from blurs to features. Pale skin, blond hair, black fatigues, and a hunting knife gleaming in the glow of streetlights through the windows.
Levi.
I was tied to a chair in the loft with my stalker.