Page 14 of Broken Kingdom

Layla nods. “Yeah, from the Orkney Islands, I think. They’re part horse, part man, and can shift to look like a really ugly human with oozy, bloody flesh for short amounts of time. They don’t have skin like we have skin, I guess. How do you know about them? I thought they were pretty rare.”

“When I was still a captive in the blood pits, one of the fight club managers had a nuckelavee on his roster.” The hair on my arms stands on end despite the warm sun. “Getting paired with him was a death sentence. All he had to do was breathe on you and you started to rot from the inside.”

Catherine shivers. “How horrible.”

“Yeah,” Layla says. “Lots of diseases humans think are viruses are actually nuckelavee attacks. That’s why most of them were either killed or banished to the Parallel a couple hundred years ago. They kill off too many people at once. It’s bad for vampires and fairies who feed on humans and bad for the rest of us who actually like humans and don’t want them to die in an Ebola outbreak.” She glances down at her phone. “The department store is about half a mile straight up this street and then left for a few blocks. Or we could pop into the next office building. Apparently, a lot of the buildings here are connected by underground passageways. Probably because of the snow.”

“Underground passageways,” I murmur. “Is there one close to the compound?”

She checks, zooming in and out as we turn toward the office building. “No. Looks like it’s not far, though. Just a short subway ride.”

I reach for the glass door’s handle. “That doesn’t really help, unfortunately. I was hoping there would be a tunnel near the compound so I could be closer, but still out of sight.”

“It doesn’t help with that part,” Catherine says, pausing in front of an underground city map just to the left of the entrance. “But it looks like a place it would be easy to get lost in.”

“They say that exact thing on the website,” Layla agrees. “There are over thirty-three kilometers of tunnels and passageways and not every one of them is on the map.”

Catherine turns back to us with an arched brow. “Might be a good place to hide if we get Juliet out and have wolves on our trail. Or if we need to lay low for a little while until we can get to a car rental place or the bus station.”

“Or the helicopter pad,” Layla says. “Hermione said she’d send the chopper back for us if they weren’t using it when we called, right?”

“I think so,” Catherine says, her lips curving as she starts down a narrow flight of stairs into the passageway connecting this building to the rest of the underground city’s network. “If Hermione said it, I’m sure you’ve got whatever it is locked in your adoring brain.”

“Hell yeah, I do.” Layla nudges Catherine in the ribs. “And I’ve been thinking, thirty-five and nineteen aren’t really that far apart. When I’m thirty, she’ll be forty-six and that’s not weird. That’s just like…two people in the middle of their lives having a good time.”

Catherine wrinkles her nose. “Well, it’s maybe a little weird, but if it’s meant to be, it will be.”

I don’t know about that. You can’t get much more “meant to be” than a fated mate, and I’ve come close to losing Juliet way too many times.

But you’re not going to lose her. You’re going to get her away from Jean-Paul and then do what you should have done from the start.

I’m going to kill Hammer, no matter what it takes. Juliet and I won’t be able to start our lives until Hammer’s is over. He’s made that clear. And if it’s too late to save Juliet, I’m going to make it slow. Slow and painful and torturous so he can get a tiny taste of what it feels like to suffer the way I’ll suffer without her.

“Come on,” I say, moving past the others and nearly jogging toward the escalator at the other end of the long, subterranean hallway. “We’re running out of time. I can feel it.”

“See, he’s got the heebie-jeebies, too,” Layla says, hurrying after me. “There’s something messed up in the air around here. Like a storm blowing in, but creepier.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll be on our way back to Lost Moon with Juliet before we find out what it is,” Catherine says. “I’m okay if heebie-jeebie-giving things remain a mystery for now.”

I am, too, but something in my gut tells me that isn’t the hand we’ve drawn.

Whatever darkness is gathering right now, my guess is we’ll be right in the thick of it when the shit hits the fan.

Nine

Juliet

Jean-Paul knocks on my bedroom door for the third time, calling in a wheedling voice, “Can I come in now? Pretty please. I need to see it on her, Madame Duval. I’m on pins and needles.”

“Five more minutes,” Madame Duval, a curvy young woman with pink cheeks and dazzling blue eyes, calls out. “She can’t walk until I get the hem out of her way. It’s way too long.”

“I don’t care about the blasted hem,” Jean-Paul growls. “I need to see the overall effect. I don’t just want royal or queenly, Duval, I want iconic. I want a gown my people will remember for decades. I want the second coming of fucking Princess Diana. If it isn’t right, there’s still time to send the stylist for more options, but only if we move quickly.”

“Relax, you won’t need another dress, but you also can’t rush genius. Go have an espresso with Chef and come back in ten minutes. We’ll let you in then, Mr. Impatience,” Madame Duval shoots back.

Jean-Paul curses colorfully, but surprisingly storms off down the hall outside without further complaint.

Madame Duval laughs before adding in a voice for my ears only, “You’re going to knock his socks, shoes, and tighty-whities off, mon amie. This gown is stunning on you. Princess Di wishes she looked this good in white.”

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