“Here. Leaf through these while I finish these pills for you.” She rifled around in her carpet bag again and produced a stack of papers of all different sizes, set them on the counter and slid them over to him.

Fenix took them and scanned each page, the tiny seed of hope inside him growing as he read report after report about blood mages. Hella had been busy in their time apart. Some of them had updates declaring the target had apparently moved on, but others indicated places that sounded a lot like permanent homes of mages. He kept the pages about those and pushed aside the dead ends, and read them again.

“The ones in England and America sound most promising.” Hella placed the last pill in the dish, picked up a metal bottle and carefully tipped them into it. She held it out to him.

And something banged upstairs.

Fenix looked up at the wooden ceiling as the sound came again, a harsh thud that had dust raining down and sounded a lot like someone had just kicked the floor.

Hella put the bottle down, hurried to a broom, grabbed it and smacked the tip of the handle against the ceiling. “Keep it down. I’m doing business here.”

A muffled voice responded and more bangs came, these ones so hard and heavy that he feared the ceiling would come crashing down on his head.

Fenix arched an eyebrow at Hella.

She grumbled, “Don’t ask.”

He looked at the ceiling again when a decidedly masculine voice bellowed an obscenity aimed at her.

“He was asking for it,” Hella muttered, issuing him a look that told him not to say a word or attempt to interfere.

Fenix took his pills and his leads and held his hands up, because he didn’t want to know.

Her expression softened and she lowered her broom, that look enough to stop him from teleporting and leaving her to her business.

“Don’t lose heart, Fenix.” She came around the bench and squeezed him in a bear hug before releasing him and stepping back. Her gaze lifted to lock with his again. “Fate made you for each other. Destiny will bring you together again.”

It lightened his heart, chasing some of the shadows of despair from it as he clung to those words and made himself believe them.

He had always found Aderyn, no matter how far the curse had placed her from him, and this time would be no different. He looked at the stack of papers in his hand, leads that could bring him to the cure he desperately wanted, and nodded.

Fenix teleported, landing back in his rooms. He wondered what fate had in store for Hella and whether it was destiny that was responsible for the male he had sensed in her home. If it was, Hella would fight it. She wasn’t one to be tied down.

He placed the papers on his nightstand and refilled his pillbox, and then went to the mirror. He swung it back over to face him and took a good look at himself. He was looking better already. A little more juice in his tank and he would be back to full strength and able to follow up the leads Hella had given him.

Fenix focused again, picturing London this time.

He could visit the nightclub owned by the jaguar and get a hit of energy from the crowd while discovering whether or not Kyter had any leads for him too.

He teleported.

Meant to go straight to Underworld but found himself standing in a park.

Staring at the old sandstone building that was the London headquarters of the hunter organisation Archangel.

Chapter 4

Fenix stared at the illuminated façade, an ache forming in his breast that throbbed stronger and stronger as he lingered in the dark park, thinking about his mate. She had worked there, and he had found a thousand excuses to sit in this park to watch her come and go with her partner or a group of fellow hunters.

He still couldn’t believe his mate had become a member of Archangel, had actively participated in missions that pitted her against immortals. Over the year or so that he had known her as Evelyn, he had wanted to approach her countless times to tell her she was working against her own kind, that she wasn’t human, and that by working for Archangel she was placing herself in grave danger.

If they discovered what she was… gods, it didn’t bear thinking about.

They wouldn’t just study her. They would vivisect her.

That throbbing, pounding sensation inside him grew stronger still, had his heart racing before he knew it. He frowned as he caught the light scent of rose with an undernote of sweet smoke on the still night air. He had to be imagining it.

And then a voice.