“You know Talia Thorne?”
“Certainly.” He smiled a bit. Drew out the moment as if to prick her interest.
“How?” Her interest was pricked already.
“I’m her father.”
Rose Petty dug her nails into a rotting wood post, slipped on the slimy wet mud, and buried splinters in her hands and bare feet as she climbed from the river. She crawled onto a ratty dock on her elbows, her hands too bloody to hold her weight, and collapsed into a fetal position. Her naked body quivered in the chilly air and her teeth chattered kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat.
Stupid, stupid. She never should have made for the river. The burn of her reformation had been excruciating, but no water could possibly douse it. She’d only drown herself and die forever. That’s what you risked when you came back. Soul dead. Even Hell was better, not that she’d ever belonged there. If she’d screamed it once, she’d screamed it a thousand times: There’d been a mistake. She had to do those things. It was self-defense. She didn’t belong in Hell.
Never mind. She was out now. No rivers. Lesson learned.
Her new body shook with the cold—kat-a-kat-a-kat-a-kat. Her muscles cramped in contraction. Gooseflesh swept viciously across her skin.
Warm. She had to get warm.
Trembling, she pulled her feet beneath her, pushed herself up a bit by her wrists, and careened to standing.
Docks. An empty gray expanse lay before her, dotted with orange and blue cargo containers piled up among rotting pallets, decaying in the cold, wet air.
She needed clothes. Shelter. Food.
She wiped her running nose on the back of her damp arm and stumbled forward. Across the lot she could make out a door. An office.
Okay, knock on that door, get help. Get warm, she told herself.
Sheeeiiiiit, nice little piece of ass.
Rose turned, belly clutching, and put an arm across her breasts and a shaking hand splayed at her crotch as she looked for the voice. Saw no one.
Pretty titties, too. Gots to get me some o’that.
What the—? She stopped herself before she swore; a lady didn’t swear, no matter how pressed. But this was too strange: The voice was in her head, though not hers. Like maybe her mind got wired wrong when her body reformed itself. Or maybe she just came back different.
Her gaze flicked from glinting window to dull doorway, but she found the source sitting in a car, lighting up a cigarette. A paunchy old man, skin going yellow. Tsk. Tsk. Probably too much drink. Had to be him, what with the way his beady eyes stared at her. Maybe this mind-reading trick was okay. Might just be useful. It revealed what she already knew. That he was no gentleman. He was sick and low to think of her like that.
Girl’s got all the right parts.
How dare he? Anger ran hot through her veins, warming her just enough to loosen her stride. A woman drags herself naked and bleeding out of the river and the man can’t get off his lazy behind to help? Maybe lend his coat? She could get sick and die (forever).
His clothes would do. He certainly didn’t deserve them. The car meant shelter and transportation, too. Get her out of this awful place. She limped toward him, dropped her covering arm and hand when she got near the car so he could get one last good look.
Gonna get lucky, lucky, lucky.
The man mopped his reddening face. Licked his lips. Rolled down the window.
Come to papa.
It was self-defense all over again. He screamed a little, which was only human. Even with all the dark acts she’d seen in the fires Beyond, she really couldn’t blame him.
Chapter 5
The eyes. That had to be it, why he seemed so familiar, why she couldn’t shake the sense that she’d been here before. Those slightly tilted eyes were the same as Talia Thorne’s. “You’re Talia’s father?”
Khan took a seat in one of his big chairs, leaned back, arms wide on the rests, and crossed his legs with an ankle to the other knee. Big chair, but he managed to dominate it as a king does a throne. Arrogant. “I am.”
Layla kept the skepticism from her face. Father would put him in middle age, and he sure didn’t look it. Either he kept himself very well, or he was lying. Nevertheless, her informant, Zoe, had been right: there was something to be learned about the wraiths in this dockside warehouse. That Khan knew to drop Talia’s name was proof. She played along. “Do you know who started the wraith war?”
His expression darkened. “Yes. I am responsible. I and I alone.”
Disbelief mellowed the pop of shock that hit Layla. Zoe had said she’d find the source here, too, but . . . this guy? Really? “How?”
He sighed. “You would not understand.”
“Try me.” Layla felt his gaze on her, searching, debating. She wanted to press but let the silence work for her instead.