Why the devil had he told her?
He’d only wanted her company while walking a circuit around the churchyard. He hadn’t wanted to talk. Hadn’t planned on confessing the one secret that could destroy the way everyone, including his twin, saw him. He had only wanted her there beside him while he’d cooled down. She had always been able to steady him, and he’d needed that desperately. Father hadn’t said a decent word to him all day, and then that reckless rider after dinner had sent Grayson plunging over the edge.
The uncontrollable trembling had set in after that. His muscles had coiled painfully and his bones had ached as if some great weight from within them were pushing out, trying to break free. He’d had the sensation of trying to hold himself in. Hold himself together. He’d thought a bit of cold air and his twin’s presence would help.
But he’d gone and told her the truth. His darkest sin. And then he’d needed to run.
Now the smell of blood stopped him short.
He slowly ducked into the opening of a mews. The slim alley stretched behind one side of a residential square. High walls enclosed each home’s backyard, so no one could see Grayson creeping along the bricked road, which was slanted toward the center to allow horse waste to run freely toward the sewers.
He followed his nose, allowing it to root out the source of the smell. He pushed aside the niggling thought that he was sniffing like a hound when he came to the arched entrance of one family’s stable. The doors stood ajar. The coppery bite of blood landed hard on the back of Grayson’s tongue. The origin of the scent he’d been tracking was inside.
He listened for a moment before pushing a door open and slipping in. A small carriage was parked inside, the single horse pointed toward the far wall, as if it had been led in. The animal was still hitched, and a pair of beveled-glass lamps sputtered on both sides of the driver’s bench. The horse tossed its head nervously and stomped the cobbled floor. With good reason—two slumped figures sat upon the bench.
The driver, a man, had fallen against the seat back, his arms limp at his sides. His head lolled toward his spine at an unnatural resting point. The passenger, a woman, had fallen forward against the curved dashboard, her profile craned toward the quivery light of one carriage lamp. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted. And on the ground beside her was yet another figure. A young man, Grayson noted as he edged closer.
The smell of their blood thickened Grayson’s throat, though thankfully not with thirst. Splattered as it was over the slumped bodies, carriage, and cobbled floors, the blood didn’t affect him the way it did trapped within a person’s veins. He breathed out, relaxing a bit.
But there was still the matter of the three bodies.
Something moved in the corner of the stable, near a pile of stacked hay and bags of feed. A quick, darting motion. By the time Grayson focused, it was gone, replaced by a scratching sound, like nails on stone. It came from the driver’s side of the carriage. A dog? Grayson slowly went around the back of the carriage and a foul odor hit on top of all the blood. Sour milk and fetid meat.
A creature scuttled out from behind a crate and under the chassis. The horse whinnied and stomped, lashing its tail back and forth. Grayson leaped back.
That was no dog.
The thing had darted by on three sets of pitchfork-type legs, its nails clicking on the cobbles. A wicked spike tipped its long, curled tail, which resembled a scorpion’s.
Grayson had seen something like it in the Underneath.
The demon shot straight toward Grayson’s feet. He staggered backward into a long workbench. Tools rattled on the surface and Grayson swept his hand over them, searching for a heavy, blunt object to swing at the miniature beast. He closed his fingers around something just as the spiked tail whipped forward over the demon’s ratlike skull and snapping teeth. The spike struck the stone an inch from Grayson’s foot. He smashed a long wrench into the demon’s tail, but the demon only recoiled, uninjured, and immediately dove forward again.
Grayson braced himself against the worktable and tucked up his legs. The stable doors flew open and a gleam of silver spun low through the air, inches above the cobbles. The silver embedded itself in the demon’s ridged back and the creature flashed into a cloud of death sparks.
Grayson lowered his feet when he saw Chelle and Vander standing in the doorway. The two Alliance members looked at Grayson, then the bodies, and then back at Grayson.
“What are you doing here?” Grayson, Chelle, and Vander all asked in unison.