Page 10 of Never Run from an Immortal

Many Fae possessed magic, though not all. Only the older families, those descended from the royal lines had any kind of power worth being concerned about. And there were no Royalists in the city.

Rae clicked her tongue as they moved closer, one of them trying to glance around the door behind her for their friend. She took a step to the side and leaned against the grimy wall with her arms folded over her chest as the nearest guard stalked up to her. Grunts were usually stationed in this line of work for a reason. They didn’t need a weapon; they were one.

But Rae had a grunt of her own. “Sorry about this,” she said dryly, just as the door beside her slammed open and Aidan barrelled into the guard, taking him off his feet in one swift move.

Rae looked on as the other guards charged him—one, quite literally—horns coming dangerously close to Aidan’s ribs. The Vampire Lord merely reached out, long fingers curling around a horn, and slammed the Fae into the wall.

That was two. The other three circled him, one with hooves like a horse’s and stubby little horns protruding from his blond curls. “Taz, call for backup,” he spluttered as Aidan’s hand squeezed at the other’s throat, landing a punch against another.

Taz, Rae presumed, staggered back, glancing back at the closed doors at the far end of the corridor as if he were calculating the distance between them and Aidan. An encased button hung on the wall a few steps back from him, and Rae realised a heartbeat too late what it was.

A horn flew through the air, impaling Taz in the chest, just as his hand came down on the button and an alarm sounded.

“Fuck,” she breathed.

Doors opened and more guards poured through them, both humans and Fae. Too many for Rae to count. She pushed off the wall, yanking the horn from the dead Fae’s chest to use as a weapon while Aidan made swift work of the nearest guards. He fought with the ferocity of a savage beast, but his movements were considered, precise.

She didn’t waste time watching, swinging the horn into the head of the human charging her. He staggered back and she snatched the switchblade from his hand, muttering a silent thanks to the Goddess that he had it as she slammed it into his stomach. Rae twisted the blade as she brought the horn down again, kicking the human away as a body crashed into her.

“Watch it,” Rae snapped, catching Aidan’s eye as she realised he’d flung a dead guard in her direction. She raised the dagger as another guard ran for her, ducking at the last moment to shove it into his kidney.

“My sincerest apologies, human,” the Vampire muttered, pulling his bloodied mouth up from the neck of a guard as the human slumped from his hold.

Rae stepped over bodies, snatching a chain from around the neck of a dead Fae, his head hanging at an awkward angle, but his veins untouched.

Good to see Aidan didn’t play with his food. There was a reason the Fae hated Vampires; for many years, they’d been the main course. It was well known that humans were only introduced to this world to balance the scales, and it was no wonder they’d had enough.

She didn’t look over her shoulder to see if Aidan was finished. Instead, she made her way to the door on her right—the one with the hole matching the unusual cut of the key she’d snatched from the Fae and a restricted sign beside it—before shoving the key into the lock. She’d meant it when she’d told Aidan there was a limit to what she could do, and she’d learnt long agoto let others expend their resources before she did. The lock clicked and the door swung open, a dim glow from a series of monitors illuminating the face of a young Fae with bright green headphones resting over his head.

He startled when he noticed her, tearing his headphones away, eyes dipping to the bloodied blade in her hand. “Please,” he stuttered, “I’m here because I have to be.”

Rae stalked closer, vaguely aware of the stacks of metal shelving lining the walls, the ventilation ducting hugging the ceiling that had most certainly not been doing its job, unwilling to take her eyes off the Fae just yet. Moans and grunts rang out from his headphones, bodies writhing on the screen beside him. The alarm still blared, and judging by the shrieks of terror, Aidan was still occupied in the corridor where she’d left him.

“Prove it,” Rae said, resting the tip of her finger on the hilt of her switchblade, balancing the sharp point on the Fae’s knee. “Can you turn that alarm off?”

He nodded and swung around to the monitors, fingers poised over the keyboard, one hand his own, the other a prosthetic. Human-made, no doubt.

Rae looped an arm over his shoulder, leaned in, and held the dagger to his ribs. “Just the alarm.”

Another nod.

“When you’re not holed up in here watching porn, what are you doing?” She raised an eyebrow at the bodies still writhing on one of the screens, two female humans and a Fae male. Some fantasies were universal. Her gaze slid over the other monitors, snippets of data and statistics on one, names and ages on another. The dead prisoners, Rae would bet a silver bar on it.

The alarm ceased, and the Fae swallowed thickly. “I, um, track the test subjects,” he stuttered, jerking his chin at the metal racks beside the door.

Rae moved away from the Fae, eyes roving over the metal cases on each rack, this one all black, the other, only red.

“Wait,” the Fae pleaded. Rae ignored him. Pulled down one of the cases, unclipping each clasp and humming as she surveyed the contents. Vials, all full of clear liquid.

“You’re trying to transfer magic,” she murmured. The only piece of the puzzle she couldn’t work out yet was that the syphon they’d put on Aidan back at Rush wasn’t a human invention. It wasn’t Fae either.

She pocketed a few of the vials, a body slamming into the wall of the open doorway, but she didn’t shift her gaze away from the Fae. His hooves scraped against the floor as he shifted in his chair, pushing his glasses up his nose with a finger. She stalked back over to him, noticed the crusted tissues on his desk, and rethought her decision to touch his keyboard.

An ID card was clipped to the top pocket of his shirt and Rae snatched it off, reading the name. “Ezekias Kypra. Do you know the Drunken Ram in the Eastern Quarter?” She pocketed the name card too. With the right contacts, it was easy to find out who anyone was with a photo in Demesia.

A nod.

“Meet me there tomorrow night, eight sharp, and I’ll make sure my colleague doesn’t gut you.”

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