Blood Will Tell

Chapter Fourteen. Caffeine Hit with… Well… Punch

Noah stood anxiously waiting on the coffee order. Lucky he had preternatural balance to carry them all. Cyrus, Alain, Emma, Romany, and another three Ankh and eight Neith were back at his apartment. They couldn’t afford to bring in anymore Ankh. Most of them were busy on assignment anyway.

He was trying to stay focused. He was. But as he watched Sally make up Romany’s vanilla latte, his eyes grew dazed as he remembered the look on Eden’s face when she realised he wasn’t who he said he was. At first it was a look of terror and horror, a look akin to a blade through his stomach. And then there was just betrayal and hatred.

The pain in his chest was worse than the blade.

He’d never betrayed a friend before.

And no matter how much Noah tried to convince himself that he had only been trying to help her, he knew Eden would see it as betrayal. Nothing more. Nothing less.

If someone had told him six months ago that losing her friendship would bother him, he’d have scoffed in their face. He was an Ankh. He hated soul eaters. He was a seventy year old immortal teenager who had no time for the drama of teen relationships.

Or so he’d thought.

Sighing heavily, Noah tugged on his hair, reminding himself that tomorrow was the big night and he had to be utterly in control if he wanted to rescue Eden before it was too late. The fact that more Neith had come along and screwed up their plan had nearly sent Cyrus off the deep end. But the Neith promised they weren’t hiding the perpetrators, they were trying to discover who this rebel faction leader was and take them out. Still, they had been watching Ryan Winslow. He’d invited ten more soul eaters to the Awakening Ceremony as a security precaution. Eden and her family were on lockdown.

Cyrus wasn’t stupid.

He had handpicked a Neith trained to withstand the soul eaters compulsion just as the Ankh were. It was a difficult thing for a mortal to accomplish but some of the Neith were capable of it. The female Neith had been sent in as a caterer. She would disable the security cameras, open the mansion gates and send the information they needed on where security was set up etc.

They had done this sort of thing before. It would be a piece of cake.

As long as he closed down and forgot that he had a personal interest in the outcome.

“Here you go, Noah,” Sally said, pushing the trays of coffee towards him with a grin. “Got a study group going or something?”

Noah snorted, handing over cash. “Something like that.”

“Well I’m surprised.” She smiled sweetly. “I thought you and Eden kept to yourselves. Like two peas in a pod you two.” She winked.

Gritting back a grimace, Noah nodded and took the coffee. He could barely manage a goodbye as he left the cafe, trying to swallow back the awful reminder of how he had played Eden.

No matter what happened, she was never going to forgive him.

His heart beat a little harder at the thought and he fumbled with Alain’s car keys as he balanced the coffee on one hand.

By the time he heard the scuffle of feet it was too late.

Pain slammed through his head, a sharp slice down the centre of his skull. He groaned, slumping forward as he forced his body to move through the pain. His elbow flew out and cracked someone across the face, but it felt like a million hands were grappling with him, and then a brief sharp prick of pain in his neck flared his panic.

Shit, he thought distantly, as a thousand little black bugs crawled across his vision until… there was only blackness.