Page 393 of Fated to be Enemies

No time for this shit, I gave him a swift hand-heel to the chin. His head snapped back and hands loosened their tight grip. Before he could retaliate in any way, I slipped away and took a few steps into the alcove, expecting another room, a bar, or something, but it wasn’t an alcove at all. It was an exit. A stretch of dark corridor lay ahead with torches in sconces leading the way.

Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid.

“Fine.” I told the voice chanting in my head. I spun around, swallowing the yelp that came out of my throat.

Kol Moonring stood directly behind me, a scowl fixed in granite. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I blew out a quick breath, regaining composure after the shock of finding him standing there.

“Let me guess.” I gestured over my shoulder. “Harm’s way.”

“You weren’t seriously considering following him.” Not a question from the Iceman.

“I didn’t realize this was an exit. I thought it was just another room.”

“It’s not an exit. It’s the exit. Two of the three victims were taken through this passage.”

Glancing over my shoulder at the menacing darkness, I edged away, closer to Kol. He didn’t move. Why wouldn’t he move?

“If you’re waiting for an apology or something, you’ll be waiting a long time. It was a simple mistake.”

“There’s no such thing.”

“As what? A simple mistake? Of course there is. I just made one.”

“Simple can get you killed, Ms. Cade.”

Ms. Cade? His condescending tone made me want to punch him.

“But it didn’t. Now move your gargantuan self out of my way so I can get out of this creepy corridor.”

A flash of blue-silver from fey eyes was a sign of the dragon riding him hard. I clenched my jaw, pretending he didn’t intimidate me.

“You’re Morgon bait in a tall, pretty package. You’re going to get yourself killed. Or someone else.”

I flinched, knowing that was certainly an insult, no matter that he called me pretty. He practically sneered while saying it.

“Excuse me?”

“You should go back to school. Write your stories, or whatever it is you do, and stay out of this world.”

Fire lanced up my body, filling my cheeks. “Look, Kol.” I refused to even give him the respect of authority. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I write or why I write, so stay out of my world and out of my damn business.”

I pushed past him, fuming. If I never saw him again, it would be way too fucking soon.

Chapter Five

When my comm buzzed me awake with an invitation for breakfast and a debriefing from Lorian, I accepted immediately, knowing it wasn’t a request. I rolled myself out of bed, slipped on some sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a fleece pull-over, then headed to the Morgon district. Walking onto the terrace of Lorian and Sorcha’s high-rise home, I squinted at the mid-morning sun skimming above the skyline. A shaft of pink-gold light shot across the top of Sorcha’s copper hair, giving her an angelic halo. Of course, I knew my sister’s best friend was far from an angel.

“There’s our damsel causing distress, teasing those Morgon boys into a testosterone frenzy.” She tipped a fluted glass in the air with a mischievous smile. “Mimosa?”

I took a seat at her breakfast table, framed by tall pillars of white marble, and gaped at the jaw-dropping view of the city. On this side of town, the skyscrapers took on a different shape. Rather than straight and linear, they slanted to a flat-top pinnacle. Some were a combination of stone and steel, rather than steel alone, jutting up into the sky like Morgon-made mountains. The tip-top was flat, of course, for lift-off and landing, and terraces jutted out around the uppermost floors, but the unusual design somehow made sense. The symmetry of Morgon buildings was more aligned to nature, creating a skyline of poetic beauty, rather than a statement of human might and power. I marveled at the rising sun, shielded by puffy clouds that softened the light pouring across the blue-tiled terrace.

“I didn’t tease anyone into a frenzy. Where are you getting your faulty information?”

She giggled. “I can’t reveal my sources.”

With my words thrown back in my face, she pushed a plate of pastries toward me. I rolled my eyes and nibbled on a cream-filled one as she went on.

“The story is that you disappeared from Kraven without informing him of your whereabouts, flirted with the possible ringleader of the Devlin Butchers, then tried to follow him down the deserted corridor where two of the girls had been kidnapped.”

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