Sharon Ashwood - Possessed by the Fallen

“The hospital called my family to come get me from New York,” she said. “I thought you were dead and I didn’t know who’d compromised my cover. The attack was real, Jack, and it was brutal. I just wanted to go home and heal.”

He said nothing, hating the thought of her hurt and alone. And then hating the fact it bothered him so much.

“I missed you, Jack. That was the worst, but there were other things. I missed our friends. The life we had. It was hard, you know, losing the fashion-design business,” she said, her voice oddly brittle. “It was supposed to be just a cover but I liked it. I had a knack.”

Jack sat back, his leather jacket rustling in the silence. “People pay fortunes for a Jessica Lark original, especially now that you’re dead.”

She gave a stifled, bitter laugh. Her features remained in darkness, as if he was gazing at the ghost of his memories. Lark in her jeans and bare feet, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her studio; Lark walking into a room and turning every male head; Lark lying in his arms. In every image, she was bursting with life. He was—not. He was the hollow grave. A vampire, and worse. He swallowed hard, suddenly ravenous.

She saw the look. He caught the surge of adrenaline wafting from her skin. Jack jerked his head away, reining himself in.

“Listen. Very few things can destroy a site that quickly. With any normal blast, there would still be fire and smoke for hours. That’s not what we’ve got here. By all indications, a spell blew up HQ, and it left a stink,” Lark said suddenly, pulling them back to safer ground.

The abrupt change of subject caught him off guard. “A stink?”

“On the magical plane. Whoever wove that spell was Dark Fey.”

Dead leaves swirled across the road. The tick-tick of the cooling motor sounded like an old-fashioned time bomb. “Explain.”

Her voice was brisk, every inch the agent now. “An explosion that big would have rocked the city, and it would’ve been loud and bright. It wasn’t, so it was magic.”

“And the magical, uh, smell?”

“Fresh. Barely hours old.”

“That fits,” Jack agreed. “It’s been long enough for the attackers to get away, but not so long that the shutdown has been detected. Otherwise someone would have noticed HQ was offline. That still doesn’t explain why you think it’s a Dark Fey spell. They’re not the only magic users around.”

She angled her chin away, her expression stubborn. “I know the reek of the Dark.”

“How? The gates to their kingdom have been locked for nine hundred years,” Jack said, his voice gruff with dread she was right. “I was there when the gates were closed, but you weren’t even born.”

“Believe what you like, Jack.” Her voice grew sharp. “The Light Court elders kept artifacts of the Dark spells. An entire library. They made us learn the signs of their magic, and one of those signs is stink. And this is worse than anything I’ve ever encountered.”

With that, she got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. For an astonished second, Jack watched her stalk away. She was rubbing one wrist while the other was still circled by the dangling bracelets. Of course, any agent worth their salt knew how to get out of cuffs. Whatever else had happened to her, Lark hadn’t lost her touch with a well-concealed lock pick.

“By the devil.” Jack scrambled out of the car. He caught up to her in three strides, catching her arm. “What else do you know?”

The force of his grip made her slender body collide with his. She shot him a look, temper mixed with wariness. “I thought you didn’t believe me.”

Jack hesitated, measuring out how much he should say. “Dark Fey operatives made an attempt to open the gates less than a month ago, so I buy that they’re active. We barely stopped the ritual, and only because they couldn’t get all the ingredients to the spell.”

Lark’s mouth turned down. “I know. Word has it you dropped off the grid a year ago to find out who is working on behalf of the Dark Queen.”

“How do you know that?”

“The Light Court has its sources. They sent me to find you because they want to know what you’ve found out. Who is helping her?”

Jack was barely listening. Their argument had stirred his hunger—but then Lark aroused him like no one else he’d ever met in his long existence. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her flesh seeping through her coat. Saliva filled his mouth, reminding him it had been a long time since he’d fed. Vampires his age didn’t need a constant flow of blood, but the desire to drink never entirely faded—and fey were a particularly delicious vintage.

This wasn’t good—especially when the disaster he’d just seen had stirred his most primitive survival instincts. Summoning the last dregs of his will, he forced his fingers to uncurl from her arm.

“The Light have stood on the sidelines until now. Why get involved?” His voice had gone rough with more than one kind of hunger.

Lark studied his face, no doubt seeing the flare of appetite in his eyes. She backed out of his reach. “We’re on the same side. The Dark Queen has always been our enemy. You’ll need us now that the Company is...is in trouble.”

“The Company is not defeated. Not as long as I’m still standing.” Jack looked down the sloping road toward the city. The palace stood on the hill at the center of town, the huge gates outlined in shimmering lights. It was a vision from a child’s picture book, made of fireflies and dreams, and it was the Company’s mission to keep it safe.

And that mission came first. Not every agent could have been in the building, and those who were left had work to do. Jack would find those survivors—his friends—but as much as he wanted to start making calls, there was a protocol to follow. The first order of business was to maintain silence until he reported what had happened to the king of Marcari, the ultimate ruler of the Company and all its agents. King Renault had to be the first to know what had happened here.

“You’re coming with me to speak to the king,” he said evenly.

“Am I?” Lark asked with a hint of defiance. “Thank you for informing me.”

Without even looking her way, Jack gripped her arm again. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight. “We need to warn him. You need to explain why you’re in town.”

Lark squirmed in his grasp. “Aren’t you undercover? If there are spies in the palace, there’s no point in letting the enemy know you’re around.”

“King Renault knows I’m here. I get around without anyone else seeing my face.”

And there was his next problem. He knew plenty of secret passages in and around the palace, but he didn’t want to reveal them to Lark. If she was going with him, he needed another way in.

Jack licked dry lips, hating his next words. “If we leave the car here, we can walk in under a cloak of invisibility.”

A beat of silence followed. Then she gave a short, sharp laugh. “You, inveterate hater of fey magic, need me to cast a glamour for you?”

He clenched his teeth. “I’ll like your magic better if it’s working for my side.”

* * *

Lark dropped her chin to her chest, feeling the sting of his words. “I’m on your side.”

“I doubt that,” Jack said, pain and anger radiating from him like heat.

Lark tried to ignore the jab, but her vision blurred with tears. She was devoted to her people, but she’d also worked with the Company. The agents were her friends, and someone had struck deep at their heart. The image of the blast site burned like a coal of fury in her chest, fueling the hot prickling behind her eyes. If she wavered for one instant, let that grief inside her unfold, she would start howling like a banshee.