Be there in a few minutes, the message said. Order me an espresso. A large one.

Though there was no name on the text, it could only have come from Jackson as, aside from Rory, no one else had this number. Jackson’s phone had come from PIT, and though they claimed it was also untraceable, they meant to everyone but themselves.

And that was something of a problem. I trusted Sam, and I trusted his boss—the rather formidable Chief Inspector Henrietta Richmond—but that was about it. I was pretty sure PIT had at least one mole, and it didn’t matter whether that person belonged to the sindicati—the vampire equivalent of the Mafia—or was one of Rinaldo’s men; the last thing I needed was either group getting our current location or our new phone number. Not when Rory was in such a weak state, anyway.

I ordered Jackson’s coffee, then moved across to a table that overlooked the parking lot. I demolished my food in record time, needing to fuel my flesh as much as I’d need to refuel my spirit with flame sometime in the next twenty-four hours. As I started in on the fries, an old van drove into the parking area and stopped on the opposite side of the lot to my car. It was Jackson; of that I had no doubt. A few seconds later, he climbed out of the van, a lean, auburn-haired man who oozed heat and sexuality. Even from this distance, separated as we were by glass, I could feel it. It was a teasing but fiery river that ran delightfully across my senses, and it was something I’d never felt before. Not like this, anyway. Which maybe meant it was yet another side effect of allowing him to draw in my flames—to merge his spirit with mine—in an effort to burn the red cloak virus from his system. And we weren’t even sure if we’d achieved that.

PIT had recently taken blood samples, but it could be days—even weeks—before we knew the test results. I seriously doubted it would take that long, though, as there was currently no known cure for the red cloak virus. If my flames had burned it from Jackson’s system, it meant the virus was at least susceptible to heat.

Not that it’d help humanity all that much. Few races were capable of withstanding the high temperatures Jackson had.

I watched him walk toward the main door. If there was one thing literature and movies had gotten wrong when it came to the fae, it was their stature. They were neither small nor winged, and the only ones that were ethereal in any way were the air fae.

He made his way through the tables with a lightness and grace that belied said stature, his easy and delighted grin creasing the corners of his emerald eyes.