Darklove by Elle Jasper

Eli is . . . somewhere else.”
    â€œWhere?” Noah asks. “Any clue who the female is?”
    I press my fingertips to my temples and rub hard. Woke up too fast. Head is splitting. “Hell if I know.”
    â€œSo you think he put that dream in your head?”
    My eyes flash open and I stare at my partner. My friend, too. Noah Miles would lay down his immortal life for me. Without a doubt, he would. I don’t believe there’s anyone or anything that could stop him. And that’s a little frightening. “Or the female. I just don’t know.”
    Noah’s face tenses, and I can tell my words trouble him. Troubles me, too. “Let’s get Inverness handled,” he says, turns me around, and takes over rubbing my temples. So easily, he could squash straight through my skull and into my brain. But he won’t.
    â€œThat’s really, truly gross and disgusting,” he says, and turns me back around to face him. “But it’s nice you trust me.” He gives me a somber look. “We’ll get all this figured out,” he says. Surprisingly, I’m comforted by that. “Until then, we’ve got work to do. You’ve taken one rogue out. I’ve taken another two.”
    â€œTwo?” I repeat.
    â€œYeah, they seem to be unrelated, and both newbloods. One of them crazy and big as shit,” he says, shaking his head. “No pattern with their targets, except all hits at night.” He eyes me. “Could be an older one transformed a handful of newbloods, and they’ve all just struck out on their own. Like I said, no pattern to their kills, and they’ve all been alone. We’ll have to hunt like hell until we get them all.”
    â€œWe’ll have to split up,” I add.
    â€œNot happening,” Noah says. “No way in hell.”
    â€œNo choice,” I say. “Besides, do you realize I can hear your footfall from a mile away? I can call your name and you’re at my side within seconds.”
    â€œNot seconds,” he counters. “Only if I’m close enough is it seconds. Might take a few minutes if we’re on opposite ends of the city. And that might be a few minutes too long.” He shakes his head, one long dread falling from the clip he has gathered at the nape of his neck. “No way, Riley. Get over it.”
    â€œWe’ll hunt together tonight,” I offer. Besides, I can tell nothing will change Noah’s mind right now. No sense in wasting time arguing when there’s work to be done. “The city’s not too big. Let’s just get tonight over with, see what we find, and go from there.” It is a little hard being all WUP business, when all that’s on my mind is Eli, where he is, the condition he’s in, and how in hell he put that dream into my head.
    â€œAll right,” Noah agrees, but his dark blond eyebrows are furrowed into a frown. Those silvery eyes hold mine. “There’s takeout in the fridge. Unless you’re good to go on all that milk you guzzled.”
    I grab the fridge door, open it, push past my partner’s specially bagged blood products, and find the white foam container of . . . whatever. I grab it and carry it to the microwave. After it heats, I sit down at the kitchen table and Noah watches me closely as I devour two slabs of batter-fried haddock, a pile of thick chips, and a beef pie. At least, I think it was a beef pie. It all went down so fast I barely tasted the glob of brown sauce and malt vinegar Noah had covered the chips in.
    Like my narcoleptic hell, the appetite I wake up to is something uncontrolled, and pretty impressive for a girl. I guess it’s my body’s way of keeping me in good functioning condition. I honestly can’t help it. But my thoughts remain on Eli. Always.
    I rise and toss my empty container in the trash, down a warm soda, and throw it away, too. I glance at Noah.
    â€œGive