their prey is what Blood Knights did best, and she was now at the top of that list.
Want to know who I am, Knight?
What if I tell you that your inner light was stolen from me, tortured out of my veins? What then? Would you thank me for your light and for your agile prowess? Someone should.
Stopping the internal chatter was imperative. She felt him tuning in to her. Hers wasn’t the only pulse skyrocketing. The rapid beat of his heart added to the tension in the air.
The truth was that in this guy’s voice, and in his golden presence, Avery heard the far-off rattle of the chains that had bound her to the Earth in his honor.
“You’re immortal, and yet have no sigils,” the magnificent bastard noted with a focus hotter than the artist’s needles.
Avery hated how he unsettled her.
“I suppose the saving grace is that the new designs look like they belong there,” he added. “Somehow, the wings suit you.”
Too damn personal...
Avery whirled around. The creature in the doorway had seen the wings, her new talismans, when she hadn’t had the chance. He had viewed her bare skin, scars and all. And now that she had lost some of her hard-won control, he had seen her face.
Would she let him get away with that? She had wiped minds for less. She had killed to remain anonymous in a crowded modern world. But none of those things was an option here with someone whose strength so closely matched hers at the moment. She had been sloppy and had not covered her tracks well enough. This meeting was her fault. There was no do-over, only escape.
She did not meet that heated gaze.
“Sigils are in these days. Didn’t you know?” she remarked, reaching for her jacket.
“Sigils.” He repeated the word. “Was that what you were looking for here, in a place like this?”
“Actually, that would have been useless, don’t you think, when you have to be born with those kinds of marks, or be born because of them?”
She was getting warmer, catching the fever that came with speaking about forbidden things. Her shoulders were on fire. Real wings would have taken her away from this confrontation. An inked span was nothing more than make-believe.
Still, the inked wings were an added reminder that if she stopped looking for the missing pieces of herself now, she would never know a moment’s peace. If she became distracted after all this time, and after believing she was closing in on the very thing she sought...all the years of searching and hating and destruction that had gotten her to this point wouldn’t be worth one single breath.
She wanted to look at him, but didn’t dare.
“I wonder if you’ll tell me what you are if I ask nicely enough?” he said. “And also who made you.”
“I’m afraid you have taken up far too much of my time already.” That remark actually sounded breathless. The airless room was stifling.
“Places to go? People to see?” he asked.
Avery ignored the remark. She was in need of fresh air and alone time, and he was in the way.
“I’m leaving.” She got to her feet, meeting his gaze at last.
He leaned against the doorjamb as if he had suddenly experienced a moment of weakness. But he rallied quickly. The devastatingly handsome head shook. Blue eyes burned bright.
“They will be waiting for you. London’s monsters,” he warned.
“They won’t find me.”
“I did.”
“You don’t understand...” Avery began, without finishing what she had been about to say. This Knight wasn’t to know anything about her quest. The Perceval of old had died, losing his mortal flesh, and had been resurrected by a golden kiss from a holy relic. After feeling Death’s black breath, his path had been clear. That had not been the case for her. And by the way, she wanted to shout, monsters no longer concern me.
“I’m trying to be polite, and you’re not making it easy,” he said. “What if I came here to welcome you to London, or to warn you about what lurks here?”
“Have you honestly come here for either of those things?” Avery challenged.
“No,” he confessed. “I came because I was intrigued by the sudden appearance of a stranger I couldn’t place.”
The tractor-beam of his blue-eyed scrutiny left Avery feeling as though she were still half naked. She also felt vulnerable when vulnerable wasn’t in her vocabulary and never had been. She’d been in battles this Blood Knight couldn’t even dream of, and had emerged unscathed. Damn straight she could handle this unexpected meeting.
“I owe you nothing, Blood Knight,” she said.
As she watched a smile play on the corners of his full, sensuous mouth, Avery realized she had just made a grave mistake. In letting him know that she knew him, and about him, she had trespassed on his purpose for existing. Blood Knight, she had said.
That mistake was the mother of them all, and any second now the ramifications of such a slip-up were going to bite her on her leather-clad ass.
“So you do know me,” Rhys said, refusing to let her get past him.
The female, though of an unknown species, was extraordinarily beautiful. She had delicate features and wide-set blue eyes the exact color of a summer sky. Those eyes were the only real color she possessed, other than the tattoo, and stood out dramatically from the flawless paleness of her face. Adding more drama to her features was the way she had rimmed both eyes with black paint, which lent her a modern, edgy look. Not one scar marred that face.
“What if I do know about you?” she asked.
Rhys shook his head. “I wonder if it’s possible to get a straight answer out of you.”
“Unless you actually are London’s sheriff, I doubt it. Even if you were, it’s unlikely I would oblige.”
Rhys held up his hands in a gesture of submission. “Fine. I get it. You enjoy being mysterious.”
He stepped aside. “Would one more question be too much to ask?”
“Yes.” Donning her leather jacket, she got to her feet.
Up close, this trespasser wasn’t as small as he had originally thought. It was the slightness of her frame that made her seem fragile, though her attitude more than made up for it. He could easily have held her there with brute strength alone. Since he was two heads taller and twice as broad, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him. But this strange female was right. She owed him nothing. She had done nothing wrong. Yet.
“How do you know about me? Your answer might be
