“The Politia are likely already scouring the area around where we landed. I think we’ll be okay for the night, but we’ll have to leave tomorrow at sundown to stay one step ahead of them.”
Imbeciles. Didn’t the morally righteous supernaturals find it even slightly strange that evil beings also wanted me dead? Had it even crossed their minds that killing me might be a bad idea? The devil, after all, couldn’t truly lay any claim to me while I still breathed. But once I died, heaven knew what horrors awaited.
Andre’s brow furrowed. “Soulmate, are you feeling okay?”
I refocused my attention on the man in front of me. “What do you mean?”
“You smell … imbalanced.”
Now that he mentioned it, my body felt off. My stomach churned and a pressurized headache was forming behind one of my eyes.
I wrapped my arms around myself and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think everything’s just catching up with me.” The entire supernatural world wanted my head. The entire world. No one had those shitty odds save for me.
Andre sat down and pulled me onto his lap. He pressed my body into his chest, his arms enveloping me. “I’ve got you, soulmate.”
He ran his hand over my hair. “What we need is—what’s that term … ?” He stared off into space for a moment. His face lit up as it came to him, and he snapped his fingers. “Ah. A game plan. We need one of those.”
Against my will, my lips quirked. He was endearing when he acted like this. Judging from the way laughter danced in his dark eyes, he knew it too.
“Agreed.”
He stood, picking me up with him, and I just sort of let him. It was so unlike me.
My head tucked into the crook of his neck as he led me over to a small table set to the side of the bed. I could almost feel his reluctance to let me go when he set me down in my own chair. I’d bet money he’d considered keeping me on his lap. Because that was where my thoughts were.
Business was definitely getting in the way of pleasure.
Andre slid into the seat across from me. “Let’s assess what we brought along and go from there.”
He reached into his pocket and set a wallet and a cellphone down on the table. I followed his lead and emptied my own pockets. Like him I carried my wallet and phone. I glanced at my device. “No reception.”
“Mine has no reception either. It’s for the best,” Andre said, flipping over the phone. “These things can be traced. We’ll have to dump them before we leave.”
Leaving my phone meant I’d lose my friends’ numbers. It felt like I was shedding the last of my former life.
I set the cell aside and checked the rest of my pockets. From one of them I pulled out a slip of paper. It was the note Cecilia had tucked away inside my birthday card. Originally it had a riddle scribed across it. Last time I checked, the riddle had changed subtly.
I laid it flat on the table.
Find me back where it all began.
C
For a moment I stared in wonder at the note. It had changed again. In place of the cryptic poem was a cryptic sentence.
I exhaled. Really, it’d be nice to receive straightforward message from Cecilia every once in a while.
“Andre, do you have any idea what this means?” I tapped on the slip of paper.
He slid the card over to him and read the message. Picking it up, he flipped the card over. “Is this from Nona?”
I nodded, though I knew the woman as Cecilia. She had raised me for the first several years of my life and saved me from an early death. Only later had I learned that she was a fate. Specifically, Nona, the fate that wove the thread of life.
I rubbed my temple. “Where did this all begin?”
“The Isle of Man.” Andre didn’t even hesitate before he spoke.
“How do you know?”
Andre flipped the note and presented the backside to me.
(Hint: It’s an island you’ve lived on.)
P.S. This is as straightforward as I get.
I sputtered out a laugh. “Ouch.” I just got burned by my godmother. “So we head back to the Isle of Man, just like we had been?” Wiser strategies should exist. We’d be walking right into the lion’s den. The Isle of Man was the epicenter of the supernatural world. I might as well waltz into the Politia’s headquarters while I was at it and turn myself in.
Andre ruminated on my words, staring at the note again. “If the fate that raised you thinks we should go to the Isle of Man, I’m willing to trust her instincts.”
“But … how?” There were hundreds of miles between here and there, and so far we had … one ally. Cecilia.
Andre ran a hand through his hair, tousling his dark locks. “We’ll want to be as unpredictable as possible. Right now the Politia likely knows we landed somewhere in Germany. They will have plotted out a region where we might be located, and they will have their people on the lookout for evidence of our presence.”
My eyes met his. “The parachutes.”
A muscle in Andre’s jaw jumped. “It couldn’t be helped, soulmate. We were being chased.”
“How long before the Politia finds them?”
Andre rubbed his jaw, a mannerism I always found incredibly sexy. His hand paused as his nostrils flared. He focused his attention on me, his eyes dilated. For all my changes, he could still smell my attraction to him. Figures I’d retain that embarrassing trait. At least the blushing had disappeared.
He looked halfway ready to toss me onto the bed and forget planning for the evening.
I cleared my throat. “I mean, do you think they’ll find us before sundown tomorrow?”
Andre’s fingers dropped from his jaw and tapped along the table, his eyes lingering on my neck. “If we are very unlucky, then perhaps.”
Well, that answered that.
Noticing my expression, Andre reached over and took my hand. “Soulmate, I’ve faced worse odds. So have you. You may be cursed, but in some ways you have the best luck I know.”