The men were conversing with each other behind her as if this situation was the most casual thing in the world to them, which scared her even more.
Something shattered in an open courtyard next to where she walked, followed by the sound of someone swearing viciously and the dogs behind her began growling.
“You best get home, girl. You don’t belong here,” the person in the courtyard tossed out at her. Clara ran.
The well-lit bus stop in front of an open gas station was just two blocks away. If she could make it there, she would be fine.
“You don’t want to go that way,” one of the men called. She didn’t answer, didn’t look back.
She ran one block, her heart thundering in her ears, the sound of pounding feet following her and ratcheting up her terror. Oh God.
Tears streamed down her face and her breath came out in sharp gasps as she turned the corner onto the street where the bus stop was—and that well-lit gas station where a clerk would call the police for her—only to find that she’d made a wrong turn somewhere.
It was another dark, deserted street and Clara let out a sob as she sprinted down it anyway, trying desperately to outrun the men following her. Get a hold of yourself. You’re strong. You have the stamina to outrun anyone. A burst of adrenaline spiked through her. Yes! Her muscles were strong and toned. She would outrun the bastards behind her.
She heard the dogs’ pants as they followed, heard their nails hitting the pavement along with the sounds of the men’s boots, and Clara sprinted into the dark street, devoid of any street lamps.
A fence met her at the end of the street and Clara let out a fearful, frustrated grunt, banging her hands on the chains. Oh God, oh no.
She glanced behind her to see that the two men were at the end of the street, walking slowly, the dogs straining at the leashes.
“Hey, stop, we just want to talk to you.” As if.
Clara swallowed down the lump of fear in her throat, turning back to the fence and climbing. She swung one leg over gracefully, and for a moment, her heart lifted, hope dancing through her veins. She was going to make it and the dogs would not be able to climb this high.
Clara swung her other leg over, her foot trying to find a spot to land in the holes of the fence when a shadow moved behind the men, growing in a small shaft of moonlight until it loomed up behind them, impossibly huge.
She gasped and her foot slipped just as the men turned toward the approaching shadow.
“What the fuck are you?” one of the men asked and Clara heard the uncertainty—the fear—lacing his question.
She grabbed for the fence, but she’d leaned too far back and her finger merely brushed a metal link.
Clara screamed, turning her head to see the pavement rushing toward her and all went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Clara smelled him—Jonah. My wish collector. His scent was against her nose, that clean, masculine smell she’d breathed in in the masquerade ball’s courtyard and had yearned to breathe in every day since.
She was sleeping and in her dream, he was carrying her, his strong arms wrapped around her body.
Her head cleared slightly, a small moan coming up her throat as some distant fear poked at her memory.
“Shh,” he said. It was his voice. She wasn’t mistaken. She might not be as familiar with his scent—it would have been possible to get that part wrong. But his voice? No, she’d know his voice anywhere. It flowed through her veins and invaded her cells. It had become part of her.
“Can you hold on to me?”
“I am holding on to you,” she said, her speech garbled, feeling the lean strength of him as her arms tightened very slightly around his shoulders.
“I mean tightly.” He sat down on something, holding her on his lap.
She burrowed into him, the fog clearing slightly as she opened an eye and then clenched it shut again, the bare slip of light causing her head to throb.
“Never mind,” he said very softly as if to himself. She just wanted to sleep. She was safe—safe with Jonah—and she just needed to shut her eyes for a little while. “Too dangerous.”
What? What’s too dangerous?
She drifted, swearing she heard him speaking to someone. But his arms were around her and it felt so good, and she was so warm. There was no danger at all.
She slept and when she woke, she heard the slamming of a car door, and then another. Someone spoke to Jonah, his voice raspy and filled with concern, and then she was in Jonah’s arms again, being laid on something soft. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Clara turned, her eyes opening slightly, vision blurry. His face swam in front of her, her heart jumping slightly as he drew closer. The light was so dim and he was so shadowy.
His face moved closer, her breath hitching, skeletal bones sharpening as the gap between them closed.
Clara’s breath released on a loud whoosh of air, her fingers tracing the rubber cheekbone on his mask. “Don’t leave me,” she said again. He could wear a mask if he wanted to, he could put a paper bag over his head if he chose . . . she only wanted him there, with her.
He seemed to still very slightly, and she saw his eyes moving under his mask.
“You were following me,” she murmured, reality flowing in and bringing with it the memory of the men, the dogs, the fence. It had been him, the shadow behind them that had made her lose her footing and fall.
“Good thing.” His voice was gritty, and she saw a muscle in his exposed jaw tick. “You might have a concussion.”
He brought his hand to her hair, moving it off her forehead. She noted a stinging sensation and her head throbbed again. “How do you feel?”
“Sore. And I have a headache. Where am I?”
“Windisle.”
Excitement thrummed through her, but right then she was still in pain, her head was foggy, and she was more interested in the man in front of her. Physically. She understood his need to hide, but he still felt distant too behind that mask of his.
Jonah moved back into the shadows and Clara sank into the soft pillow behind her head. It smelled even more strongly of him. She was in his bed?
A tremble went through her right before he reappeared, handing her a glass of water and two tablets. Clara placed the tablets in her mouth and swallowed them with a sip of water.
She closed her eyes as Jonah moved away and when he came back, he applied something cool and wet to her forehead. It stung very slightly, though Clara didn’t grimace.
When he brought the white cloth away, she saw a trace of dried blood. It should concern her, but she was in his bed. He was by her side. Touching her. I’m safe. Even if I’m slightly hurt.
“I’m not used to playing the damsel in distress.”
The corner of his mouth tipped upward. “No, I imagine you’re used to running the show.” He paused as he dabbed at her cut again and then smeared some type of ointment on it. “And I thought dancers knew how to leap.”
Clara laughed then winced when her head throbbed. “Not quite that high. There were men after me—men with dogs.”
Jonah peeled the backing off a large Band-Aid and laid it on her wound with a little more pressure than Clara thought was necessary. “The Brass Angels.”
“The . . . what?”
“They’re a gang, but the good sort. They protect the streets of New Orleans, especially neighborhoods like the one you were in. There had been a robbery in the area. They wanted to ask you some questions, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Right, oh. Good grief. Now she really felt like a fool.
“Still,” Jonah said, his voice grating over her skin though not in an unpleasant way, “it was plain stupid to be wandering those streets alone.”
“I wasn’t wandering. I’d gone to see a voodoo priestess I thought might be related to Sibille Simoneaux.”
His hand stilled and he sighed. “I never should have given you that name. You couldn’t sit still once you had it, could you?” He was scolding her, but she loved the underlying warmth in his voice.
Clara sat up slightly, flinching when a slice of pain lanced through her skull. “No. I told you, Jonah, I feel this . . . I don’t know, urgency.”
Despite her declaration of urgency, she suddenly felt zapped of strength and sank back into the softness of Jonah’s bed, her limbs and her eyes heavy.