So the inspector had said, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. Not until the blood tests came back and we knew for sure.

I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. “This is madness, Sam.”

“Does that mean you’ll consider it?”

The waitress approached with our drinks and my bagels. I pushed up, grabbed some money, and paid for both.

“Em?” Sam said softly.

My gaze met his. I saw the desperation there, and the ever-threatening darkness that was the virus. I’d saved this man’s life twice now, but it was still very much under threat.

I didn’t want to get involved with him, because I knew it could only ever end badly. That was just the way it worked for us phoenixes. But by the same token, I didn’t want to see him hurt. Didn’t want to see him lose this battle.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

And knew, even as I walked away, that the decision was already made.

I just had to hope my heart was strong enough to take the mess I was about to get us into.

Excerpt from CITY OF LIGHT

Don’t miss the first Outcast Novel by Keri Arthur,

CITY OF LIGHT

Available now from Signet Select

It was the whispering of the ghosts that woke me.

I stretched the kinks out of my bones, then glanced at the old metal clock on the far wall to confirm what I instinctively knew. It was barely six p.m., so night hadn’t fallen yet. The ghosts were well used to my seminocturnal patterns, so something had to be wrong for them to wake me early.

I swung my legs off the bed and sat up. The tiled floor chilled my feet and the air was cool, though slightly stale. Which probably meant one of the three remaining purifiers had gone offline again. It was a frustrating problem that had started happening more often of late, thanks to the fact that parts for the decades-old machines just weren’t made anymore. And while there was one place where I probably could scavenge the bits I needed to repair them, it was also something of a last resort. Chaos was not a place you entered willingly. Not if you valued life and limb.

But if one of the purifiers had gone down again, then I either had to risk going there or close off yet another level. I might be able to survive short-term on foul air, but I still needed to breathe.

Gentle tendrils of energy trailed across my skin, a caress filled with the need to follow. But it was a touch that held no fear. Whatever disturbed the ghosts was not aimed at our bunker deep underground.