War of Hearts (True Immortality) - S Young Page 0,31

accelerator. There was someone else after the lass and Conall was determined to find her first.

And this time, he’d know better than to turn his back on her.

Wolf Boy’s car was somewhere in Lubawka, Poland. Thea had dumped it a thirty-minute walk from the train station, where she’d then boarded a train to Prague. Nervous energy filled her. She had a huge Scottish wolf after her—and a mystery hunter.

It wasn’t Thea’s first time in Prague. It was one of the first cities she’d stayed in after she’d escaped Ashforth, so she was familiar with it. She’d exchanged all Conall’s zlotys at the train station for Czech koruna and asked the cab driver to recommend accommodation. He’d dropped her off at a three-star hotel on a tree-lined street where neoclassical buildings towered symmetrically one after the other. In the middle of all the light sandstone, a block was painted in the palest of pinks.

This was Thea’s hotel.

Although basic, it was the nicest place she’d stayed in for a long while. After discovering her in a hostel, it concerned her that Conall might look for her in the cheaper hotels if he managed to catch up with her in Prague, so the three-star was a necessary “luxury.”

The hotel was only ten minutes from the historical center of the city and Thea reluctantly stepped out into the world the next day in search of work. Instead of finding work, however, she bought clothes she wouldn’t be able to afford if she didn’t find a job soon. But clothes were now a necessity, since Conall had dragged her out of Kraków with only the clothes on her back.

Buying two pairs of jeans and a few shirts was easy.

Finding a job was not.

Wearily, Thea returned to the hotel after a day of searching, anxious about paying for another night but doing so for her safety. The next morning, however, she checked out, realizing she’d just have to risk a cheaper place for fear of running out of funds. Thea was betting on the fact that both her pursuers would guess she’d get the hell out of Europe, or at least travel farther than the Czech Republic.

Having bought an inexpensive backpack the day before, Thea put the little she owned into it and checked out of the hotel. It was a warm spring day; the sun beat down on her face. She longed for her sunglasses and baseball cap she’d left behind in her shitty apartment in Kraków.

At least Prague was beautiful. She hadn’t stayed long during her previous visit. The historical center and its mishmash of architectural styles charmed her. There was Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, neoclassicism, all mixing in with art nouveau, cubism, functionalism, and the stern, gray, concrete architecture of the Communist era. Thea would walk past a neoclassical building and standing right next to it would be the modern prefab, glass-walled buildings that went up in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The only reason she knew anything about architecture was because every city she stayed in, she’d roamed the libraries, spending any spare time she had educating herself on subjects she missed out on growing up, and then some.

Like all the cities she’d spent time in in Europe, Thea was drawn to the old towns with their cobbled or brick-paved streets, trams and the bustle of tourism. It wasn’t just that she loved the centuries of life those places had witnessed—it was being able to disappear among the crowds. To feel like a normal young woman. A number among many.

Instead of what she was.

As the day wore on, a ceiling of clouds blew in over the city, and Thea grew more concerned. She’d asked at a lot of bars and restaurants, but she couldn’t find someone to hire her who didn’t need all the legal crap. Thea had snacked as she walked but she was still ravenous. Perhaps it was the excitement of the last few days. She’d probably expelled more energy than she’d thought. Deciding it was maybe time to give up and find a hostel and somewhere she could buy cheap vendor food, Thea walked down a busy street as night fell.

The booming bass of music and the chatter of partygoers outside a building in the middle of the shopping area drew her attention. Thea slowed to a stop in front of the place and looked up. It was a building she’d visited yesterday and many times during her last stay in the city. Called Lucerna Palace, it was