Page 146 of Beautiful Prey

Ash looks at me for a long moment. “I’ll send a car to the roof for you in ten minutes. Go to the hospital and stay with Onyx until I’m done.”

“I can arrange my own⁠—”

“Humor me, stormbird.”

I sigh. “Fine. But buy Ryven a drink and let him shout at you.”

By the time the lift lets me out onto the roof, both cars are waiting, because of course they are.

Ash stops beside my door before getting into his own, curls a hand around the back of my neck, and pulls me in. The kiss is slow and thorough, his mouth lingering on mine until I’m clinging to his coat and the driver has developed a sudden interest in the far side of the roof. “Later,” he says against my mouth. “When I get home.”

“Later, what?”

“Whatever you want.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Mm.” His thumb moves over the back of my neck. “Go on, then. Tell me what you want.”

And it comes out before I can think better of it, because we’ve just spent the morning talking about hunts and I’ve had this one in my head for days.

“I liked it.” My face burns, but I keep going. “The Hunt. Being chased. I want you to surprise me like that again.”

Something settles in him that I’ve only felt once before, in a forest, on the wrong end of a visor.

“Careful what you wish for, puppy.”

He leans in until his mouth is at my ear, the driver only ten feet away, and his voice nowhere near quiet enough. “Because I’ve been thinking about it since the chair. About how long I’d give you before I came after you. What sort of head start you’d want. Whether you’d run or stand there and let me take you.”

I can’t breathe.

“I’d find you.” His thumb moves over the back of my neck. “You understand that. Wherever you went, whatever you did, however clever you were about it. There is nowhere on this planet you could go that I wouldn’t come and get you.”

“That’s not...” My voice has gone. “That’s not a surprise if I know it’s coming.”

“No.” He straightens and lets go of me, his face entirely pleasant. “You won’t know when.”

Then he kisses me hard and quick before getting into his car. I get into mine and sit there for a full minute before remembering to tell the driver where I’m going.

26

JADE

They took the lilies out.

The stone trough beneath the window is empty when I get there, and every surface in the room has something else on it. Yellow. Orange. A flower so violently pink it looks almost painted. A jar of them sits on the sill, two on the table, three along the shelf where the nurses keep their things.

Onyx is sitting up in the middle of it, looking like somebody’s given him a planet. “JaJa, look at this. Look at all of them.”

“I’m looking. You’ve practically got a garden in here.”

“Nobody will tell me who did it. Bel says she doesn’t know, and she’s a terrible liar, so she knows. It’s driving me mad.”

I bite back a smile. “Maybe it was the hospital?”

“The hospital doesn’t buy pink.” He picks one out of the nearest jar and turns it over between his fingers. “No, somebody chose these. Could that be you?”

I lift both hands. “Well, hey, it wasn’t me. I don’t buy pink either. You’ve got my word.”