Page 124 of Veil of Death and Shadow

As if I was a child being escorted to detention, she followed me up and to the entrance, not letting me out of her sight for a second. When we reached the door to her office, she gestured to the stairs leading out of the club. “How, by the way, did you get past my security?”

“Honestly,” I shrugged, “no idea. The door in the back alley sort of just slipped open.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There is no door in the back alley.” Her lips pursed, then she nodded up the stairs. “Very well, take your leave.”

“Thank you.” I held up the business card. “For this and for not killing me.”

The barest flash of amusement flitted across her expression, before it returned to its otherwise stern mask.

When I took a few steps up, Kieran at my side, she called up to me, her voice soft but steady. “Good luck, Mareena. I don’t want to see you again, but I do hope you find your friend.”

The bouncer, when we emerged from the other side of his door, looked like he’d seen a ghost. Little did he know, he was staring through one.

“How the hell did you—” He shook his head, exasperated.

As we rounded the corner, I exhaled—the knots in my stomach slowly loosening enough for me to breathe properly.

“Holy shit,” I said, “that was intense.”

But when I turned to him, Kieran’s face looked decidedly less triumphant. If anything, he seemed even more tense than he had at any point in the night.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked. I glanced down at where the dark veins slid beneath his sleeve. “Is it your arm?”

Only he wasn’t looking at his hand, or at me.

Instead, I followed his gaze across the street, where a man stood looking just as intense and angry as Villette had when she caught me.

He was pale, with dark shoulder-length hair and dressed head-to-toe in black.

With a sudden lurch, I realized that I’d seen him before.

Six years ago—when Sora and I stumbled upon the vampire and werewolf. He was the third man, the one Sora couldn’t see.

Kieran stepped in front of me, like he was trying to block me from sight—and that’s when I noticed that the man was staring daggers at Kieran, his jaw clenched.

“Can he . . . can heseeyou?” I asked.

“Of course I can,” the man said, his eyes narrowing as they shifted to me. “The better question is, why the hell can you?

21

MAREENA

Approximately Eight Years Ago, Two Years Before The Undoing

“Hey!” A white woman with long, red hair and impeccably applied eyeliner reached out for Sora as we made our way towards the back door of the bus. “It’s you!”

She had a gentle twang to her voice that was rare to hear this far north.

“Oh hey—” Sora paused, pursing her lips, her eyes narrowed as she tried to place the girl, “you.” I bit back my grin. Sora was many things, but a good liar was not one of them. She clearly had no fucking clue who this woman was. After a long moment, she gave up. “Sorry, my memory is shit. Do we know each other?”

“I thought so, maybe,” the woman said, her face twisted in confusion. “You look so familiar. I just can’t quite place your face.”

“It is the kind of face you remember,” Sora responded with a teasing smirk. “You live in the area? Maybe we’ve run into each other somewhere in the neighborhood.”

“No,” the woman’s face fell, “I don’t. Visiting family.” She studied her, thinking for a second, then shook her head. “Weird, I could have sworn we’ve met before. Church, maybe?” she snapped her fingers, realization softening her expression. “That big, culty one just outside of Portland, right? My family was sucked into it for a few months a while back.”

I snorted. Sora hadn’t been to church a day in her life. This was either the most awkward pick-up attempt I’d ever seen, or she had the wrong woman.

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