Forty-five minutes later, my suitcase was packed, and I stood in the middle of my living room, rifling through every possible place I could hide and coming up woefully short. June would take me in—I had no doubt—but I wouldn't ask her to risk her neck for me. Even if my gut whispered, Cian wasn't the indiscriminate killer I accused him of being. He did, however, seem to possess no qualms about kidnapping, and as much fun as handcuffs were, the next time I found myself in a pair, naked games would be involved. 

My grip tightened on the handle of my suitcase as I drew in a ragged breath. Maybe I shouldn't put Cian in the same thought as nudity. It was a damn shame Jac was so pissed at me right now. I clearly needed to relieve some sexual tension, or maybe the tryst with Jac was what got me in this mess. Like being sober for a year and thinking just a taste won't hurt—next thing you know, you're falling off the wagon—hard.

"Shit," I muttered. "Focus."

Making a spur-of-the-moment decision, I opened the Ride Share app and arranged a car to meet me at the gas station on the corner. From there, I would pick up my car. It was a risk I was willing to take. Being without a means of transportation made me feel too vulnerable—if I didn't think Jac would have me arrested, I would "borrow" his car to get out of town.

The walk to the gas station took longer than usual. My suitcase weighed a thousand pounds, and a miserable misting rain fell from a slate sky that slowly darkened to a green tinged indigo as the sun went down behind storm clouds. By the time I stepped into the parking lot, my hoodie was sodden, and pieces of dripping hair hung over my eyes. An elderly woman exiting the store gave me a wide berth, alarm clear in her wrinkled face.

I peered at my reflection in the glass and winced. Mascara streaks connected my jaw to my eyes. Eyes which were red streaked and wild, not settling on anything for any length of time. Every noise startled me, making me shrink beneath my clothes, as if I could become smaller and smaller until maybe I could disappear.

That would be the only way Cian wouldn't find me. Look at Molly. From the little I'd gathered from the echo, he'd hunted her for years and years. The moment I witnessed was only one scene among many, and the story ended the only way it could end—in her death.

"Ma'am?"

Barely suppressing a shriek, I turned. A late model silver sedan idled in the parking spot to my right, the driver leaning out the window expectantly. The glow of the fluorescent lights washed out his pale brown features, but his black eyes glittered unnaturally as he waited for me to acknowledge him.

"Ride Share?"

"Yep. I'm Lee. Bria?"

"That's me," I answered, cursing myself for not taking the time to create a false account. Licking my lips to un-stick them from one another, I let him take my suitcase and load it in the back of the car while I studied him for signs he wasn't human. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't give a flying rip—supernaturals had to make a living too—but it would be more coincidence than I could handle tonight.

"You getting in?" he croaked.

Stooped shoulders. Liver spots on the top of his hands. The unnatural glimmer in his eyes a product of bad lighting and cataracts. I was eighty-five percent certain he was human, considering most supernaturals stopped aging in their early twenties. There were a rare few who lived and died human lifespans, and even a rarer few who were cursed with long lives and forced to wear the years on their faces. But unless he was an unusually tall gnome, it was more likely he was an elderly Asian man trying to earn a little extra income to supplement his retirement.

"Yes, sorry... I—" This time there was no stopping the curdling scream that ripped from my chest and exited my gaping mouth as a mountain of a man landed on the top of the car, crushing its roof in.

Lee stumbled backward, losing his balance and landing flat on his back. I dragged him to the side of the building and propped him against the wall. His lids fluttered as he fought for consciousness, and I left him, sure he would be fine. Definitely better than he would be in the middle of the fight that was about to go down.

All around me, people screamed, engines roared, and tires squealed as everyone fled to escape the monster who remained perched on what was left of my ride. Colossal wings cocooned the man. Their primary feathers were the darkest, almost crimson, while they grew lighter the closer the feathers were to his body—shifting to burnt orange—until just at the point where they peaked above his shoulders, they were the palest peach.

"Outstanding ombre job, Cian," I mocked, taking a wide-legged stance and putting my hands on my hips to look bigger. The wings snapped out, revealing him completely, and all the oxygen was sucked out of the air. "Kohl."

He rose to his full height, which seemed far taller than it had been at Indulgence. Hopping off the car, he stalked toward me, his gray eyes cold as he swept them over me. Then he sniffed the air. "You're the girl from the club the other night. Must say I preferred the dress you were wearing then. This hides all those sinful curves."

"You know what. If you let me run back home, I'll be happy to slip on something a little more, er less."

"I think I like you."

"Gee, thanks." I groped for the gun I'd holstered beneath my hoodie, the metal cool through my gloves. "Looks like I'm not the only one a little different from before. The wings are new."

"Only take them out for special occasions," he purred, circling me, some of the ice melting from his eyes—replaced by a blazing fire of need, but for what, I wasn't sure. It wasn't sexual, not completely. I knew when a man wanted my body. This hunger went beyond that.

Sirens wailed in the distance, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the humans hiding inside watching us, some of them even recording, and that was when I knew I was truly fucked. Whatever the Anderian wanted from me—it was big. Big enough to risk pissing off the Council for exposing the supernatural world.

"And this is a special occasion?" I asked, taking a step backward. Then another. And another until Kohl was following me out of the parking lot and into the shadowy woods behind the station. And away from human sight.

"Oh, it's very special, Shard Keeper."

Shard Keeper. The world pulsed around me, and I choked back acid as it surged upward from my stomach. That's what Cian had called Molly, but... I couldn't be, could I? She'd appeared to know what she was, and what she was protecting. And why hadn't Fynn and Kohl known what I was when I went to Indulgence if he could sense it in me now? But this morning there had been the event in the shower. The pain and burning in my chest.

"I don't suppose you'd like to give me the lowdown on what these Shards are, would you?"

His laugh was humorless. "You dare mock me? You won't be mocking me when the Synod removes the last Shard from your unworthy body, and we can finally return to Andarei."

"Didn't I hear you call the Synod fools the other night, and didn't Cian accuse you of not wanting to go home? Looks like we can help each other out."

I needed to stall, and my snarky mouth was the only thing available right now. I could make a run for it, perhaps weave through the trees. Kohl would have difficulty flying in here, but those long legs of his would eat up the distance between us with ease. A tree trunk stopped me from retreating any further, its bark sticking to the damp fabric of my top when I pressed against it. This was it.

In two steps, he was in my personal space, and his thumb ran up and down my throat. He put pressure on the pulse pounding through my skin, and I swear I saw a flash of fang as peek over his bottom lip. "I thought you might be eavesdropping last night, and now I know why. The Shard was not with you last night. It's so fresh I can feel it singing in your blood."

"Oh," I whimpered as his fingers curled around my throat. "Is that how you found me?"

"Yes," Kohl said, his pupils swallowing his irises. "That is my purpose. To find the Shards."

"Guess you better take me to the Synod, then."

They would kill me, too. Cian admitted as much to Molly, but he also said it would be an easy death, and right now, a possible easy death sounded far better than whatever this maniac was thinking about based on the hardness pushing into my stomach and the twisting of his once handsome features into something feral.

"I promise," he whispered, dipping his head so his mouth skimmed along my neck. "But a taste first. I need to taste its power again."

A sting flared on my tender skin, and then cold air rushed into the empty spot in front of my body, and the tree to my left snapped in half as Kohl went through it. Cian took the recently vacated place before me and ran his hands all over my body, checking me for injury. When his thumb came away damp from my neck, a preternatural stillness went over him.

"Go now, Kohl, before I tear you limb from limb," the Anderian bellowed.

"Just a taste," Kohl demanded, rising and brushing splinters from his hair. The band holding it back had broken, and the red strands fanned around his face making him look like an angel with his wings draped on either side of him. I'd never heard of angels who drank blood.

"This is why I locate them," Cian told him, shifting so I was hidden behind him, which was a feat considering I wasn't a small woman. "You cannot handle the temptation. Go back and wait."

"Why? So you can fail again? No," Kohl replied, his wings expanding with a harsh snap. "She's mine."

The two giants came together in a crunch of bones and flesh, and as much as I wanted to watch two men grapple and roll about in the mud, I took the opportunity and ran. The air echoed with the sound of their blows landing, and I'm pretty sure another tree exploded. Light flared, and an orange glow blazed in the middle of the trees, still visible even when I reached another road.

"Of course," I huffed, gripping the stitch in my side, "those asshats would have fire power."

Shivering, I jogged down the slick road, my heavy boots slowing me down. I was nearing the point of tossing them when headlights blinded me. I threw up a hand to block the light, but it was too late. My night vision was ruined, and I fell to my knees, the gravel on the shoulder tearing through the fabric of my gloves.

"Fucking hell, Bria," Jac said as he put his hands under my armpits and hoisted me to my feet.

"How?" I protested, then answered my question. "Location app."

"That and I saw the video from the gas station. Get in the car."

"Jac, I really want to, but I can't. It'll put you in too much danger, and I—"

"Get in the fucking car on your own, or I toss you in the trunk."

"Why does it turn me on when you get all bossy?" I muttered, sliding into the passenger seat with a relieved sigh. "If you could just get me to my car, that would be great." Not that it would matter, since my blood was apparently singing to the enemy because of the Shard I carried. Holy shit, how had things gotten so out of hand?

"Are you okay?" He asked me, pulling back onto the road and leaving the monsters far behind us.

Unless they were flying. Cian didn't have wings when he showed up, but that didn't mean he didn't have them. I put my forehead against the window and squinted into the sky.

"Bria?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Wait. If you saw the video, why aren't aren't you freaking out?" The dashboard lights cast just enough of a glow that I saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "Jac?"

"It's better if I show you."

"No, damn it," I yelled, the stress of the last day snapping something inside of me. "You wanted me to see a doctor because I claimed to see echoes of the past when I touched objects, but you watched a fucking video of a winged monster and you're just all, 'no big deal.' What the actual fuck?"

"Bria, I was just doing my job."

"You were just doing your job?" I swiveled so I could put my back against the door, desperate to get as far from him as possible. Almost tempted to open the door and take my chances with the winged beasts. Betrayal seared so deeply I thought I might faint. "What exactly is your job?"

Jac ignored me and turned onto a gravel road similar to the one Cian took me down earlier. A tingle went over my skin as went through warding, and my eyes, which I didn't think could get any bigger, went wider in shock. Only witches could create wards.

"Bria, calm down," he said as he stopped in front of a house. My breathing was uneven and dots danced in my vision.

He reached for me, and I slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me."

"Bri—"

"No, what are you?"