Page 70 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“For a large part of it. The rest of my time was spent also starving, however.” I picked up her hand and kissed it. “I want to know who we’re murdering next, and how, and when.”

She closed her eyes and nodded before answering. “Garrett Reid. He’s old school—so legacy his triple great-grandfather or something was in the RRP’s founding year. I stalked him for long enough to figure out where his family lives, in the country club outside of town, in the hills. I figured by the time I got to him he wouldn’t be staying at the frat house anymore—he’d go into hiding there, behind their brick walls and security guards.”

“And why are we not killing Trent, next?” Because after hearing Mina’s story—and Nolan’s—I longed to.

“I wanted to save him for last,” she said, and I gave her a look. “I’m not hiding from him,” she protested. “Or hiding him from you, believe me,” she said, sinking her chin.

I caught it. “I do. I will always believe you.”

I got to watch a tentative smile on her face blossom into something joyful. “Good,” she said, nodding into my hand, before she bit her lower lip. “Because I love you, Sylas. And—yeah—let’s do some entering.”

I wrapped myself around her like I was a blanket and she squealed.

52

MINA

A few hours later,we were back downtown, eating at a restaurant that catered to monsters—the room we were in was huge, the booths were spacious, and there were places along the walls to roost and web. I had my purse with me and my gun was in it, just in case.

“Should they be seeing me?” Sylas asked, as we entered. He looked like he was suited in gray, with a trench coat and hat on, like I was dating someone made of smoke and also from the 1920s. I wasn’t mad about it. Especially not when he took the hat off respectfully, the second he walked inside.

“Do you really want a girl in the high-seventieth attractiveness percentile to look like she’s eating alone?” I teased. I had all my hair pulled up into a bun, and was in jeans and a baggy long-sleeved T-shirt. “But really—I figure this is the safest place to be. You’d have to be an idiot to start a fight here. Also, they have really good ramen.”

“Ra-men,” he said, sounding it out, and I opened my mouth to launch into an explanation, when I realized he was pulling my leg. He laughed, and I gave him a look, then ignored him until I was donegiving the server—an avian with peacock heritage, based on the lovely waving iridescent feathers she was crowned with—my order.

“Do you miss it?” I asked him. “Eating?”

“I like eating you,” he said, and I felt myself flush, all the way up to the tips of my ears. “But no. Tasting things is enough. I don’t find solid substances useful.”

“What is it like?”

“Being covered in tongues? I think you should tell me,” he said, and I laughed.

“No. The rest of it. Being a pretty-damn-omnipotent time-being.” His eyes flashed, but he waited until the server was done returning with my order to respond.

“Ask what you want to know, Mina. Don’t shy away. Our time is too short for that.”

I broke my chopsticks in two—they sounded like breaking bones. “What will you do without me? Will you be okay?”

“No.” He put his hand on the table between us, and I took it. “I no longer want to kill you—so I won’t. I will stop fate.”

My eyebrows rose into peaks. “I’m flattered as fuck, Sylas, but...have you ever done that before?” I asked, before leaning forward.

“I have never desired to,” he said, and I made a tense face. “That does not mean that it is impossible.”

“No, just, highly improbable, is all,” I said. “But in any case...we’ve got a few days. And I was hoping we could call a truce on talking about future-things. It’s too rough, and poetic, and sad.” I stirred my chopsticks aimlessly in my broth. “I always thought I was a goth until all this—and while I still am—I just want to spend whatevertime I have left being in love with you. I don’t want there to be an asterisk beside it, for a footnote about dying, every single time.”

“I agree. But just as I believe in you, I need you to believe in me,” he said, with utter sincerity. “Iamgoing to find a way to save you.”

Whether he was or wasn’t, it wasn’t worth fighting him on, so I gave him an impish smile instead. “So sex with me was that good, eh?” I teased, and he laughed so loud every other patron in the restaurant looked at him.

After that,I scarfed my noodles down and we worked on the next murder. I’d pulled blueprints for Garrett’s ancestral home from the city after a remodel, so I knew about half the structure of the house, and once we got inside of it, Sylas could handle the rest, I was sure.

“Gates and walls?” Sylas asked.

“Just rose gardens,” I said, flipping through the pictures I’d taken between us.

“I thought you said there was security?”

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