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I turn my attention back to the yellowing pages of the grimoire, desperate for a spell.
“Let’s assume for a moment that I am your Unity Witch and the new moon binds us. Then what?”
“Then ye live here—in the city. At Elysian, I mean.” I watch him from the corner of my eye as he trails a finger along the spines of books, browsing the titles. “Ye’ll provide me with what I need, and I’ll do the same in return.”
As if.
The fact that he thinks there is even a chance I would go along with that makes me want to laugh in his face, but I school my features into the best poker face I can manage.
I just hope my heartbeat doesn’t betray me. Or whatever emotion he’s picking up on. How far does his ability go?
I don’t think I want to find out.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter. I just have to stall until I find a spell. Keep him talking. Keep him distracted.
“If I’m meant to be at the hotel until the new moon, you can’t keep me confined to my room the entire time.”
Finn frowns at me. “I don’t see why not. I ensured ye have everything ye need. I even had one of Rune’s humans retrieve yer belongings from your previous accommodations. Did he forget something?”
He steps close, and a chill runs down my spine, a potent mixture of curiosity and danger swirling between us as our gazes lock. The light of the waning moon glints off his emerald eyes. “Yer an intriguing woman, Josie.”
It’s not just his empathic power that makes Fintan more dangerous than his brothers. It’s the fact that the longer I’m around him, the less control I have over my thoughts and how my body reacts to his presence.
There is something different about this vampire, something that stirs emotions I thought were long buried.
“I sense ye feel the same about me,” he whispers.
I could deny it, but we both know that would be a lie, so what’s the point? I’m painfully aware of how close he is and the magnetism that threatens to smack us together if I’m not careful. “How do you know that?”
Alone for a fleeting moment, it’s impossible to ignore the tension thickening between us like an invisible veil. It’s as if some kind of magnetic force draws us closer with each passing second. Our breath mingles in the stagnant air of a house gone too long uninhabited.
In the still silence of the room, inches apart, the temptation to succumb to desire hangs heavy, like a forbidden fruit, ripe for the taking.
My hand twitches with an overwhelming desire to touch. I want to touch his hair, to feel the gentle waves of copper. I want to touch his face, to trace the contours of his lips with my fingers, or better yet…
My body acts on its own accord, drawing me closer until there are only a few atoms of air between us.
Finn’s arm curls around my waist and a dark thrill rushes through me. My breath rushes out of me as we collide, and I swear our bodies are trying to merge with one another. Just as our lips brush together in breathless anticipation, he stiffens, going rigid and breaking the moment.
I huff and pull away from him, feeling rejected and more than a little stupid for how close I came to giving in. I was supposed to be the one doing the distracting here, not him.
Jeez. Stockholm syndrome, much?
“Josie.” Finn’s voice sounds strained.
I take a step back and frown at his awkward stance. His hand is still raised as if holding me, his posture unnaturally stiff—even for a vampire. He blinks at me slowly, the only part of him that moves.
What the hell?
Then I feel it.
Moon Witches. They’ve trapped Fintan in their spell, holding him immobile in the center of the room. And if the Moon Witches are here, Egan’s werewolves probably aren’t far behind.
I scan the room with all my senses but detect nothing, and when my attention lands back on Finn, his eyes flick from green to red. His fingers twitch ever so slightly, and in the next moment he breaks from the spell with a snarl, spinning just as the window shatters and a swarm of bats crash into the room with an overlapping, high-pitched screeching.
“Run,” he shouts over his shoulder, barely audible. “Go!”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
