Page 108 of Dark Shadow of Guilt

“Some oddball Scourge Malacour picked up. But she’s a looker, huh? Great for biz.”

“Speaking of your boss, is he around?”

“Somewhere.” The bartender’s gaze surveyed the room. “There he is.”

Ely spied the manager near the stage chatting on a phone. No telepathy for the guy since he was a Scourge, albeit a trustee. Malacour still had to use the device to communicate. All nervous like, he glanced around the room. Spying Ely, the guy dropped the device from his ear and melted into the crowd.

Ely ignored his drink and sprinted into the crush of patrons, tossing bodies out of his way to get to Malacour.

Was this his eternal life? Chasing down Scourges? Maybe it was time for him to rest again, to hibernate, to go into stasis at a retreat until OneWorld was new again. If not, he feared he would be on the road to contracting a malady as Gareth had. It was said that the pressure of eternity could cause madness.

“Outta my way, assholes.” Ely jumped on top of a table. His gaze darted left. Right. Ahead. He didn’t spot Malacour.

There.

The front door was closing, the trustee scurrying outside to the street. Ely charged after him, ignoring the ruckus he’d caused in the bar.

When he spied Malacour, he pounded down the sidewalk. Gareth had been an asshole. Ely didn’t think of himself as asshole material. Maybe sometimes, but not always. He was just bored out of his mind.

He did have to admit that Dom, Madeline, and the unexplainable events stirring up OneWorld were noteworthy. Maybe shit would get interesting enough to shake him out of his stupor. Though chasing Scourges around was biz as usual, earthquakes and the enigmatic Maddy were kinda exciting.

He took his mood temp.Yeah. He was feeling a bit livelier. A bit more interested in seeing what was coming. The redhead in the cage pinged his curiosity. Too bad she was the thing he hated most.

At a corner, he looked around. No Malacour in any direction. He angled his head to the sky. He hadn’t left on wing. Where the hell did he go? Ely had failed to catch him, his mind focused on other shit.

****

Long after their guestshad gone, Madeline lay beside Dom on the bed, staring out the open roof at the stars. The night was amazingly clear and warm. For the moment. Comfortable, she snuggled against Dom’s arm which was looped under her neck. But she heard the blood thrumming through his veins. Her chest bounced up and down with panted, panicked breaths while she struggled with her urges.

Philosophy and Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences...

But Maddy’s recitation did nothing to curb her hunger for the black-winged assassin.

She’d conquered the traumas of childhood, led a good life, had a great job, and was independent. Praevus disrupted all that, making her a slavish dupe. That problem erased, her focus now narrowed to a beating pulse in Dom’s neck.

She closed her eyes to concentrate on happy moments, such as the last time she’d been together with her sisters. They’d gathered in St. Louis since it was in the middle. Darya had flown in from New York and Fia from Los Angeles. They met at a long-running restaurant, Lombardo’s Trattoria near Union Station. Madeline had ordered the rigatoni with seafood, her usual.

With a scallop poised on her fork, she asked, “How’s your dance studio, Darya?”

Though her sister had trained to be a ballerina in New York, an automobile accident had ended that career path. The resilient Darya, however, picked herself up and opened a dance studio for determined young performers. She never looked back.

“I have some talented youngsters. One kid, in fact, was just accepted into the Dance Theatre of Harlem. I was sorry to see him go, but it’s a big step up. Anyone want the last piece of focaccia?”

Maddy shook her head.

Fia, whose career as a lounge singer was hitting big, waved her sister on. “I was approached by a record producer at the nightclub. When I get back to LA, I’m going to meet in his studio to go over his ideas. What about you, Maddy? You’re the brains of our outfit. What’s new?”

“I’m starting my masters, beefing up my creds in special collections and research.”

The happiness of the get-together had stayed with Madeline, a celebration by three young women who could have been damaged by a bad childhood. Instead, they’d tackled life and won.

Good times.

Now Madeline cuddled up to a winged Immortal in a dimension somewhere in the universe, thinking about sucking his blood. This sure wasn’t grad school.

No blood sharing. No mating. Dom had nixed Indigo’s idea. In desperation, she’d even tried bottled blood. Nope. She’d thrown up what she swallowed.

Now she was hanging on by an un-manicured nail. And losing her grip. If she didn’t manage the cravings soon, they would control her. She refused to put Dom in harm, although he’d assured her she couldn’t kill him since he was Immortal.

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