Shadowed (Fated) (20 page)

Flic and Jamieson fell silent as they walked into
the living room.

Evie took a deep breath. ‘Cyrus,’ she said, ‘this
is Flic and Jamieson.’

‘Shifter?’ Cyrus asked, looking at Jamieson.

Evie arched an eyebrow.
Good introduction, way to go
, she thought. But then, she didn’t
know why she was surprised. The old Cyrus hadn’t exactly been a fan of
unhumans.

‘Yeah,’ Jamieson said, getting up slowly from the
sofa and extending a hand towards Cyrus, his expression wary but also
half-amused.

Evie watched carefully, wondering what Cyrus’s
reaction would be. Before, his only physical contact with unhumans had been
when he ran a sword through one.

He shook Jamieson’s hand though, appraising him, as
though he half expected Jamieson to shift there and then.

Flic stood up and offered her hand too.

Cyrus shook it.

‘Has Evie told you we’re joining your little army?’
Flic asked.

An instant frown. ‘No, she’s not said anything,’
Cyrus said, shooting Evie a brief look before turning back to Flic. ‘But if you
fight anything like I hear your brother did then I’m glad to have you on our
side.’

Flic smiled, a little taken aback, and Cyrus turned
to Evie. He cleared his throat and looked at the ground. ‘I need to talk to
you,’ he said, then added quickly, ‘in private.’

Evie hesitated. Why was he acting so weird? And was
he actually blushing? She could feel Flic and Jamieson staring at her,
undoubtedly with raised eyebrows. As if
she
knew what Cyrus wanted. And it wasn’t like that.
Hell. As if.

She took Cyrus by the arm and pulled him out into
the corridor. ‘Let’s go outside,’ she muttered. ‘Shadow Warriors have got good
hearing.’

‘What? What is it?’ Evie asked, the moment they
were outside.

Cyrus swallowed, looked away, exhaled loudly.

Evie braced herself to hear the worst, for him to
tell her something had happened to Vero or Ash.

‘Why did I do it?’ Cyrus suddenly asked.

Evie shook her head, completely thrown. ‘Excuse
me?’

‘Was I in love with you?’

‘What?’ Evie spluttered.

‘Why else did I sacrifice myself,’ Cyrus asked, ‘unless
I was in love with you?’

Evie laughed so loud it came out as a snort through
her nose. When she’d recovered she straightened her face and tried to figure a
way of putting it nicely. ‘The old Cyrus didn’t know what love was.’

He frowned at her. ‘Then why else did I do it?’

Why was he asking her? What did she know of Cyrus’s
feelings? ‘Chivalry?’ she suggested, hoping he’d accept that and move on.

He shook his head though. ‘It sounds like I didn’t
know what chivalry was either.’

She didn’t answer, just wrapped her arms tighter
around herself.

He took a half-step towards her. ‘I feel something
when I’m around you,’ he said.

Evie stood fixated for a second by the brown slash
across his iris. ‘You feel that around all Hunters – it’s normal,’ she
finally managed to say. ‘It’s confusing at first, until you get used to it.’

Cyrus shook his head defiantly. ‘Well, I don’t feel
it around Ash. Or Vero. Or any of the others.’

And suddenly he was right there, pressing her
against the wall and Evie could feel the pressure building, the need for air
growing, but she couldn’t look away.

‘I know you’re still messed up,’ he said, almost
whispering, their faces so close their lips were almost brushing, ‘and I’m not
expecting you to give me anything. I’m just trying to understand what my
feelings were.’

She drew in a breath, trying to force her heartbeat
back under control. ‘Believe me, you weren’t in love with me. You wanted to
sleep with me, yes, but you definitely weren’t in love with me.’

He fell back as if she’d pushed him, looking at her
as if he didn’t fully believe her.

But seriously.
Love
?
Cyrus?
The two words were oxymoronic.
She’d had to explain to him what love was. God, she’d practically needed flash
cards, the concept was so impossible for him to get his head around.

‘Was that it?’ she asked. ‘Was that why you came
all the way here? To ask me if you were in love with me?’

‘Um, yeah,’ he said, still frowning at the
sidewalk.

‘But we cleared it up, right?’ she asked, edging
around him and heading back to the door. Honestly, this was not a conversation
she’d ever expected to have with Cyrus of all people.

‘Yeah, we cleared it up,’ he said, raising his head
and looking at her. ‘No love. Got it.’

‘So, we’re, um, good then?’ she asked, yanking open
the door and heading back inside.

‘Yeah, we’re good,’ he mumbled to her back.

He might not have been in love with her then – he’d never know
for certain – but he sure as hell was in love with her now. He just
couldn’t get her out of his mind. Even being within an inch of her was driving
him crazy. Not being able to touch her, to reach out, link his fingers through
hers and pull her towards him. Not being able to kiss her. And it wasn’t just
that. It wasn’t just the desperate, driving desire he had to … well, to do
things to her he doubted any man, or Shadow Warrior, had ever done to her
before.

He wasn’t sure whether what his mother had told him
was fuelling this crazy surge of possession and obsession that he was feeling,
or whether she had revealed it to him, like a piece of dirt washed under water
that suddenly glinted and revealed itself to be gold. Maybe he’d always felt
this way about Evie and had just never realised.

He focused. Evie was holding the door open for him,
looking at him like she had done back when he’d escaped from the hospital and
they’d found him wearing only those green pants and unable to recall who anyone
was. She couldn’t wait to get inside and away from him.

He followed after her, watching her stride up the
stairs, taking them two at a time, her dark hair whipping behind her, her arms
still coated in goosebumps.

It was weird. Frankly, if you’d told him a day ago
that he’d be having a baby with this girl at some point in the future –
because there was a little way to go before she consented to anything
resembling baby making – he’d have run screaming for the hills, goddamn
the Originals taking over town. But now something – everything in fact –
had changed. When he looked at this girl, mainly at her butt it had to be said
at this second in time, as she stormed up the stairs ahead of him, he knew
there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her.

And their unborn kid.

OK, that was weird. He appreciated that was weird,
even if only spoken in his head. And he hadn’t even fully started to analyse
the weirdness of knowing his child was going to be the White Light. Would that
be what they wrote on the birth certificate? He shook off the thought –
it was a trip, the kind he didn’t want to take right now. The main thing
troubling him was why he’d bring a child into the world knowing that that kid
would have to face the kind of crap he was having to face. If there was ever an
argument for using protection and not getting caught up in the moment …

He watched as Evie slammed through the fire escape
on the landing, her expression set, her cheeks flushed. Hell, he could see how
accidents happened.

Man, how was he supposed to handle this one? He
couldn’t tell her, that much he knew for sure. She couldn’t ever find out. Or
at least, not now. Not yet. Nor about the fact the way through was still open.

He needed to focus. His mum had thrown him for a
ten-mile loop. But he needed to concentrate on later and the recce they were
doing around Beverly Hills with Victor. They needed to figure out how to
decimate these things, properly this time, without leaving any alive like they
had done a thousand years ago. Good move, Elders.

If his mum was right and the way through was still
open then they were in big trouble. Goddamn it to hell. That was the last time
he tried to be a hero. It all made sense. Why he had been found wandering
completely out of it in Beverly Hills – of all the places for a portal to
other realms to open up. It also explained the spate of killings in the same
area. The Originals were staying close, guarding it. He wondered if Victor had
discovered it yet. He hoped not. Not given what had happened last time. Evie
wouldn’t be safe if he had.

Cyrus stopped abruptly in his tracks, something that
had been niggling at him, slotting into place and making a ripple of laughter
rise up his throat. The prophecy had been right so far, hadn’t it? So that
meant the rest of it was also likely to be right. Which meant that no matter
what went on in the next week, or even the next nine months plus a bit (though
who knew how much of a bit), both he and Evie were going to live long enough to
make a baby.

He was grinning as he pushed open the door.

Evie pulled the hood of her sweater up, sinking into the darkness that
shielded her face, wishing that like Lucas or Flic she could fade and become
completely invisible. She didn’t much feel like talking. Flic kept shooting her
nervous glances out of the corner of her eye as they travelled along in the back
seat of the taxi.

Cyrus’s words kept spinning around her head and she
wanted to erase them. Thinking about it made her feel all sorts of complicated
things she didn’t want to feel. It was taking her focus away from what she
needed to focus on. Now when she closed her eyes, she wasn’t seeing Lucas, she
was seeing Cyrus.

‘What did Cyrus have to say? What was the big
secret?’ Flic asked.

Evie felt her cheeks flush. ‘Nothing,’ she said, a
little too quickly. ‘No secret. He was just letting me know the plan for
today.’

Flic’s eyes – dark mahogany brown today with
the natural yellow forming a narrow halo around the edge – narrowed
suspiciously.

‘So Victor is going to be there?’

‘Yes,’ Evie said.

Flic turned her head and looked out of the side
window.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Evie whispered, so
that the driver couldn’t hear, ‘but you can’t. Not tonight.’

‘Fine,’ Flic muttered, but Evie noticed the way her
hand was caressing the handle of her blade.

She took her own in her palm and gently slid it out
of its sheath. Tonight was just a recce, but better safe than sorry.

The taxi driver deposited them on the corner of
North Crescent Drive staring at Jamieson out of the corner of his eye. As
Jamieson got out, the driver wound down his window and thrust a pen and piece
of paper at him. ‘Would you mind signing this for my daughter?’ he asked.

Evie smirked as she stepped out of the car.
Jamieson had thought it wise to don a disguise for the recce and had shifted
into an up-and-coming young Hollywood actor, renowned for his quiffy hair and
pout. Evie couldn’t remember his name. She could see Jamieson was enjoying the
notoriety though, by the way he signed with a big flourish and tipped the cab
driver extra large.

Flic rolled her eyes. ‘Sometimes I think it would
be much easier to date a human,’ she sighed, looking sideways at Evie. ‘You
know, you might want to consider it too.’

Evie’s head whipped around. What was she talking
about?

Flic shrugged. ‘You can’t hold onto a memory for
the rest of your life,’ she said softly. Then her mouth split into a wide smile
as Jamieson came over and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

‘Ladies?’ he said, offering Evie his other arm.

Evie took it, sliding her hand into the crook of
his elbow, while frowning at Flic. Was Flic serious? Did she really think that
nine weeks was all the time it would take to forget Lucas and move on?

‘Where are we meeting the others?’ Jamieson asked
as they strode down the street.

‘Just up ahead,’ Flic answered, looking up from her
Houses of the Stars map.

‘What are you doing with that thing?’ Jamieson
hissed. ‘You’re with me. Why would I be going on a tour of famous people’s
houses when I am one?’

‘Which do you think is less conspicuous – you
pretending to be the guy from that lame movie, or us all pretending to be
tourists come to ogle the houses of the rich and famous? If we’re not careful
you’re going to get mobbed. And I for one am not happy with my role of fan
girl. I’d rather be lost tourist.’

Jamieson frowned. Evie suppressed a laugh. She’d
been quite enjoying the fan girl identity but Flic had a point. With a sigh
Jamieson exploded into a ball of golden shimmer and then reappeared half a
second later as himself.

‘And that wasn’t the slightest bit conspicuous,’
Flic remarked drily.

‘Do you ever stop complaining?’ Jamieson asked.

Flic elbowed him in the ribs and strolled off,
holding the map up high. They walked on in silence, their senses taking over,
scanning the houses they walked by, trying to pick up the scent of unhuman. It
was difficult with two unhumans beside her for Evie to sense anything beyond
them. And the houses were all set far back from the road – huge mansions
rearing up behind twenty-foot high walls and wrought iron gates.