Black Night

“Jude!” I called, jogging to catch up with him. Beezle flew behind me.

He continued walking down the hall like he hadn’t heard.

“Jude!” I cried, more insistently.

It seemed like he walked a little faster.

“Are you kidding me?” I muttered. “Are you seriously going to pretend that you don’t hear me?”

I sped up until I caught up to him and then tapped his shoulder. I lost Beezle, who panted several feet behind me. Jude turned on me with a snarl.

“What is it, spawn of Lucifer?”

I backed up a step. His fangs were showing. It was very off-putting to see a wolf’s fangs in a human’s mouth.

“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up. “First off, I’m not precisely Lucifer’s spawn.”

“Intervening generations do not change the fact that you are of his blood,” Jude growled.

“Okay, whatever,” I said. I wasn’t about to get embroiled in genetic technicalities with Jude, who clearly wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t near me. “Listen, can you tell me how to get to the throne room? I seem to have made a wrong turn somewhere.”

He smirked at me. “All the powers of the devil don’t come with a compass?”

“Fine, don’t help me,” I said, pushing past him. Obviously Jude had some issues that precluded the possibility of his acting like a civilized human being.

“Wait a second,” he said, and grabbed my shoulder roughly.

Something flashed through my head—Nathaniel holding me in place by my shoulders. I turned on Jude with a yell and knocked his hand from me. My breath came hard and my hands were curled into fists.

He stepped back a little and held up his arms to show he wasn’t dangerous. I could see him examining my face closely and I felt a wave of embarrassment redden my cheeks.

“Who hit you?” he growled.

“Nobody. I fell last night, remember?” I looked down. I couldn’t believe I was lying, making excuses.

He put his hand under my chin, more gently than I thought him capable, and forced my face up to his.

“Somebody hit you,” he said. “I can smell a lie.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, getting some of my gumption back. “I blasted him across the room, so he paid for it.”

“Good,” Jude said shortly, and dropped his hand away. “Follow me. I’m going to the throne room anyway.”

He started down the hallway again. I trotted after him, which was necessary because he was quite a bit taller than me and it took me five steps for every one of his.

He didn’t say anything else, and I was okay with that. I didn’t know what to make of that moment in the hallway, and I’m sure he didn’t either. He was probably already regretting being nice to a descendant of Lucifer. Beezle had caught up with us and settled on my shoulder, letting me do the heavy lifting.

Several minutes later we were at a side entrance to the throne room. Apparently this was the way you came in when you weren’t being formally announced. There were several knots of courtiers already assembled in little cliques around the room.

Amarantha was receiving the various parties that had arrived that morning. There were a couple of different faerie factions from other parts of the country coming in. She looked completely in her element, and I wondered how long she’d practiced that look of benevolent tolerance before she’d perfected it.

Jude took off for the small party of wolves on the opposite side of the room and I looked around for J.B. Wade saw me and gave me a friendly wave, but his brows were furrowed as he consulted with the other wolves.

None of the other courtiers seemed inclined to invite me into their group. I stood awkwardly off to the side, looking hopefully around for someone who would want to talk to me. It probably didn’t help that Beezle had fallen asleep on my shoulder and he was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

I felt a tap on the shoulder that wasn’t hosting a fat, lazy gargoyle and a second later J.B. was in front of me. I took Beezle off my shoulder because my right ear was deaf and stuffed him in one of the patch pockets on the front of my suit. His arms and head hung over the seam of the pocket, but he kept snoring. I was getting a little worried about Beezle.

I wasn’t exactly sure how old he was, but he definitely seemed to be slowing down lately. What would I do if he turned to stone?

“You look like Molly Ringwald in that movie where she shows up at the prom without a date,” J.B. said.

“Does that make you my Andrew McCarthy?” I asked.

“Only if you promise not to call me Blaine,” he replied, and then his face creased in anger. I knew he’d seen the shadow of the bruise through my makeup. “What happened to you?”

“Can we not talk about it?” I asked. I really wasn’t up for telling the whole story now, and my lies were so pathetically feeble that J.B. would see right through them.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the side of the room, away from nosy courtiers.

“No, I really would like to talk about it, because there’s only one thing that could make a bruise like that. A fist.”

I sighed. J.B.’s testosterone was up. The last thing I needed was him going after Nathaniel. I didn’t even want to think about what kinds of problems that would cause between the courts of the faerie and the fallen.

“Okay, you win. I got hit, but I hit him back and now it’s all over so you don’t need to ride to my rescue,” I said quickly and quietly. “I was in a lot more danger when I faced Ramuell.”