While she’d been inside a partner, an angel had come for Dachev—the same one who’d taken her soul from the Marquise’s body and transported her to hell. She’d recognized him, but when Dachev saw the angel, dressed in contemporary clothing, acting human, he’d mistaken him for a corporeal being. She could have warned him. All she had to do was jump out of her partner. But to do so would have meant exposing herself. Fear had paralyzed her, and she’d left Dachev to his fate.

She’d had time to repent her cowardice. Fifteen years of finding only serviceable partners, nothing like Agnes or Jolynn or Lizzie, and certainly nothing like Andrei Dachev.

The pub door opened, and a boy crept in. As he slipped over to a table to deliver a message to his father, his gaze darted about, taking in everything about this forbidden place. A young blond woman across the room watched the boy. Nothing strange in that—everyone had turned to look at the child, the normal curiosity of the bored. It was the way this woman looked at him that caught the Nix’s attention. There was a glint in her eye, not the hunger of a perverse human who lusts after children, but the truer lust of the predator.

The woman said something to her table-mate, a lank-haired young man. His gaze slid to the boy, and he smiled, his eyes lighting with a dimmer spark. Another predator, but a follower, a willing disciple. The woman was the leader. Interesting.

The Nix slid from her seat and moved closer. She hesitated, dreading the rush of disappointment that would come if she was mistaken. Finally, she met the young woman’s gaze. And after only the briefest dip into her thoughts, the Nix knew her luck had changed.

Chapter 23

23

ONCE BELOW DECK, WE DID THE SAME THINGS WE’D done almost every night for the past year—sat and talked. One would think that we’d have run out of topics months ago, but there always seemed to be something new to discuss, some subject, some opinion, some turn of mind left unexplored.

That night, a comment about the werewolf guard launched the discussion, which quickly led to an exchange of “werewolves I have known” war stories. Soon Kristof was telling me the long, convoluted tale of his encounter with a werewolf pack in Russia.