Levet gave a flick of his tail. “He’s rather large to ignore.”
A humorless smile curved Santiago’s lips. “Nefri can give you lessons. She’s made an art form of ignoring what she doesn’t want to have to deal with.” He waited until she reached the truck, his finger lifting to stroke down her cheek. “Haven’t you, cara?”
She refused to flinch from his glare. Maybe she had been too swift to protect herself from the emotions Santiago threatened to expose. And clearly she could have been more sensitive to his male ego.
But now was hardly the time to be bickering.
“Are we going or not?” she demanded in cool tones.
“Oh, we’re going.”
“Yes, well.” Levet cleared his throat. “Perhaps I should—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Santiago snapped, grabbing the gargoyle by one horn and tossing him into the truck.
“Mon dieu,” Levet squeaked as he landed on the leather seat.
Rolling her eyes, Nefri rounded the back of the truck to slide into the passenger side, in a cowardly way pleased to have the gargoyle between her and Santiago.
Not that she believed he would ever try to harm her. Santiago was by nature a protector and no matter how she might infuriate him, he would never strike out. Besides, she had enough power to protect herself from any enemy.
No, she simply didn’t want to spend the next few hours rehashing her impulsive decision to share Santiago’s bed only to panic when she awoke in his arms.
It would mean exposing her scars from a past she simply wanted to forget.
With a low curse, Santiago climbed behind the steering wheel and used his powers to start the engine. Then, with a last glare at Nefri, he shoved the truck into gear and sent them jolting down the narrow road.
Once they reached the highway, Santiago pressed the accelerator to the floorboard, urging the truck into breakneck speed.
Thankful for her immortality, Nefri watched the landscape flash by, catching only blurred glimpses of tangled wetlands that eventually gave way to small farms, with the occasional town huddled in the soft glow of streetlights.
They had traveled nearly an hour in uncomfortable silence when Nefri’s brooding thoughts were interrupted by the strange sensations that suddenly filled the air.
“Santiago.”
Even as his name fell from her lips, Santiago was slowing the truck and turning onto a service road. “I feel it,” he muttered, his gaze trained on the trees that lined the recently plowed fields.
“What?” Levet stood on the seat, his expression troubled. “What is going on?”
Nefri shivered, rolling down her window to test the chill breeze.
There was the same pulse of emotion that surrounded Gaius’s lair. An unnatural coercion that could easily manipulate the feelings of both human and demon.
But this wasn’t violence that brushed over her skin and tugged at her emotions.
This was . . . fear.
A drenching, unrelenting fear.
“It’s not the same,” she muttered.
“No,” Santiago agreed, turning the truck onto an even smaller path, downshifting as they were forced to dodge fallen tree trunks and potholes large enough to swallow them whole. “But it’s close enough we have to track it down.”
“Yes,” she agreed, clenching her teeth as he cut through an overgrown meadow to halt near an abandoned schoolhouse.
They crawled out of the truck, all three of them studying the three-story brick building with a rusting tin roof. The cement steps were crumbling and most of the windows had been smashed, while the double front doors hung at drunken angles.
The surrounding playground had long ago conceded defeat to the encroaching weeds, although someone had cut a path around the swing set and metal slide. No doubt the same someone who’d built the smoldering bonfire and brought the keg of beer.
Allowing her powers to flow through the thick air, Nefri swiftly sensed the human hiding in the building. She lifted one finger and Santiago nodded.
“I’ll circle around and come in from the rear,” he said, pulling loose the sword he kept strapped to his back.
She instinctively reached to touch his arm, an uninvited concern clenching her heart. “Whoever is inside is close to breaking,” she murmured, able to feel the human’s rising hysteria. “Be careful.”
With a cocky smile Santiago melted into the darkness, moving with the fluid speed of a trained warrior. Nefri shook her head in annoyance. Why was she worried about him? Not only was he more than capable of taking care of himself, but she’d already decided that she was going to consider him as nothing more than a necessary tool to achieve her goals.
Hadn’t she?
Refusing to admit that she was finding the task of cutting her connection to the aggravating male more difficult than it should be, Nefri turned to glance down at the gargoyle at her side. “Levet, could you keep watch?” she asked. “This might be a trap.”
“Oui.” Levet studied the surrounding trees before glancing back to the schoolhouse. “I’ll be on the roof. It should give me the best vantage point.”
“Contact me if anything approaches.”
“Oui.”
Confident that nothing could sneak past the gargoyle, Nefri crossed the playground to climb the stairs and enter the building.
She paused in the small vestibule. Ahead of her a set of stairs led to the upper floors, the stones worn in the middle by the thousands of small feet that had climbed them over the years. To the side of the stairs, a narrow hall led to the inner classrooms, which reeked of rotting wood and mold.
And fear.
Bone-deep, soul-crushing fear.
With a shiver, she moved down the hallway, following the overwhelming sensations.
“Santiago?”
“I found her,” he said, his voice low and soothing.
Nefri stepped into the dark room, her gaze skimming the overturned desks and decaying books that were scattered upon the warped planks of the floor.
Weaving her way through the debris, she found Santiago seated beneath a cracked chalkboard, a young human female shivering in his lap.
“Oh.” Nefri studied the girl, who appeared no more than sixteen in human years. She was nearly naked with only a tiny thong to cover her thin body. Her long blond hair was tangled and her face coated with dust and tears. But, it was the unmistakable wounds on her neck that caught Nefri’s attention. The girl had been bitten by a vampire. “The poor creature,” she murmured.
Santiago glanced up as she approached. “Can you watch her?”
“Why?”
“I need to make sure there are no hidden surprises.”
“I should do that,” she countered. “You remain with the girl.”
His brows snapped together. “Nefri.”
“I won’t take any risks, I promise.” She interrupted the inevitable argument, knowing this wasn’t about who had the most power, but his primitive need to protect her. “Only I can break through illusions. Besides, the human has attached herself to you. She’s likely to panic if you leave her now.”
His jaw tightened, but he gave a reluctant nod. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I’ll try to question the female.”
She lowered her gaze to the girl, who was clinging to Santiago like a barnacle, her soft whimpers muffled against his chest.
“Can you reach her? She appears . . . broken.”
He ran a gentle hand over the girl’s hair. “You have your talents and I have mine.”
Nefri didn’t doubt him for a minute.
For all of Santiago’s swagger, there was something unquestionably comforting about his presence. A safe harbor a woman could depend on . . .
She took an abrupt step backward as the dangerous words whispered through her heart. “I won’t be long,” she muttered, turning to hurry from the room.
Speaking the words of power that would break any lingering illusions, Nefri moved through the remaining classrooms before heading upstairs. She concentrated on the gaping holes in the floors as well as the steel lockers that threatened to topple above the unwary. Anything to avoid examining her unruly emotions.
Santiago was right about one thing.
She’d become a master at sticking her head in the sand.
The ultimate ostrich.
It took only a few minutes to make her way through the upper rooms, but slipping out a broken window, she stood on the fire escape and motioned toward the gargoyle, who was on the highest peak of the sharply angled roof. “Anything?” she asked.
“Non.” Levet’s wings fluttered, shimmering in colors of blue and crimson and gold in the chilled moonlight. “Nothing is stirring, not even a mouse.”
She paused at his odd words before giving a slow nod. He wasn’t exaggerating. The surrounding countryside should be alive with nocturnal animals foraging for food and the predators that hunted them.
Instead an echoing silence spoke of a complete lack of wildlife.
There wasn’t even the buzz of an insect.
The spreading fear had affected even the most basic of animal forms.
“There’s a girl inside we must question,” she at last said. “Can you remain on guard?”