Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(69)

Selina studied the ground beneath her feet. “Neither am I.”

Ivy asked, “If you knew about ley lines, why act like you didn’t?”

“I didn’t know much, just rumors. And you’re the science nerd,” she said. “I wanted to see if you knew more.” Selina toed the dirt. Not a thrum of energy to be found, at least not through the thick soles of her boots. “And…maybe I wanted to get out of the city for a night, too.” While Harley was off doing whatever it was that Harley did in her spare time.

Ivy smiled, a few of those flowers blooming again. “You can just ask me to hang out the next time, you know.”

Selina laughed. “I realize that now.”





Luke had thanked his parents profusely for the gala—and apologized for the broken glass afterward.

Just a drunk reveler who forgot to go home, he’d told his mom. She’d given him a look that said she highly doubted it, but asked no questions.

His dad didn’t need to ask questions, however, when Luke had insisted his parents go to their chateau in Provence.

His dad had only said he’d have the private jet fueled up and they’d be on it by midday. How his dad explained it to his mother, Luke still didn’t know. But his father had hugged him tightly before Luke left the estate. He wondered if his dad was worried he’d never get to do so again. If he was remembering the phone call he’d gotten in the middle of the night when that IED landed Luke in a field hospital.

A few hours later, his parents were gone, flying over the Atlantic.

That had been three days ago. And since then, Luke had spent that time holed up over at Bruce’s manor—well, beneath Wayne Manor, technically. Reading through any and all files on the League.

Tigris: deceased. He’d written that into the system himself. And then he’d combed through Bruce’s archives, searching for any sign of Catwoman.

Luke found nothing. Not a whisper. She hadn’t gone by Catwoman until she arrived here. And either she was young enough to never have made a name for herself at the League, or she’d been kept secret by Nyssa and Talia as they waited to unleash her upon the world.

Until she’d unleashed herself instead.

And whatever she was going to sell to Gotham City’s underworld…He couldn’t risk that happening. Gray as her morals might be—ready to kill a woman and then uttering a final rite for her the next—he had no doubt that she’d go through with her plan. Jeopardizing Gotham City in the process.

Or would she? He was still puzzling over it as he finally returned to his apartment that night. She’d warned him to protect Gotham City from the League. The good people here.

It made no sense.

And time was short. There was a GCPD event tomorrow night, honoring the police’s service to this city. Every important cop, politician, and donor would be there. It was her ideal sort of target. The kind that packed a message.

Luke had no intention of wasting this chance to grab her. Stop this madness.

He’d already warned Gordon to have extra security: armed guards, bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, snipers on the roofs of adjoining buildings. Every angle had been considered.

Back in his own apartment, Luke opened his fridge and frowned at the empty insides. Right—food. He had none. He’d been living on Alfred’s mercy these past few days, the older man delivering him sandwiches and tea services and the odd slice of cake or stack of cookies.

But Alfred’s care went beyond that. The level of trust between Alfred and Bruce…that was a one-in-a-million type of bond. Not easily found or built. Yet Bruce had paid a steep, steep cost for it, one that Luke couldn’t imagine. One that still haunted Bruce, decades after his parents’ murder.

Luke shut the fridge, the click nearly drowning out the sound of the elevator’s ding down the hall.

Which meant—

Pathetic. He was really pathetic, he decided, as he rushed to the peephole in his door and watched Holly approach her apartment. She had shopping bags again—heavy ones.

He hadn’t seen her since the party at his parents’ house. Since their strange, tense conversation. But it was still normal. She was still relatively normal.

Not at all like that cool-voiced woman who made him grind his teeth, who took on assassins and walked away. Whose face he hadn’t even seen, but that quiet laugh of hers haunted him.

Normal. He needed, wanted normal. Even if Holly herself had warned him that it was a cage, he didn’t care.

Luke flung open his door.

Holly whirled, keys in the lock, eyes wide.

He cringed. Perhaps he’d been too enthusiastic with the door-opening.

A little too eager.

He leaned an arm against the doorframe. “Hey.”

Smooth. Really smooth.

She flicked her eyes over him, body loosening as she opened her door and dumped her bags inside. They landed with a heavy thump. “Hey yourself.”

Not the warmest greeting. It was probably Bruce-level, if he was being honest.

“How was shopping?” His mind was a vacant hole, and he scrambled for a question, any sort of sane thing to say to her.

She flicked up her brows. “Stimulating.”

Luke tapped a bare foot on the ground. “You eat yet?”

A pause. A slight tensing of her shoulders. “No,” she said warily.