Page 147 of Veil of Death and Shadow

Fucking hell, this guy was a dick. I rounded on him, my sudden stop so unexpected that he nearly walked right through me. He wasn’t like Kieran, didn’t feel solid in the same way. The few times he’d drawn close to me, I didn’t even feel him. But however much I hated Thorne, I didn’t want to waste any of the time I had left on him. It was pointless.

Infuriating as he was, he didn’t matter.

Instead, I turned my ire where it had been truly earned—towards Kieran.

“No,” I snapped. “It isn’t better. If I’d known that this was it—that I wasdying—I wouldn’t have chosen to spend whatever time I had left with you—a guy I fucked once in a dark alley. I would’ve spent it with the people who actually matter to me.” Kieran’s face was sapped of all emotion, his eyes hard and unyielding as if I’d just slapped him. “With Sora. And Frank. And Jo and Aidan. The people who’ve given me a purpose—my family. Not gallivanting around Seattle with a virtual stranger while he butts his nose into my life making snarky judgments about it.”

When he didn’t respond, his stare vacant and unyielding, I started walking again.

“Wait,” he reached for my shoulder again, but when I shot him another glare, he pulled it back, “you’re not seriously going back there?”

The fuck did it look like? “Of course I am.”

“Mareena. Just—” His eyes narrowed, and this time he ignored my death stare, grabbed both of my shoulders and turned me towards him. “You literally just learned that you’ve been slated for death. You could die at any second.” I shoved his hands off me and kept walking. He let out a frustrated groan. “And your response to that information is to charge head-first, back to the people who just tried to drive an arrow through your chest?”

“Yep,” I said, letting my anger burn so hot that it ebbed the tendril of fear the truth of him had revealed.

He stepped in front of me, his expression dark, angry. I realized then, under the full force of it, how ridiculously naive I had been to think that the man in front of me foretold anything but death. “No.” He shook his head. “I won’t allow it.”

I snorted. “You can’t stop me.”

This was the mortal realm; he wasn’t of this world. Yes, he could touch me, but he didn’t have the same stronghold here that I did. And the flicker of frustration in his expression confirmed the truth—I was right.

“Honestly . . .” Thorne’s condescending voice cut through our battle of wills. He’d given us a wide berth for a minute or two but, like Kieran, he didn’t seem capable of leaving me alone altogether. “The girl runs into danger with all of the grace and intent of an elephant in an operating room. It’s a miracle that you’ve managed to keep her alive for as long as you have. Just let her get on with it and we’ll find you a nice dead girl to fuck when we get home.”

Kieran rounded on his friend. Then, in one fluid movement, buried his fist into his nose.

I didn’t know much about the physics of the dead, but it seemed like a pretty good strike.

Thorne’s head knocked back, and he nearly fell over from the force of it. When he steadied himself and looked up, blood streamed from his nose. I expected him to shout or swear, but he only grinned, his expression feral and bloodthirsty as red seeped between his teeth. Then, he charged forward, and the two reapers tangled together in a whirlwind of fists and grunts.

I left them to it and continued on my way back towards House of Wrath.

But when I turned the final corner, just next to where I’d left Claude’s car, I found myself surrounded.

A dozen figures, all masked and dressed in black—wielding weapons, from guns, to long knives, to the bow and arrow that had nearly taken me out earlier—formed a cage around me.

Fuck. Apparently, the time between learning that I was going to die and actually dying was going to be a very small gap.

“Where is he?” A deep voice asked to my right.

“Um,” I said, raising my hands up as someone came forward and started patting me down for weapons. “Who?”

“Claude,” the voice barked, “the vampire. You arrived in his vehicle, did you not? Where is he?”

Kieran and Thorne made their way over to me, both looking tousled and bloody and angrier at me for ditching them than they seemed to be at each other.

“He’s not here.” I licked my lips, hating the tremble in my voice as someone shoved what was undoubtedly a gun between my shoulder blades. Though when I considered the other options, I supposed that a gunshot to the heart would be much quicker than most. “I stole his car.”

“You seriously expect us to believe,” the masked man behind me let out a dark laugh, “thatyoustole the vamp’s car?”

“Easy, Agony,” Kieran said, “don’t make any sudden movements, don’t do anything that’s going to get you killed. Just do what they ask.” His voice was low, raspy, and the way his gaze shifted over the group of Wrath’s followers, assessing each of them, his shoulders tense and jawline tight, it seemed like he was more terrified of our predicament than I was.

Which didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t touch him. He was already dead.

“You don’t need to believe it,” I said, flinching when the guy behind me shoved the gun deeper into my back, “but it’s true. He said my friend was here and I didn’t have any other way to make the trip tonight. So, when he was preoccupied, I took his car. I swear, I’m just looking for my friend. I don’t mean any trouble.”

“What are you?” Someone else in the circle asked the question this time—a woman, maybe, from the sound of it. “A vampire? Or some other demon?”

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