Queen of The Hill (Knight Games) by Genevieve Jack Page A

stepped to his side and slid his finger across the screen to unlock the phone. “I find it ironic that you have no problems bleeding a chicken within a ring of skulls to track someone, but this … this amazes you.”
    “It is unnatural. Maybe dangerous. Does everyone know where I am?”
    “Only those people with your number.”
    “Who has my number?”
    I circled my wrist above my head and pointed at myself.
    “Well then, I suppose my privacy is protected.”
    I nodded. “Face it. Life is better in the modern age. Why don’t you try to text me sometime? You might like it.”
    “I highly doubt it.”
    My eyes darted around the alley, trying to remember what evil baddie our magic mirror had revealed to us here. The mirror was an oddly-shaped stretch of silver I’d enchanted in my second lifetime. Its magic pinpointed supernatural activity that could result in harm to humans. The mirror didn’t exactly show the future, more like scenes of what was probable to happen. Rick and I used it to focus the location of our patrol on a nightly basis.
    Tonight, I was anything but focused. All I could think about was Tabetha and what had happened that afternoon. The accusations I’d thrown at Rick lingered in my brain.
    The weight of his stare settled on a spot between my shoulder blades. He wanted to continue the conversation we’d started at the Thames. Sometimes it was a pain in the ass to be able to read your lover’s thoughts.
    “I think we should ignore Tabetha’s invitation when it comes,” I said toward the brick wall.
    Rick groaned. “A blood pact cannot be broken. She will come for us, and we are not strong enough to fight her off.”
    That was the understatement of the year. “The goddess Hecate protected me once. She might again.”
    “I suspect so. But she will not protect me. Tabetha will demand my blood one way or another.”
    I tipped my head back, staring in exasperation at the starless sky. “So the easiest way is to play nice and hope that she gives us an alternative.”
    “Yes,” he said curtly.
    “Fucking awesome,” I said sardonically. I kicked an empty whiskey bottle into the wall and rubbed the spot on my neck where a particularly sharp thorn had cut deep. In the distance, a car backfired. An ambulance passed by on the street outside the alley. Rick said nothing for a full minute.
    “I am sorry, mi cielo .” Rick’s presence pressed against my frontal lobe. I didn’t want him inside my head. I built a brick wall in my mind, cutting him off, but not before I registered what he was looking for in my brain. He wanted to know if I forgave him for Tabetha.
    I wasn’t ready to forgive.
    Awkwardly, I paced the boundary of the alley, actively blocking our connection. I kept replaying our conversation in my head and coming to the same conclusion: Rick was probably underplaying his relationship with Tabetha. It was the only explanation that made sense. Why else would she want him so badly? Yes, she was promised blood, but she was willing to kill me for Rick.
    True, Tabetha was a total psycho-bitch. But a powerful witch like her probably didn’t crush on any man who came along. She could have turned him away entirely or asked for money. As beautiful as she was, she probably had men lined up at her door. But no, she wanted him. How many lingering looks or accidental touches had it taken for Rick to convince her he would become her caretaker?
    To Rick’s credit, he didn’t ask me about the obvious mental block. He seemed to innately understand that I needed space to process what happened that afternoon.
    “What are we looking f—” I didn’t get to finish my sentence. A shrieking apparition flew out of the wall, her ghostly form passing like a cold wind right through me.
    Rick exploded from his skin, his beast snapping at the figure before I could even draw Nightshade. He caught her in his teeth mid-shift, neck jerking with the effort of holding the wispy but formidable apparition. By the time