Page 32 of Night Fall
She paused at an alleyway. At first couldn’t understand why she had, until she heard the noise again. Beneath the sound of horses, carriage wheels, and people going about their daily activities, she’d heard moaning and grunting. She’d ignored the sounds at first—many women had to sell their bodies to eat, gather shelter, and make a name and status for themselves and their families here—but this time she’d heard the male voice, and the sound was startlingly familiar.
Mya followed the noise down two more streets. Then she stopped, and she felt the ground fall from under her.
It was Erik. His back was toward her, but Mya knew the width of those shoulders, the strength in those arms, the narrowness in those hips … hips that had a pair of ankles crossed behind them as he thrusted into another woman.
The woman threw her head back in glee, and Erik groaned, the same noise, the exact same one he’d made with her last night. Erik wasn’t even drinking from this woman. He was simply enjoying her, fucking her against the wall with the wild abandon that Mya had always wanted, craved, desired.
Why?
Why was this happening?
How did everything go wrong?
Why this woman?
What had she done to make him stray from her?
Just last night he had promised to stay with her forever, promised that they would be together after he secured The Council, and now he was screwing another woman against a wall.
None of it made sense.
Something clawed in Mya’s gut, and a feeling flickered in her heart. Something about this was all wrong. She took a deep breath and the realization hit her. From here, she could breathe in Erik’s scent, but it wasn’t right. This … thing didn’t smell like Erik, not like his signature scent of pine, ash, smoke and cinnamon. Instead, it smelled faintly of grease, blood, and a large dose of salt.
That’s not Erik! It’s not Erik!
And then a chill flew down her spine. This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Someone had done this on purpose. They wanted her to think this was Erik, and that made every part of her body burn with rage.
Mya stormed up to the couple, grabbed the impostor by his hair and tugged him off the woman. She threw the man against the wall, and before either of the couple could blink, she had her hand around the man’s throat.
His silver eyes grew wide, and for a second, just one second, she wavered. They looked so much like Erik’s, down to every sparkle and line that made his eyes uniquely his. They were a perfect replica. But that’s all they were, a replica.
Mya tightened her grip on the man’s throat and turned to look at the woman. “I’d recommend you leave. Now.”
The woman stared at Mya in a mixture of shock and horror before she scrambled to her feet and stumbled out the alley.
Mya turned back to the man and found him smiling.
“What’s the matter, lover?”
She pulled him back and pushed him into the wall again with so much force his body left an indent in the brick. “Do not call me that. You are not him,” she hissed.
He smirked. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, love.”
Mya knew he was baiting her, but she refused to fall for it. “Why did you do this?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and his expression transformed to one of anger. “Because you and your kind encroached on our land! Do you know how many of us you’ve killed? How much you’ve taken from us? Our women? Our witches—”
His eyes widened as the last word left his mouth, but it was too late.
“What witches?”
His face relaxed and he smiled again. “That’s not the question you should be asking, immortal,” he said, spitting the word like it was a curse.
Mya opened her mouth to speak, but then she paused and really took in the man in front of her. He wasn’t scared of her, even though he knew what she was and knew she could and would kill him. In fact, he looked as though he’d won something, like he knew a secret that would break her and bring her to her knees.
The realization hit her square in her chest.
If he was disguising himself as Erik, where was her Erik?
