Page 72 of Fallen Court

“I hate to say it, but he’s right,” Roark added.

Traitor.

“Fine. No car,” I conceded.

“Take her on a date.” Shaw repeated his earlier advice.

I sighed. I’d spent the better part of the last century ghosting between the Nether Court and the Avalon, rarely venturing into New Orleans to maintain my reputation. Now, when things were at their most precarious, I had no choice but to turn to the city—and I didn’t know where to start. “Where?”

“Maybe…” Shaw’s suggestion trailed away as the light faded overhead. Not a simple cloud passing—the street darkened like twilight had fallen unexpectedly.

We all looked up as an eclipse gradually erased all trace of the sun from the sky so thoroughly that twilight faded to midnight. The sight pricked at my memory.

“Didn’t Ciara say something about a spontaneous eclipse?” I asked.

“Yep,” Roark said grimly. “There was one during the outage.”

Shaw whistled. “This can’t be good.”

No, it definitely was not.

Shaw strode toward his car, not bothering to take off the sunglasses. He opened the door to the Mercedes before turning back in our direction. “Let me know if you need help with Cate. I’d hate to see you lose her.”

I flipped him off as he slid behind the wheel.

The sun reappeared just as Roark’s phone rang. We shared a strained look. “You’d think I was a one-man customer service department.” His scowl deepened when he saw the screen, but he took the call. “Yes?”

I didn’t bother trying to listen. If there had been another outage, I’d rather enjoy a few more moments of ignorant bliss. But Roark’s face was grim when he hung up the call.

“One of our guys found the witch.”

Something in his voice told me the detail he was leaving out.

Dead.

I scrubbed at my jaw, my headache rapidly returning. “And?”

“They called us first. We better get over there. It’s…”

Enough said.

The sun slipped below the horizon in a sliver of crimson as we made our way a few blocks north to the outskirts of the French Quarter. Neither of us spoke much in the car. We’d grown accustomed to each other’s moods over the years, but this felt different somehow. I understood now why my father had released his penumbra, why Mother and Aunt Stacia had slowly grown apart. I’d never kept secrets from Roark. I had never had anything worth keeping from him. Even now, he knew more about my and Cate’s situation than anyone else, but I didn’t miss the signet ring apart from the convenience of being able to reach out to him anytime, anywhere. Roark had respected my privacy when Cate and I had finally crossed the line into being something more. But now that we were mates, she was the one I wanted in my head.

Roark drove in stony silence, ink shifting and swirling on his forearms. I wasn’t the only one with things on my mind.

He was probably thinking about the dead body waiting for us, more in control of his thoughts and emotions than I was after my disastrous conversation with Cate and the follow-up punishment of the coven meeting.

The parking garage was perched on the corner of Treme and Iberville, just far enough from the hustle of the city’s busier tourist areas to be quiet this time of day. Roark stopped the car on the street and gave me a grim smile.

“Welcome home.”

I hadn’t ventured much outside of Waverly, our pocket of New Orleans, in recent years, choosing to spend my time between the Avalon and the court. The business that drew me to other parts of the city was always bloody. This evening was no exception.

“Next time, get me balloons,” I said as I reached for the door handle. “Maybe a nice fruit basket.”

Roark didn’t laugh.

A dead witch was the last thing we needed with coven relationships strained, and we both knew it.