Sweet Temptation (The Sweet Trilogy #4)(43)

“What are you not telling us?” Ginger demands.

My eyes lock with Anna’s. I need to get her out of here. I stretch my hearing in a farther radius and catch booted footsteps beside the house. My heart rate goes berserk as I realize it’s too late to run. I slowly turn my head to the sound of the footsteps as a big-ass man steps out and walks toward us with casual, even steps. He’s bald and broad with a goatee, and he’s got a thick, amber badge at his sternum.

Belial.

I’m immediately relieved that it’s him and not one of the other Dukes, but I still don’t trust him, no matter what Anna says. This brute can definitely snap a neck with no remorse if it suits him. And when he sees me and glimpses my badge, that’s exactly what it looks like he wants to do.

“You’re a hard one to find,” he says to Anna. Damn, his voice is even deeper and more intimidating in person. I want to know why he’s come and what he plans to do with her. I feel the weight of my knife in my pocket, and I will not hesitate to use it, no matter how big he is.

Then Anna introduces all of us. When she gets to me, her father cuts her off.

“Son of Pharzuph.” He sneers, and it’s clear there’s no love between him and my father. My stomach turns and I’m filled with self-loathing from the look in Belial’s eye. I am not good enough for his daughter. I nod and drop my eyes.

“You’re leaving with me, girl,” he says to Anna. “Time to start your training.”

It takes all my power not to look up and shout my first reaction of No! I don’t want her submersed in this life, but it’s too late.

Anna goes compliantly to his side, as if he’s asked to take her to the park. She gives me a small smile, and I know she’s telling me she’ll be okay, but I’m too nervous. I can’t let anything happen to her. I stretch my hearing to follow them, but they don’t speak. And then they’re out of range. Gone. And I cannot keep her safe.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Triangle Thing

“I’d never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you

I’d never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you.”

—“Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak

A few minutes of stunned silence pass after they leave, and then I reach in my pocket for my keys. Ginger grabs my arm, digging her fingers in when I try to pull away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she hisses.

“I’m off to work a different party.”

“Bollocks!”

She eyes me suspiciously, and I level her with a stare. She always could read me too well. Blake removes her claw from my arm and says, “It’s all good, brah. We’ll catch you later.”

Marna pushes past them and squeezes me around the waist. It takes me a moment to relax and hug her back, and then I’m off. I don’t even look Kope’s way.

I just need to be sure Anna makes it home all right, I tell myself. I get on the highway and push my hearing as far up the road as I can, threading through each car, but none of them are Anna and Belial.

I don’t calm down until I’m within a mile of Anna’s apartment complex. I throw the vehicle into park in the lot of an abandoned petrol station and listen. I can hear her moving around her room. The shuffle of clothing and linens. Is she going to bed? She starts humming a song by Pink, and I nearly laugh at how she’s at ease while I’m on edge.

It’s one in the morning. Anna is safe. I’ve no clue where Belial’s gone. Did he truly show up at the party just to nab her and take her home? I’m not buying it. It’s too bizarre. I’ll just stay for a bit to listen.

It’s hard not to doze when Anna falls asleep, because the sound of her breathing is so comforting and even. At some point my chin falls to my chest, and I startle myself awake as an early autumn wind whistles through the darkness. It’s just after three. I should go. I shuffle my extended hearing back up the road and into the apartment one last time. Then I nearly jump out of my skin.

Anna and Patti are both shrieking.

I fumble with the keys and finally crank the engine, peeling out of the pebbled lot.

Shite! How could I bloody well fall asleep? I knew something was up!

It’s chaos at the apartment, with Patti yelling and Anna crying. I accelerate. I cannot figure out what the hell’s going on. A knock at their door ratchets my pulse higher, and rain splatters the windshield, muddling my hearing.

“This is my friend Kope,” I hear Anna say, and I go cold all over.

What. The. Hell.

That scheming pretty boy must’ve been right outside her neighborhood!

“Whisperers were here!” Anna says to him. “I could see them. . . .”

Whisperers? Wait . . . she could see them? My poor girl—her voice is trembling. I turn too quickly into the apartment complex, going up on the damn curb and probably killing a flower bed.

Don’t care.

I am seeing red. The raging bull kind.

Why are the whisperers haunting her? Who sent them? And why is Kope here?

I park across two spots and leap out, taking the steps three at a time, and burst into Anna’s apartment. She screams and claps her hands over her mouth. I jump and reach for my blade when a raspy voice behind me says, “What in God’s name is going on over there?”

Bugger, just an old neighbor. Anna pulls me in and shuts the door.