“He, uh, took them under his wing. Artemis, too.”
I perk. “Artemis?”
“Apollo’s twin,” he says needlessly.
As if I could forget whoArtemisis. Was. Will be.
“She hung around the Hell Hounds a lot, when they were sixteen or seventeen…” He swallows sharply, his Adam’s apple dipping.
Kind of want to cut it out, just to see if he could still talk.
“So Malik has a soft spot for her, too?” I consider that.
“He must.”
I thought I knew the players on the board.
Apollo, Jace King, Wolfe James.
Sheriff Nathan Bradshaw.
Antonio Greco.
Reese Avery.
Kade, grudgingly, is added to my mental list.
And Malikai Barlow was never reallyonit, he was just there. Something to conquer, lumped in with the rest of the Hell Hounds. One bike slut is just the same as all the rest.
But now…
I rise.
His gaze goes to the syringe. “Please…”
The gleaming point catches on the beam of light, and I suddenly smile.
It looks like I have my needle, after all.
12ARTEMIS
Reese waitsfor me in a small galley kitchen. He has a mug in his hand, and the scent of coffee reaches me from the doorway. I step in, dragging the sleeves of my sweater down over my fingers, and cross my arms.
My mouth is dry, my head vaguely hurts, but I cannot recall getting here.
He reaches behind him and shakes a bottle of painkillers. It draws me deeper into the kitchen. The walls are cream, the tile backsplash between the butcher block counters and cream, upper cabinets seaglass green.
In short: it isn’t familiar.
“Where are we?” I accept the bottle, then the glass of water he sets between us.
“Emerald Cove.”
I choke. Sputtering, I cough up the pills I had been in the process of swallowing. The wet, dissolving tablets land in my palm, and the bitter taste coats my tongue.
Try that again, I guess.
He waits for me to swallow, then polish off the glass of water, before continuing.
