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Tatterdemalion
making him feel as dirty and disposable outside as he felt inside. There wasn’t a person or a cab in sight.
Maybe it would be easier to find a cab on a busier street.
Lindsay knew he was sulking, but damn it, Dane didn’t have to be such a dick about everything. It
wasn’t like Lindsay was going to fall apart if Dane didn’t fuck him. Dane didn’t need to whore himself out
to keep Lindsay in line. Lindsay had nowhere else to go.
Didn’t Dane want anything for himself? No one else felt a burning need to know what Lindsay
wanted. And if anyone could tell what Lindsay wanted or needed, wouldn’t it be Dane, with his senses that
made him seem like a mind reader? Too many fucking questions that Lindsay couldn’t answer. He was
done with it.
Lindsay wiped under his eyes to make sure his eyeliner wasn’t streaking his face. There was a man
behind him, walking at an even pace. It was too shadowed to make anything out about him. Otherwise, the
street was still empty. A moment later, the man was closer than his pace would have allowed.
Lindsay sped up, wishing he hadn’t left the bar so impulsively. He looked around, hoping for the light
from another club or some other crowded place.
“You’re pretty tonight.” The voice was right in Lindsay’s ear.
Lindsay’s head whipped around and he caught a glimpse of a tall, thin man. Those footsteps hadn’t
been that close, but there the man was. It wasn’t Dane, so Lindsay didn’t wait. He ran for the empty
intersection he could see in the distance. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to stick around for a better
introduction. He ran straight into someone, someone who smelled sweet like honey.
“Don’t run.” Hands closed on Lindsay’s shoulders.
Lindsay twisted away and ran again, taking off down an alley. He wanted to get away. His breath
came fast more from the fear than the ru
would be able to track him from the noise. Where was Dane? Lindsay was going to die and Dane was going
to laugh at him for being stupid.
The man followed him into the alley. His steps scraped on the stones like huge nails on a chalkboard.
Every slow step he took was like five of Lindsay’s steps, the way that chilling sound got closer and closer.
A hand clamped around Lindsay’s wrist and yanked him off his feet. “Pretty.”
Claws. Like bird talons. That was why it made those noises. The demon had bird feet. Lindsay gulped
for the air that was knocked out of him when he hit the ground. He struggled, trying to kick and get away.
When that didn’t work, he shoved his magic out instead. He was broken and the magic would knock
him out, but he was fucked anyway. Nothing else had worked, and passing out would be worth it, if he
could get away. It had worked on Jonas, maybe it would work here too. Stop, he thought, pushing his magic at the demon. Die.
The guul laughed. It felt like the thing was lapping up Lindsay’s magic through its skin. “Oh, so
pretty,” it praised. It dragged Lindsay deeper into the alley, pulling him by the one arm. Lindsay slid
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through a slurry of waste and water, kicking frantically, spitting obscenities in fear and outrage. He was nothing but a piece of meat. Nothing he did mattered, all over again.
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Chapter Nine
When Lindsay stormed out, Dane didn’t let Lindsay out of his sight, following at a distance. He
hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was dealing with the aftermath of nineteen years of people doing
everything wrong.
He would let Lindsay stomp around for a while, keeping an eye on him to keep him safe. With luck,
Lindsay would find his way to a cab and make his way back to the hotel successfully. It wasn’t going to do
Lindsay any good if Dane had to rescue him, lost and exhausted, and kick the last of his pride into the
gutter.
Dane saw a slender shadow far ahead of him on the street, shoulders hunched, head down. He was
going to have to work on that. A half-blind, one-legged mugger could jump Lindsay if he kept going
around with his head down. The urge to catch up and lecture Lindsay was there, but he put it aside in favor of ducking into an alley. He lost sight of Lindsay for a moment, but he wanted to get up on top of things.
His claws sank easily into old mortar as he scrambled up the side.
The buildings in the area were all only two or three storeys, almost all with uniformly flat roofs that
served as patio or garden space, and the passages between them were narrow enough to leap. Dane liked
old neighborhoods. He caught Lindsay’s scent again as he loped along, then a glimpse of the slouching
boy-shape as Lindsay turned a corner. Lindsay was young, and Dane never let himself forget it, no matter
how old Lindsay’s losses made him seem.
Something else caught Dane’s attention on a cross-breeze that pulled at his hair—the scent of honey.
He paused and straightened to smell the air, raising his face to the wind. Demons often smelled of sweet
things. The air swirled, making it hard to tell what direction the scent was coming from. Dane growled and
set off toward Lindsay.
Several buildings over, where the homes gave way to warehouses, he caught sight of Lindsay and
another man. The smell of honey hit him in the face and turned his stomach. For a moment, it seemed he
could get to Lindsay before the guul, but, in a blink, the creature was ahead of Lindsay, reaching for him.
Translocation. If it could take Lindsay along, Dane would never find them again.
Lindsay twisted loose of the guul and darted out of sight, then the guul disappeared as well. Dane
moved silently along the rooftops to intercept Lindsay’s path, swearing internally in a constant stream of
profanities that crossed languages, races and eras. He could hear Lindsay’s voice, and it gave him hope,
Anah Crow and Dia
despite the fear in it. As he moved, he slipped Yzumrud onto his finger. He had his pride, but that didn’t
matter when it came to Lindsay’s safety.
Dane came to the edge of a building over a narrow alley and crouched there, feeling a wash of déjà
vu. It seemed he was going to make a habit of scrapping in alleys over the boy. He gauged the distance and
launched himself into the air. Landing awkwardly, he hit the guul, bearing it to the ground.
As they rolled in the muck, he could hear Lindsay scrambling to escape. Good boy. The guul threw
Dane off like he was nothing at all and Dane’s thoughts were lost as he crashed into the side of a building, nearly half a storey off the ground. Falling, he hit the dirt at a bad angle. Things snapped in his left leg as it buckled.
“Ah, it has a guardian.” The guul reached out as he struggled to get up. The more his body tried to
recover, the weaker he felt. “Better and better.”
“Dane!”
Damn it. Maybe Lindsay hadn’t learned a thing.
Dane threw himself at the guul and took it into a brick wall with so much force that they left a dent
where the bricks were shoved in. The guul’s human disguise was shredding and its honeyed smell was
rotting on the air. It backhanded him across the alley, sending him crashing into the opposite wall with a sick crunch. Air went out of him and things shattered in his back, but some of his strength crept back into his blood.
“Helpful little thing,” the guul said sardonically. It must have been drawing off of Lindsay, but Dane