Page 153 of Veil of Death and Shadow

Then, he left.

And as usual, he kept his word. I never saw him again.

28

MAREENA

Present Day

It would have been less shocking if I found myself staring at a talking unicorn, than my best friend’s dead twin. Who, unlike my two reaper stalkers, was clearly not dead at all.

“How?” I asked.

Rina shot a glare at someone behind me. “Let her go. I said I’ll vouch for her.”

The feeling returned to my arms as the guy I’d all but forgotten about released them with a sudden shove.

Kieran caught me before I fell, his chest vibrating with a low growl.

I regained my footing, then asked, “How are you alive?”

“Rina, you can’t just bring in outsiders,” one of the Wrath guards said, their tone laced with frustration.

Everyone, Rina included, seemed deeply uninterested in helping me make sense of the current situation.

She took a deep breath, then scanned the masked figures still surrounding us. Several of them were whispering, though I couldn’t make any of their words out clearly. “Is there a roomavailable?” she asked. “In one of the neighboring buildings, maybe? I won’t bring her inside the fence line.”

One of the masked guards, a few inches shorter than me, stepped forward. “Danvers won’t be happy about?—”

“Danvers is asleep,” Rina shot back, her jaw tight. “So unless you want to wake him, or one of the others up, you’ll respond to my command. I hold rank here. And,” she continued, brow arched, “seeing as how you’re intimately aware of how Danvers tends to respond to non-emergent disturbances, I suggest you follow my lead and stop challenging me. Just this once.”

“But the girl could be from Lust or—” someone else in the cluster started, but their words dissolved when Rina shifted her glare on them.

“She’s certainly a lot more terrifying than your roommate,” Kieran said. His face was an unreadable mask, his posture rigid, though he kept shooting glances at the people circling us, like he expected one of them to attack at any moment—whether Rina sanctioned it or not.

Wrath was known for being rash, for killing first and asking questions later, so his concern wasn’t exactly unwarranted.

“She’s not part of the Seven Sons.” Rina’s focus darted to me briefly, the corner of her lips twitching as she considered her next words, “And she’s not one of the magic-touched either. She’s just a girl. She works in a diner in Wallingford, for crying out loud. I can assure you, this woman is harmless.”

The breath collapsed in my lungs, and I ran my hand over my chest, half-expecting that the man behind me had run his blade through it after all.

Not only was Rina alive, but she was also apparently aware of the fact that Sora and I were, too. She knew where to find us and she’d chosen not to. Why?

My vision blurred, and I felt a cool pressure against my arm.

I flinched at the touch, finding Kieran next to me, his brows furrowed with concern.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.

Rina glanced at me, then took a step back, as if she was the one I’d admonished. And, honestly, maybe she should have been.

Sora and I had spent more than a decade mourning her, and she’d been alive this whole time? Climbing her way up in House of Wrath, of all places?

I licked my lips, then buried the hurt as I stepped closer to her. “Sora?—”

The masked minions all inched forward as well, like they expected me to attack.

“Easy, Agony,” Kieran said, keeping close despite my protestations.

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