Page 63 of Fallen

Then I was turning myself, arms curved in a dancer’s pose. My mirror images spun with me, an endless series of Twilights in pink tees and silver high-tops, their long dark braids whipping around their faces.

I crouched and brought my fists up, mock-fighting with my reflections, leaping and kicking in a martial arts sequence that came as naturally as breathing, one I’d learned from my halmoni as a kid. I’d missed working out; missed the ebb and flow of the familiar sequence; missed pushing my body to go harder, faster, higher.

It felt good to move, to remember that I was a trained fighter, not the helpless thrall I was pretending to be.

Mindful of the cams above a couple of the entrances, I added a few dance moves here and there, pretending I was doing one of those body-combat workouts. Exercise, not training.

I kept it up until I was bent over, gasping, then jogged slowly around the ballroom to cool off. As I slowed to a walk, a spidery awareness crawled up my spine.

Someone was watching me.

Wiping my face on the hem of my shirt, I darted a look around.

The side door opened. I glimpsed a lean, dark-haired male dressed in a T-shirt and cargo pants, then he was gone.

Kuro.

There was something about that smooth, gliding gait—the gait of a martial arts expert, which I assumed Kuro was. You didn’t graduate from an SI training facility without a black belt.

I flew across the marble floor and threw open the door, only to find myself in a windowless passage, at the end of which were two more doors. I tried the door on the right first. It led to a staircase landing, with steps going up and steps going down, both empty as far as I could tell.

The door on the left opened onto the back lawn. When I jerked it open, the man was hurrying around the corner of the castle. I dashed across the grass, skidding to a halt a few feet from the edge of cliff, but he’d disappeared.

I peered over the cliff. Sixty feet below, waves crashed and foamed over the sharp rocks at the bottom. The drop was nearly straight down, too steep for anyone to have gone over unless they were a freaking rock climber. And if Kuro had gone over the side, I should’ve been able to see him.

Unless he’d disappeared into the shadows.

Most slayers were dhampirs, after all. As a human, I was the odd one out. SI had only recruited me because of my ability to resist a vampire’s compulsion, and because my mom had vouched for me. You could say it was the family business.

“Hey!” A soldier loped toward me, a wolfdog at her side.

I ignored her to jog along the narrow strip of grass between the castle and the cliff. I found another door about ten yards down, but when I tested it, it was locked.

That crawling awareness tightened the back of my neck.

I spun around, but there was no one there—that I could see, anyway. My hands fisted. “What the hell do you want from me?”

But of course, I knew.

He wanted me to know that he was watching. That I was his creature, dancing to whatever tune he played, and I’d better remember it.

The soldier rounded the corner. The dog snarled lowly, but at a sharp command from her, it settled onto its haunches, its hazel wolf-eyes fixed on me.

The soldier’s gaze jumped from me to the cliff. “Is something the matter, Miss?”

“No,” I said, aware Kuro was probably nearby, listening. “I was just—” I came up blank. “Jogging,” I muttered and brushed past her and the wolfdog to go back inside.

14

BRIEN

“You.”Twilight’s mouth turned down as I let myself into her suite through the French door.

She was kicked back on her couch, reading a book and nibbling on a chocolate from the box I’d had delivered to her room along with a crate of romance novels I’d had expressed from the mainland.

It was an apology of sorts; I’d mishandled things last night. I was never going to win her trust if I kept pushing her away.

“Me.”I gave her a crooked smile and reached out a hand. “I came to get you.”

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