“Sun is coming up, Rylee, we have to get out of here.” Faris spoke, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the coming crowd. There was no rhyme or reason. The mob was every supernatural I’d ever faced. And they were all dying. I was their only hope, only not the way they thought. I couldn’t blame them. Not really.
“I said it’s time to go, woman!” Faris grabbed me around the waist and threw me over his shoulder.
“Put me down, damn it!”
He leapt up the side of the building, using the windows ledges as if they were ladder rungs. I slipped down his back, hanging from his belt. He stopped and pulled me up so could wrap my legs around his waist.
“You want me to put you down now?” he asked when we were half way up the building.
I snorted. “Smart ass.”
Below, the mob hit the doors of the hospital like they were nothing, and the little asshole leprechaun fired another bolt at us. This time he hit his mark. Faris grunted as the bolt went into his right leg. Damn, he was taking the brunt of this fight. Was it so bad of me to take a bit of pleasure that Faris was finally getting his comeuppance? Probably, but I didn’t care at the moment.
The last window ledge was ten feet below the roof, and he shifted me around so we were face to face. “I can feel the sickness coming on fast, Rylee.”
“Already?”
Son of a bitch, it really did move like lightning. He nodded, a slight sheen of sweat making his face catch the light. His eyes were dull, and his hold on me slipped. Oh, that was not good. I reached up and clung to the edge of the roof, taking most of my weight off him.
“Berget, little help here,” I shouted. Faris clung to me, tucking his face against my neck, his lips parting against my skin. “Not yet, if you bite me here I’ll run you through!”
“Rylee?”
I looked up. Berget hung over the edge of the roof her hair floating down, making me think of Rapunzel. “Faris is sick, and I can’t lift his ass the rest of the way up.”
Her body jerked away and then Doran was staring down at me.
“Hurry,” Faris mumbled against my skin, his lips hot. Hot. Fuck, he was already running a temperature. A vampire with a fever . . . I never would have believed it if he hadn’t been heating up in my arms.
He slumped farther and I couldn’t stop the squawk that escaped my mouth. We were tangled around each other, barely hanging on. “Doran, you either find a way to get us up or we’re both toast.”
“I don’t have a problem with losing him,” Doran bit out, and then he was on the ledge with us. He took Faris and threw him with one hand up and onto the roof. Faris was limp, like a broken doll, and I just stared at the trajectory of his body. “Please don’t throw me like that.”
Doran snorted and wrapped his arm around my waist. “I would never hurt you, Rylee. He will.” Those green eyes stared into mine and for a moment, I was frozen. Damn, so we were going to do this now, were we? So be it.
“Do you remember when you Read me, and you said I would love another?”
He frowned and I knew he thought I was going to say Faris had filled that spot. “So, you have found where you heart lies?”
“Why would you tell me that, you knew it wasn’t going to be another man? You knew it was the child I carried, even then.”
Doran shrugged, but his lips turned up and that sparkle I knew so well returned to his eyes. He tightened his grip on me and started to climb the last ten feet. “I didn’t know it was your child, but I knew it would be a child. I thought, maybe Milly’s. And perhaps I hoped that if you thought it was to be another man, you would look my way.”
I put one hand on his cheek. “Doran, she is my center now. More so than even Liam ever was. But if”—I ran my finger over the side of his face and through his silky soft hair, letting the honesty flow through me—“if there was ever someone I would look to, it would be you.”
His eyes widened, and he stopped moving. I leaned in to brush a kiss on his lips. Gentle and sweet, I pulled away before he could make it anything else. Because if I were being honest, Doran had the kind of pull on me that could easily tumble me under his spell. And right now, I had to focus on stopping Orion, not finding a new lover.
“I will wait for you,” he said, his voice husky.
“I know, and I don’t want you to.”
I wouldn’t look at him, didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. He adjusted his hold on me and climbed the last few feet up the side of the building. As soon as we were on the roof, we ran for Blaz. He had a full load of riders, but that was no difficulty for him. Alex rode in Blaz’s curled claw, howling in the wind like a maniac.
“Blaz, you know where we’re going?”
Jack’s. Are you going to tell Doran that Liam is still making an appearance now and again through Faris?
His words were for me alone. “You noticed that, too?”
The wolf is strong and hard to miss when his spirit shows up. Faris knows it too and I think it scares him.
“He’s not the only one,” I grumbled. Thinking about my body’s reaction to Faris’s proximity I turned in my seat, searching for the enigmatic vampire. He was strapped into the very back of the leather rigging, as far from everyone as he could be. His eyes fluttered open, solid gold.
“Holy shit.” I unbuckled myself and pushed my way past everyone else to get to him. “Liam.”
He bobbed his head, blond hair fluttering in the wind. “Rylee. Faris is dying.”