Page 125 of Eternal Surrender

She hesitated by the top of the stairwell. “That ruse you pulled on me with Lucas.” She gripped the narrow rail ready to descend. “Wasn’t funny. See, not laughing.” She raised an eyebrow.

Stunned with the mind message she sent me, I quickly headed back her way.

“Something wrong?” she asked casually, knowing I’d read her mind.

“Sebastian merely runs the gallery,” I said. “Arrest him?”

“I was thinking that, yes.”

“On what grounds?”

“I was hoping he’d tell me more about you.”

“What do you want to know?” I tried to suppress my disquiet. “Sebastian’s been through enough.”

“You’re referring to his car accident?”

“You’ve been investigating him?”

“He was on his bicycle when a car hit him?” She tried to read my expression.

Which I was desperately trying to control.

Standing right behind Ingrid was Anaïs, her long black locks trailing over her face, her chin low, and her still demeanor eerie.

Marcus had shared that since I had saved her life back at Belshazzar’s during a transformation ceremony, she had become smitten with me.

“It does sound awful,” Ingrid broke the silence. “His accident.” She clarified to get my attention back on her.

“Sebastian made a full recovery,” I said, hoping Anaïs would respond to my telepathic command to meet me somewhere else, some other time.

Yet the fledgling just stood there, staring like a haunting phantom, her lips slightly parted as though readying to speak, defying me.

“Does Sebastian know what you are?” Ingrid asked.

What you are? Ingrid’s words sliced into my mind, and I wasn’t sure if it was the way she’d said it, or her tone.

“Master,” Anaïs finally whispered.

Ingrid spun round to look at her.

Anaïs knelt and bowed her head. “Status Regal, I am your obedient servant.”

I resisted the urged to roll my eyes. “Rise.”

Anaïs did so with a supernatural ease.

“Status Regal?” Ingrid made it a question.

I nudged passed Ingrid and grabbed Anaïs’s arm, guiding her to the roof edge where I hoped she’d take the hint.

“I have a message,” Anaïs blurted.

“Not a good time.” I avoided the urge to shove her over. She could fly after all. Or if she hadn’t yet, she soon would.

Anaïs’s long black locks caught in the breeze. “He wants her.”

I leaned into her ear. “What are you talking about?”