39

Running in his manticore secondary form, Mikhail analysed the day’s events. He had been expecting some sort of an uprising against him, so the events at the Council meeting didn’t surprise him much. When insecurity took root, creatures needed someone to blame for it all, and he was the most prominent target.

But everything was in control – for now.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said about Viktor. The lycanthrope was unable to keep his cool, despite what he said. Vaka Hara, the withdrawal, was a dangerous state to be in. A state that quickly made one lose control, and could even result in the loss of one’s mind.

His and Viktor’s beasts – and all other immortals who, like them, had one residing within them – were internal spirits that magnified a creature’s strength, but they had to be dominated. Without control, the beast was just that – a beast. Surrendering to it meant, in essence, ceasing to exist. It usually occurred as a chain of very powerful emotions and events that shattered the heart and soul of a creature to pieces.

Mikhail had once been there, on the edge of Vaka Hara. Two hundred years later, he still remembered Valeria’s features, her long dark hair and even darker eyes that always glistened with mischief. The nymph had been so exquisite, so intoxicating. If she hadn’t found her death by his hand, she would probably have been worshipped as a goddess of seduction. And betrayal.

An unwelcome memory of her clawed its way into his thoughts. Valeria in a magnificent yellow dress, her sun-kissed face tilted towards his. Her plump pink lips, whispering ‘I love you ,’ then spreading into a wide, inviting smile.

Only now, after so many years, did Mikhail realise that her smile had never quite reached her eyes at that moment. The dark hazel had remained cold and sagacious that night, when Valeria’s fingers had touched the strap of the yellow dress. The soft fabric had slid down along her thighs, revealing a flawless body. She had been the sexiest woman he had ever seen, and she’d known it. Well aware of the influence she wielded over him, she had used it without scruples.

When her lips had caressed his body, he had believed her. Almost. Sometimes, in the throes of passion, he would allow himself a touch of wildness. His irises would turn golden, his features sharp, his hands rough, more insistent. But he had never hurt Valeria. With him, she had always been safe. Yet often, in those moments, she would look away. Disgusted. How had he not seen it then?

Oh, but he had seen it. He had chosen to be wilfully blind instead. And she had made it easy for him to lie to himself. But no amount of seduction on her part had stopped him from getting his revenge, in the end.

The memory of her face, twisted with fear and begging for her life during those last seconds, was replaced by Amelia’s. Her body gave him signals that he had desired to respond to more than once. Her pale skin, royal blue eyes and light hair were the complete opposite of Valeria; even her affable, sometimes childlike, sometimes mature behaviour was nothing like the calculated demeanour of the nymph.

In the forest, his body had been more than ready for her. More than it had been for any other woman in years. That night, if they had not run into danger, would he have been able to return her to her room…and leave her untouched? Or would he have given in and seduced her?

And yet, Amelia was a mortal woman, probably without much experience in the realm of intimacy. What was he thinking, anyway? There were way too many reasons for grown immortal men to not get involved with human women.

He stared at one of those reasons. His transformed body was melting the snow under his paws. There was nothing human in the thick fur and black sharp nails.

He returned to the Hospital through the secret entrance and shifted to his human form. While he waited for the lift, a wave of exhaustion crashed over him.

When the doors opened, the prone body of a boy faced down, in the middle of the cabin. Mikhail knelt beside it and turned it over.

It was Dave.

Still breathing. Barely.

***

When Mikhail barged into Amelia’s room, she knew something was wrong.

Please don’t let it be Dave …

Mikhail was taking sharp intakes of air as if he had sprinted up the stairs to the last floor, but his eyes were what struck her. They were wild with colours, the gold standing out among the rest. He stared at her for a moment, about to speak, then seemed to decide against it. He headed to the bathroom without a word, and soon the only sound was the faucet running.

Amelia walked to the bathroom. Heart pounding, she pushed the door open and took a step inside. Mikhail was holding onto the sink, his head bowed, shoulders tense. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced at her reflection in the mirror.

He had splashed his face and hair with water. He gazed at her as if seeing her for the first time and his features relaxed, his irises reverting to their normal colour.

“Everything is all right,” he said. “I apologise if I scared you by barging in.”

Nothing was all right for Amelia. She had spent the last few hours convincing herself that her vision from earlier was not something to stress over. Yet another trick of her mind. But now, with Mikhail in front of her, she knew she had been wrong.

“I found Dave in very bad condition. He’s alive but he will need rest to recover,” he said in an even tone and returned to the room.

Her stomach churned. “Where did you find him?”

“Inside one of the side lifts.”

“What happened to him?” She knew the answer. Her eyes welled up. The boy had been chased by a predator who clearly enjoyed the hunt. Then Mikhail’s words got through to her… “He’s alive! You said he’s alive, right?”

“He is, yes. Don’t worry. We don’t know what happened. Maybe he just passed out.”

“He wasn’t hurt?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

Her whole body shivered, so she began pacing up and down the room in an attempt to calm it. “It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be—”

“Amelia, calm down!” Mikhail raised his voice. “Dave will be all right.”

“I could have stopped it. Why couldn’t I have done something…”

“Amelia, calm down and tell me what’s going on.” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her over to the bed. With a gentle push on her shoulders, he sat her down. “Stop this. Your heart is racing. You’re barely breathing and you’re hurting yourself.”

She tried to listen but her body resisted her at every turn.

Mikhail placed a hand over her bouncing knee. “Look at me,” he said in a commanding tone, so she did. “I want you to calm down.” She wanted that, too. “Take a deep breath. Don’t close your eyes! Look at me.” He was speaking evenly. “What was your favourite place as a child?” Her favourite place? “Your home? Somewhere you felt safe?”

This was easy. “My grandma’s house.”

Mikhail didn’t move his attention off her. “Tell me about it.”

On a shuddering breath, she thought of the old building that no longer existed. “It was a small house with a huge yard. I loved spending time with Grandma. The house was sold after her death. My mother’s cousin arranged everything. She convinced me that there was no point in keeping it…”

“Don’t think about her death. Think about the time when she was still alive.”

Amelia conjured up one of the most powerful memories of her grandmother. It was a rainy summer night. Lightning tore the sky, followed by blaring thunder. She had never before seen such a ferocious storm. She lay curled up in her bed, with her hands pressed over her ears, afraid that the sky wouldn’t endure and very soon the thunder would break it and send it crashing down on top of everything. Her grandmother hadn’t appeared the least bit worried. She’d stroked Amelia’s hair as she’d sang to her.

“The song. She would sing me a song.”

“Do you remember it?” When Amelia nodded, Mikhail murmured, “Sing it to me.”

She bit her lip, hesitating. Could she share that with him?

He smiled and squeezed her knee in encouragement.

Her lips moved of their own accord. “Sleep, wind. Sleep, storm… The little girl’s asleep and warm… Wake her up when winter comes…”

“I like it. Keep going.”

She did, singing quietly, until her legs were no longer shaking.

Then she realised that Mikhail’s palm was still on her knee, causing a pleasant warmth to spread through her thigh. She stopped singing and lifted her gaze to him. This almost stranger had managed to pull her out of her panic attack easier than any other technique her psychologist had been teaching her for months.

And now, she owed him the truth.

“I had a vision,” she said. “Dave was running down the hallway. Someone was chasing him. The boy was terrified. He knew he wouldn’t make it. The pursuer did as well… And she… seemed to enjoy it, although she convinced herself it was just a job…”

“You saw who chased Dave?” Mikhail’s voice could have cut glass.

“Yes. A woman. She wanted to kill him. I think…” The invisible hairs on her neck bristled just thinking about it. “She wanted to carve a message into his chest. But someone showed up and she couldn’t.”

“What did she look like?”

“I... don’t know.”

He stood, towering over her. “What do you mean, you don’t know? How do you know it was a woman?”

The absence of his palm left a strange emptiness on her knee. “Because…” Amelia got to the part that was torturing her the most. “I was her. I was inside her body, her head, I knew her thoughts and feelings.”

“You were in Dave’s chaser’s head?”

“I could see through her eyes… My hands were her hands.”

“But you didn’t see her face,” he pressed.

“I’m sorry, no. There were no mirrors around.”

“Then how do you know it was a woman, Amelia?”

She stared down at her palms. “Her hands. They were feminine.”

“The nails were polished?”

“Well, no, but the fingers were long and graceful.”

A faint furrow creased his brow, the only change in his otherwise stony expression. “This is not enough, damn it! Tell me something more!”

Amelia had much more to say, yet she was aware it would probably enrage him further. “She was strangling him with her bare hands,” she continued. “Squeezing his neck between her arm and body. She thought she’d killed him. Then… she took off a glove. Her nails turned black and sharp.”

“Many immortal species have nails. Manticores, lycanthropes, nymphs, vampires…”

“Yes, but yours… They come out of a paw. These were emerging from a delicate female hand. No hairs…”

“Nails are something that can be released without the need for complete transformation,” Mikhail said.

“She was careful not to leave marks.”

“Criminals are usually careful of that. You said there were no mirrors. What did you see?”

“A hallway, and not much else. The lighting was off, and she thought there wasn’t supposed to be anyone up there at that time. She was surprised when she heard voices… That’s why she couldn’t finish the job. She just dragged him inside the lift, hoping he would die.”

Mikhail took a seat next to her on the bed. “To her disappointment, the boy will live and he’ll tell us who she was.”

“She had a hood on. She was convinced that Dave hadn’t seen her face.”

“Then at least he will tell us where all this happened.”

Amelia stared at her palms in her lap. “Mikhail… There’s something else.” He said nothing, but a sense of expectation filled the air. “I told you that she meant to carve a message into his chest.”

Mikhail sneered. “Let me guess. ‘You’re done’?”

She winced. “No. She wanted to write ‘Release her.’”

“‘Release her’?”

“She was thinking of you. That way you would have no other choice but to ‘finally get rid of your pet.’”

Mikhail walked to the window, turning his back to Amelia. She had noticed he stared out into the night every time he needed to think something over.

“Mikhail.” Amelia swallowed hard. “She was talking about me. I know she was. I’m the one you’re supposed to release.”

He turned to her with an emotionless face. “That’s right. It is you.”

His admission stunned her. If that was the case, why did he appear indifferent to everything she had just shared?

“If I truly am the reason for all the murders around here, then maybe I better leave. I don’t belong here anyway.”

Mikhail was in front of her in a heartbeat. “You do realise that nobody wants me to release you because they wish you well? As soon as you’re alone out there, you’re dead. And that’s the best-case scenario.” His voice made her shiver as much as the threat of his words did.

“But I haven’t done anything. Nobody would bother with me if I just went my way…”

Mikhail reached out, his fingers grazing her chin as he forced her to meet his eyes. “You still don’t get it, do you? If I ever had any doubts about whether or not you belong here, now I am completely convinced you do. Like it or not”—he smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about his expression—“you’re staying with me, Amelia.”

Amelia held his gaze, fighting the urge to hide under the blankets, like she used to in those rainy days as a child, and hope that everything would be over by the morning. “All right… What do we do now?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to know more about this vision you had. We could do some experimenting, see if you get another one.” A darkness she had never seen before threw a shadow across his face. “Meanwhile, we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“The murderer’s next move.”

Amelia pulled back. “Aren’t you worried that there’s a killer loose in this building?”

His expression tensed. “I’m concerned for all the creatures that have trusted me for shelter, but I cannot allow a coward with a tendency towards drama to blackmail me. Besides, I’ve already ordered security cameras to be installed all over the building, so in a few days this will be done.”

She clenched her fists. “We could have prevented this. I wanted to warn you.”

Mikhail’s features, tense just moments before, softened at her words. “I shouldn’t have left you alone for so long, without a chance to contact me. Here.” He pulled out his antique phone, then pressed a few buttons. “My number is on speed dial. If I don’t pick up for some reason, you call Zacharia. I suppose it’s unnecessary to warn you against calling the police, long-lost relatives, or anyone else. If someone calls, I advise you don’t pick up. Unless it’s me, of course. I’m heading back down to check on Dave. When I return, we’ll talk about that vision.”

Mikhail stepped back. His eyes fell to her lips. The reserve and coldness disappeared, replaced by passion – aggression, even. Anticipation.

Amelia knew nothing about this man except that he was immortal, burdened by a horrible past and extremely dangerous.

And that he somehow knew how to calm her better than her own shrink.

Yet the mere way he stared at her… She found it hard to breathe. It had to be remnants of the adrenaline rushing through her body after everything that had happened. The quickened beats of her heart had nothing to do with the way the green in Mikhail’s gaze melted into golden flames while he studied her mouth.

For a moment, she thought he would kiss her. She took a deep breath in the hopes of calming the chaos in her heart and mind, all while becoming aware that she wanted nothing more than to feel the warmth of his touch again.

Then, he smiled, returning his gaze to hers. “You’re not afraid, are you, little beast?”

Amelia’s back stiffened. “Did you just call me little beast ?”

The corners of his lips twitched. “You seem delicate, but there’s strength inside you. I saw the fire in you when you tried to escape. It reminded me of a little beast – a wild creature – trapped in a cage. It might try to delude the outside world, all quiet and still, but the spark in its eyes says it’s just waiting for a chance to break free.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of his words.

“I’ve always sensed there’s something more to you,” he said, “and the vision you’ve had – you, in the murderer’s head – proves it. Just let me delve into it and find an explanation for everything that’s happening.”

“I…” She hesitated. “I also want to know what’s happening to me.”

She did. And suddenly, she didn’t want to leave any more. She wanted to stay here. With him.

Mikhail’s expression hardened. “I promise no harm will come to you.”

Without quite understanding why, Amelia trusted him.

“I must go now, because I want to know how Dave is, and I have to answer the Tribunal agent’s questions. But I’ll be back soon and we’ll talk about your vision. Okay?” His eyes roamed her features.

She nodded.

After he left, the reality of her situation hit her. Out there, somewhere, someone wanted her dead.

Best-case scenario.

Even worse? Her lips ached to be kissed by a man she should be fearing.