Page 48 of Happily Ever Bitten (Underworld Royals 2)

“You’d never guess my combination,” he returned, giving me a look.

A commotion in the hallway shifted my attention to the sitting area of his suite. Something hard slammed against the door, followed by Adrik shouting, “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Stand down, King Adrik,” Lux said formally, her voice dulled and emotionless through the door.

“Stand down?” he repeated. “Have you lost your fucking mind, Queen Lux?”

“We need to go,” Grigory said, his hand finding mine as he yanked me off the bed. “Adrik will only be able to stall her for so long.”

That must have been who he was messaging.

Grigory’s arms wove around me in a tight hug. “Hang on, Zay.”

Chicago.

Los Angeles.

Hong Kong.

Reykjavík.

New York City.

London.

By our sixth stop, I was exhausted from portalling us all over the damn human realm. But I had to make sure we weren’t being followed.

Zaya shivered against me. She’d remained alarmingly quiet throughout our journey, her exhaustion a plague on my conscience.

I never should have left her in the hands of others, and I should have initiated this link between us long ago. Her mind was fascinating. Fractured in parts—just as I expected—but so incredibly strong overall. Now that I’d accessed her psyche, I didn’t want to leave.

It wasn’t the same as her dreams, where I visited her on a fantasy strand.

Being in her mind was different, more authentic, as a result of being grounded in reality. Similar to our kiss. That had been the most intense embrace of my life, and we weren’t even naked.

Something about Zaya lit me on fire from within. It’d always been that way. I thought it was

just our blood link, but it went deeper than that.

Her very soul seemed to call to mine on a plane neither of us could see, making me feel more alive than I had in my nearly twenty-five years of existence.

“Where are we?” she asked, her shoulders shaking beneath my arm as I used my opposite hand to key in a code to the building door.

“The outskirts of London,” I told her. “This is one of Adrik’s old flats. He used to escape here to hide from my mother when we were younger.”

“He used to hide from Lux?”

“Not out of fear,” I clarified. “More because he needed his space.”

The door clicked as I entered the final number sequence, and I pulled it open to reveal a side corridor that led to a series of stairs. Zaya followed me, her steps slower than usual. She’d changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket during our first stop in Chicago. Thankfully, it’d been midday in that area of the world. She’d found a pair of boots, too. Then we’d portalled out of the department store before anyone could charge us for it.

I had human cash stashed at various locations—but my mother knew about all of them. And since she seemed to have lost her fucking mind, I couldn’t trust any of those places.

Which was what had led me to Adrik’s flat.

The door to his residence had another keypad rather than a traditional lock. I typed in the proper code and guided Zaya through the threshold into the two-bedroom suite. “My room is the one on the left.”

“I thought you said Adrik owned this place?”

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