Page 39 of Never Run from an Immortal

Rae didn’t stop to watch. She needed cover. Needed to get them out of the quad. She hugged the perimeter of the factory, holding the soaking scrap of fabric to her bleeding arm, trying not to flinch as thunder cracked directly overhead. Through the rain, she could just make out the vehicle entrance backing out to the street, but she’d have to stick close to the building or risk being seen. There was no time to worry about Reed, though she didn’t doubt his Fae form was far more impenetrable to bullets than she was.

Lightning struck one of the surrounding buildings, and Rae considered harnessing it, but she was far too exposed for that. She ducked for her dagger instead, a bullet clinking into the metal roller door above her head.Shit.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she muttered, pulling a little power from the lightning as she tossed her dagger, gritting her teeth against the pain of her wounded arm. The blade flew much further than it would have without magic, the force of it shuddering through her, but Rae didn’t see it hit her mark, only the body as it tumbled from the rooftop and fell to the ground below. She darted for the gun that had fallen with the human, whirling with it in her hands as a voice cried out from above.

“I’m going to fucking gut you for that,” someone yelled, rappelling onto the ground beside the lifeless human. Rae pulled back the trigger on her stolen weapon, but nothing happened, angling it to one side to take in the damage it had sustainedin the fall.Double shit.She thrust the butt into the chin of her aggressor, landing a kick against his chest as he stumbled back, and she ran.

Another roar from Reed across the courtyard, but she couldn’t chance checking on him. Car tyres screeched somewhere nearby, and Rae instantly regretted her decision not to call for backup. “Reed!” she called out.

She made it to the vehicle entrance just as two humans opened fire on him, and Rae pulled the metal files from her hair, murmuring a spell as she hurled them, one after the other through the rain. The humans fell, and Reed tore into them both as a black car screeched to a stop beside her.

“Get in,” Aidan commanded, the passenger door already swung open.

“Reed,” Rae called out, rain plastering her hair to her face.

“He’ll follow. Get in the fucking car, Farren.”

She did as he asked, slamming the door shut and pivoting in her seat to make sure Reed trailed them. A tight breath escaped her as the Fae bounded after the car. “I didn’t get a chance to ask him—”

“I’ll find out,” Aidan cut in. “Just give me a minute.”

“Don’t hurt him,” Rae pleaded, her eyes still fixed on Reed’s form slipping away from them as Aidan increased their speed.

“I’m a little busy, human. Fasten your seatbelt.”

“What, can’t multi-task, bloodsucker?”

A quiet puff of air from Aidan was all the acknowledgement he gave. “How much did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” Rae said, finally turning back in her seat to face ahead as Aidan rounded a corner, and that was enough encouragement to fasten her seatbelt. An image of Nim in one of those cells threatened to surface, but she shoved it away. “If you hurt him, Vale, we’re done here.”

“He’s safe. I’ve got Orion pursuing him. You’ve had them running circles for hours.”

Them, and him, with any luck. Rae didn’t try to hide the satisfaction she felt at that. Aidan hadn’t told her she couldn’t leave the manor, and there wasn’t a fucking chance she was going to stay holed up in that place night and day. But she’d ignored his calls, his attempts to reach her.

“I’ve no reservations about having you followed if you and I can’t reach some kind of agreement,” he said when she didn’t respond.

So hewasangry then. Rae didn’t rise to it. Didn’t dare to, not when she was wounded, exhausted, and trapped in a moving car with him. “How did you find me?”

“You’re bleeding.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel, and Rae wondered, careful not to let any of her emotions leak through, when he’d last fed.

“It’s just a scratch. How did you find me?”

Aidan flicked his chin, his hair falling across his eyes. “Your blood, Farren.”

She’d been bleeding the first night they met at Rush, and when he’d found her outside the Drunken Ram, so he’d have been able to pinpoint the scent of her blood by now. Rae knew enough about Vampires to know that. Though it should have frightened her, she found an odd kind of comfort in it, some primal part of her lighting up at the thought. Goddess. She was fucking losing it.

Soaked through and freezing, Rae pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to massage away the ache. Without pulling a little power from herhusband,she’d have to patch herself up the old-fashioned way, because she wasn’t about to risk attempting that when he was conscious for a second time.

Aidan didn’t let up on the accelerator as he tore through the streets of Demesia, despite how hard the rain came down. “Helast saw Nim alive, but she was transferred to another unit, and he has no idea where. He thinks his father made a deal to get him out, but he isn’t certain.”

“What are the chances—” That she was still alive. Slim. Rae knew that, the corpses they’d both seen in the cells evidence enough.

“There’s still a chance, and I’ll take it,” Aidan said quietly, and Rae clung to the thought.

If she hadn’t been stubborn. If she’d given him the Goddess damned data, they might have found Nim already. Rae covered her emotions as carefully as she could, focusing on tying the soaking fabric around her arm where it still hadn’t clotted over. Only a flesh wound, but it still needed closing up as soon as possible, and she was too fucking tired for another spell. “Reed?”

“He’s shifted out of his Fae form. Orion will get him to the manor.” Somehow, Aidan had already made it back, the gates closing behind them.

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