City of Light (Outcast 1)

“I just wish you’d fucking think before you react for a change!” Nuri swung around and headed for the door. “I dreamed of her coming for a reason, Branna, and—”

She stopped abruptly and stared at the empty space where Bear hovered. And given the slight narrowing of her gaze, I had no doubt she was aware not only of him, but of my link with him.

“Well, well, well,” she added. “Maybe all is not as lost as we thought. Branna, go see if Jonas is awake and aware, and get him to meet me down in the cell if he is.”

He muttered something under his breath, but turned on his heel and disappeared through another doorway.

Nuri took a step in our direction. “So, little ghost—”

Bear turned and fled before she could finish, and I can’t say I blamed him. He wasn’t used to confronting someone like her—hell, I wasn’t used to confronting someone like her, but obviously, I soon would be.

Bear whisked into the cell, and I held out my hand. He came to rest on my palm, and I flooded our connection with soothing energy. After a while, he calmed down enough to sever the link, then drift upward, hovering near the ceiling. Cat remained near my left shoulder, her energy dancing across my skin like tiny fireflies.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly, but it didn’t do much to ease the tension that ripped through my burning limbs. Damn it, I needed to get out of here! I might often hunger for company that was solid rather than ghostly, but I’d rather spend another hundred years alone with my ghosts than endure five minutes in the company of people like these.

The big question was, though, would I even last long enough to escape?

Nuri might want to question me, but she’d made no mention of actually keeping me alive after that.

I flexed my fingers. I had to stop worrying over things I could do nothing about. It was time to focus on the things I could—like the storm of poison ripping through my body.

I crossed my legs and closed my eyes, focusing on my breathing, on every intake of air as it washed through my nostrils and down into my lungs, until a sense of calm began to descend. It was in this state that my body had been designed to fast-track healing, and, after a few heartbeats, the fire in my flesh began to ease, as did the ache in my head.

The cell door retracted. I didn’t open my eyes, concentrating on the repair, desperate to get as close to full working order as was possible. Even so, I knew the first person to step into the room was Nuri. Interestingly, she didn’t have any particular scent, although the smell of ale, soap, and water clung to her clothes. It wasn’t her, though.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. She just stood there, studying me. After several moments, I realized she was waiting for Jonas. He eventually arrived and filled the air with the scent of cat, wind, and evening rain—an odd but interesting combination. But there was also a darkness to his scent that had the hairs along the back of my neck rising. There was anger and barely controlled violence in that darkness, and it reminded me forcibly that whatever else this man was, he belonged to a breed of soldier that had single-mindedly mutilated and killed my kind.

Nuri finally walked around me, her steps light despite her large frame. My skin twitched at her closeness, crawled with the sense of her power.

The ghosts crowded closer, their little bodies pressed against mine, their fear and anger clawing at my inside. Calm, just stay calm, I whispered internally, not entirely certain who I was trying to reassure—them or me.

As Nuri’s fiery presence retreated toward the doorway, I finally opened my eyes.

Only to meet Jonas’s gaze.

Something within me tightened; it wasn’t fear, but something far more base. I’d been specifically designed to be like honey to a bee when it came to shifters, but a side effect was that I was inordinately attracted to them. And even though there was far more to me than the task for which I’d been bred, I couldn’t entirely deny my nature. Not even now, in a situation as uncertain as this.

If he felt even an inkling of attraction, it certainly wasn’t showing—not in his scent, and not in his expression or body language. In fact, not even the darkness I sensed within him showed in those vivid, cat-green depths. Indeed, given the casual way he leaned a shoulder against the door frame, it would have been easy to believe he wasn’t particularly interested in either me or whatever was about to happen.

At least he appeared to be over whatever it was that had assailed him—even if his sun-browned skin still seemed pale and his cheeks held a slight gauntness that made his sharp nose look even more aristocratic. Even with that nose—or maybe because of it—he could definitely be called handsome. But not classically so—there was a roughness to his features that made them far more interesting than beautiful.

“Why did you attack me?” My words came out stronger than I expected, and for that I was grateful. If I was to have any hope of convincing them I wasn’t déchet, then I couldn’t give any indication that the drug they’d administered had had any effect.

“Penny said you were déchet.” The back of Nuri’s skirts swished like some gigantic black curtain as she stopped near the doorway. “And she’s not a child inclined to untruths.”

“Penny also said that she’d never met you,” I replied evenly. “And that is patently untrue.”

“No, it isn’t, simply because we haven’t met in person. I know of her only through the dreams.”

“Meaning what? That you’re some kind of witch?”

“Some kind.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Obviously I’d been right in guessing she was full human, because the silver curtain had no effect on the unprotected areas of her skin.

“So you take the word of a child you’ve never actually met, and attack the stranger responsible for saving both her and one of your own? Nice. Real nice.”

“Perhaps not, but our reaction is understandable if you are what Penny says you are.”

“I’m not. You should be able to see that just by looking at me.”