“Remind me which genius suggested we go chasing strange noises in the middle of the night?” Lauren wheezed, about five minutes after they had left the room. It took us that long to discover our voices again.

There was no humor in her tone, just pure shock, and neither Angie nor I could bring ourselves to answer.

The first thing I did was grab hold of my friends’ shoulders, squeezing them so hard they yelped, as my brain just wanted to be triply sure that we were not dreaming. We weren’t.

We had stumbled upon some kind of supernatural creature. Not even my rational mind could doubt that any longer. What I had just seen was far too real, far too visceral—no amount of special effects could have pulled that off.

Then what on earth were they? And what were they doing here?

“T-These men are not human,” Angie finally said.

“Glad I’m not the only one who noticed,” Lauren murmured, removing her glasses, which had misted up, and wiping them on her shirt. “So, maybe we should stop referring to them as men.”

I looked around the room again, desperately hoping to find some loophole we had missed the first time.

“We’ve got to get out of here before they return,” I whispered.

It was maddening to think that there were less than a few inches separating us from the outside; if only we could figure out how to break through the damn windows. I used my flashlight to amplify the light in the room given off by the two gas lamps on either wall, trying not to miss a single detail.

I walked around the room slowly, examining everything—from the clock on the wall that had frozen at 9:05 AM, God knew how many years ago, to the chintzy floral green sofa, blanketed with dust.

An idea slowly occurred to me, and I gazed directly up at the ceiling.

It looked rickety, to say the least. There were fifteen long beams, stretching from wall-to-wall, and on top of that, it looked as if there was nothing but the floorboards of the room above, no plaster or cement. If we could somehow…

“We need to build a tower,” Angie whispered, and I looked at her, realizing she had followed my gaze to the ceiling.

“A tower,” Lauren repeated, now also staring at the ceiling. “You really think those wooden boards are loose enough?”

I let out a breath. “We can only try. And we’d better do it fast.”

Navan had said we would stay the night here, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t visit us again to intimidate us.

And so we scrambled about the room, deciding the best way to go about this—which furniture to use, and in what order. We chose the small dining table first, then a coffee table, and above that, a basic dining chair. We were lucky the ceiling wasn’t very high.

I took a step back, staring at the end result. It really didn’t look safe, and I had no idea whether it could take my weight. But there was no time to doubt.

“I’ll climb it first,” I said, figuring that Angie was a bit too short for this, and I was more athletic than Lauren and would do a faster job.

“Are you sure?” both of my friends asked.

I nodded curtly, and then stepped onto the table. I climbed slowly, wincing each time the tower wobbled, but managed to make it to the top without the whole thing tumbling down.

Breathing heavily, I looked up at the ceiling and stretched out my hands, beginning to feel the floorboards, my flashlight clenched between my teeth. It was as I had hoped—they were loose—and from here, I could even see gaps, directly exposing the room above.

I just had to hope nobody was up there. When the guys had left us, it had sounded like they had retreated deeper within the ground floor of the house, so hopefully that was where they were staying.

I fumbled with the floorboards within my reach. They all felt pretty weak, like a hard enough shove could dislodge, maybe even crack, them. The wood had gone soft with age, the nails rusty and loose. This old house really was a wreck.

Lauren handed me up a piece of wood Angie had found in one corner, which had probably broken off from some piece of furniture. I gripped it hard, and pressed its tip between one of the cracks, using it as leverage until the board loosened and gave way, creating a hole directly above me. I then worked on the boards on either side, until I had created just a large enough gap for me to squeeze through. Given how fragile I had just proven the floorboards to be, I felt nervous about trusting them with my weight but… Here goes.

I placed my hands through the hole and gripped its edges, and managed to haul myself upward, until my head and shoulders appeared above the floor. I gazed around anxiously at this new room. It was dim, except for the light trickling through from the hallway. The windows were boarded up here too.

I lifted myself the rest of the way, until I was up through the hole and on all fours, floorboards groaning beneath my weight. I looked back through the hole, and my friends gazed up at me, their eyes shining with fear.

“There’s nobody up here that I can see,” I whispered down. And then I paused, realizing that it made no sense for them to come up, too. Not only was I worried about the floorboards’ strength—perhaps they were the reason those creatures appeared to be sticking to the lower floors?—but also, we were much more likely to be caught with the three of us lumbering around.

“What is it?” Angie asked.

I hesitated, unsure of how they were going to react. “Guys, I think you should stay down there for now.” They opened their mouths to respond, but there was no time to argue, and the more we spoke, the more likely it was the creatures would hear us. “Trust me on this,” I whispered. “I’m gonna try to figure out where they are in the house, then locate an exit. If… If I think I can make it out, I’m just gonna run for it and get help, okay? There’s more chance one of us will make it out of here than all three at the same time.”

Their faces fell, and I could see what a hard pill that was to swallow. I felt it too, but it was the only way to go about this.

They looked at each other, then back at me, and nodded.

“Okay,” Lauren said. “Just please be careful, Riley.”

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, then backed away from the hole, staying on my hands and knees as I crawled to the open doorway. Once I reached it, I stilled, listening. Everything seemed quiet. There wasn’t even the faintest sound of the injured guy—perhaps he had fallen asleep.

Straight ahead was the staircase, and I moved toward it. I peered down cautiously until I was certain it was empty. I wasn’t ready to attempt going down the stairs yet, as I worried about how much noise that would make. As I had told my friends, the first thing I had to do was pinpoint the monsters’ location, assuming they were still in the house. I passed the staircase and crawled deeper along the corridor. Splinters wedged into my hands as I moved, and the floor was rough on my knees, but none of that mattered—all my brain could focus on was the location of our strange neighbors.

After a couple of minutes, I detected the sound of deep voices. I was sure they were coming from below the room directly opposite me, so I crawled into it, more careful than ever to move slowly and avoid creaking, until I was positioned directly over the room. I pressed my ear against the floorboards, and held my breath, listening.

“I can’t believe we didn’t sense their arrival,” a voice muttered.

“Navan already warned us of this,” a voice I had not heard before spoke up. It sounded older than any of the others—which made me realize that there were more of these creatures than we had seen. His voice held a maturity that I would attribute to a human in his late fifties. “This level of heat renders a coldblood’s senses practically worse than a human’s.”

Coldblood?

“Anyway, what’s done is done,” the older voice continued. “There’s not a lot we could have done to prevent it, and I would rather focus on deciding what to do next.”

“What if, come morning, they still refuse to take the Elysium?” another voice asked. It sounded like Navan’s brother. “It’s not like we can bring them back to Vysanthe.”

Vysanthe?

“They will take it,” said the deep voice I now clearly recognized as Navan’s. Chills shot down my spine as I recalled the demonic vision of him.

“They’re going to have to take it within twelve hours of their arrival here,” the older voice pressed, “or even the Elysium won’t be an option, and we will have no choice but to knock them off.”

“That is not an option,” Navan replied pointedly, and in spite of all the other questions crowding my brain, I wondered why he appeared to be so against “knocking us off.” Maybe he was afraid of the police after all? I couldn’t imagine why he would be, when they could all just apparently fly away.

My curiosity burned, wishing I could better gauge his expression, and that of everyone else in the room. I lifted my head, searching the floor for cracks. I spotted one that I figured might just be large enough to peer through, a few feet away, and cautiously made my way over to it. The floor was thin enough that I could see through the hole and still hear what they were saying at the same time.

The room was small, about the same size as the one we had been locked in, and lit by three gas lamps. It was bare, except for three long sofas positioned around the edges, and some sort of coffee table in the center, which held a round steel bowl filled with a large pile of the same silver vials Navan had showed us earlier.

Navan, in his humanoid form and still wearing his ripped shirt, was prowling around the room, while three other men were reclining on the sofas. The three men consisted of Navan’s brother, the fair-featured man with long blond hair who I guessed might be Ianthan, and another man with similar fair features, but clearly older… though not nearly as old as his voice sounded, which was odd. He looked perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s. I wondered if he and Ianthan were related.

Silence engulfed them as Navan continued to prowl, and I tried very hard to breathe only as much as necessary. My eyes bulged slightly as Navan’s brother leaned forward and plucked one of the vials from the bowl, opened the lid, and downed it. Ianthan did the same, which made me realize that those silver tubes were probably just general containers they used for various liquids—in this case, some kind of beverage. Surely, they wouldn’t be taking Elysium.

The older blond-haired man, after reaching for his own silver container and drinking from it, interrupted the quiet. “Killing them might have to be an option, unless you force the Elysium down their throats,” he stated. “We simply can’t afford to have leaky holes. Those girls will not keep quiet, despite what they may promise you now—especially not after your display, Navan.”

Navan stopped walking, and I could make out the deep scowl settling over his face as he looked at the older man. “Jethro, this conversation is going around in circles. Just leave this mess to me—I’ll deal with it, one way or another. In the meantime, I suggest you all get some sleep.”

With that, he headed for the door and left the room, closing it sharply behind him.

Panic suddenly washed over me, as I feared Navan might be heading upstairs and would find me, but his footsteps did not reach the staircase—rather, they seemed to be heading deeper through the house, in the opposite direction. Hopefully, he was retreating to another room downstairs to rest.

I refocused on the room beneath me. The two younger men exchanged glances, and then sighed, before settling themselves down on one sofa each. The older man, Jethro, on the other hand, looked a little twitchy, like he wasn’t quite done with the conversation. But after a few moments, he too sighed, before dimming the lights.

I waited for the sounds of him settling into his own sofa, and then dared to crawl out of my room and back into the hallway. When I reached the staircase, I waited, listening. My heart twisted as I thought of my friends, still waiting helplessly in that stuffy room, but I didn’t want to risk going back there now to check in with them—it would only waste time and, after the conversation I had just witnessed, time was something we didn’t have a lot of.

Once I’d gathered enough courage, I dared to broach the stairs, moving down them painfully slowly. My mind fixated on what Jethro had said about their “senses” being impaired by this level of heat, and I just hoped that would work to my advantage every time I hit a creaky floorboard.

When I reached the bottom, my blood was pounding in my ears. I looked right toward the closed front door, and then left. My heart leaped into my throat as I saw moonlight trickling in from that end. The back door… it was open.

Balling my fists to keep my hands from trembling with anticipation, I moved at a snail’s pace toward the door, my eyes fixed on the moonlight. As I neared, I felt the cool breeze slinking through the gap. I followed it, stepping out into the fresh night air. It felt incredible on my skin, after the intense heat of the house.

Feeling my racing heartrate slow a little, I looked around. A dense line of leafy trees surrounded a backyard, leading into the same woods that connected with the creek and the edge of the Churnleys’ property. Tucked away in the shadows, the moonlight caught the edge of something… peculiar. I squinted, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

There, half in the trees, half out, was a beautiful, perfectly circular globe, bathed in the silvery glow of glinting moonbeams. It was large, the back end buried in the edge of the wood, though still managing to take up a quarter of the yard itself. Letting my eyes drift over it, I felt my jaw drop.

The design was sleek and elegant, and unquestionably foreign. Had it been a solid block of metal, it probably could have passed itself off as a human-made sculpture, but this was something else entirely. The outside looked as though it should mirror its surroundings, but it didn’t. Light seemed to dance off it, and the reflection of the trees could not be seen within the polished metal of the globe. The normal rules of physics didn’t appear to apply; I didn’t know whether to be impressed or afraid.

My eyes traveled over the top curve of the globe, and I had to clamp my hands over my mouth to keep from gasping. Sitting atop the silvery surface was a figure, almost entirely camouflaged by the darkness. Where my skin reflected light, his seemed to absorb it. He was turned toward the woods, his upper body bare. His shoulders were sloped, his dark wings out, framing the scarred gray skin of his muscular back as they hung by his sides, his head bowed. Navan.

I watched him breathlessly, trying to keep my nerves at bay. He hadn’t seen me yet, at least. I just thanked God I had spotted him in time. Now I needed to back away, and try the front door—I hoped I’d be able to get out that way.

I retreated into the shadows of the doorway, yet something about the sight of him gave me pause. If anything, it was morbid fascination. I wanted to get a look at this creature while his guard was down, while he didn’t know he was being watched.

What are you?

I’d heard the term coldblood, but that didn’t bring me any closer to understanding. If anything, it confused me more, as I remembered the heat that had flooded through me when Navan touched me. These men were hot as hell.

I watched the slight heave and sigh of his broad chest, the only movement he made as he sat up there so still, like some kind of dark predator, waiting for his prey… And yet, his posture exuded a sort of melancholy. Whatever the case, he appeared to be in a different mood than earlier.

What is your story?

Where have you come from?

I wished I knew, but I had run out of time to stand here and stare. I disappeared back into the stifling house, hoping that none of the other ‘coldbloods’ would come out of their rooms as I made my way back along the corridor, toward the front door. As I passed the room where we had first stumbled upon them, I heard the sound of deep breathing—and I guessed the injured guy was asleep after all.

He had been missing a wing, which by pure accident we’d discovered in the creek. Why had it been in the creek to begin with? By now, there was no doubt in my mind that it was one of these guys who had come into the house to re-collect the wing. Possibly Navan, judging by his height. Dammit, as much as I wanted to escape this place, my mind felt like it had been blown open, and I seriously needed answers. Hopefully, the police would help us get to the bottom of this—assuming they didn’t think we were completely insane. At least there had been other witnesses to the wing—Mr. and Mrs. Churnley… not that they were the sanest people in the world.

Reaching the front door, I pulled the bolt to one side and was relieved to find that was enough to open it. I’d been half fearing I would need a key—and that would’ve been a real problem, since I didn’t even have any hairpins on me to attempt to pick a lock.

Easy does it, I thought as I pulled open the door, inch by inch, until there was just enough space to slip through. As I emerged outside, I sucked in a lungful of air while pulling the door shut behind me. I winced, thinking again of my friends. I’m coming back for you, Angie and Lauren, I promise.

Then I bolted. It was dark, with so many trees hanging over this fenced enclosure, but I was too afraid to use my flashlight, in case it drew attention. I just ran, tolerating the scratches I sustained as I brushed past brambles and fallen branches. I kept my eyes focused in the direction of the nearest edge of the fence, which I could just about make out, thanks to the moonlight. My panting was loud in my ears, accompanied by the cooing of an owl somewhere in the treetops above me, and the occasional scurrying of some nocturnal animal in the undergrowth.

Almost there.

What felt like two minutes later, I was barely six feet from the fence. I sprinted ahead with renewed speed, when my ears picked up a different kind of noise. It sounded like…wind being displaced.

Wings beating.

“No!” I gasped, whirling toward the direction of the noise. I didn’t even manage to see the approaching coldblood before it was upon me, an arm binding once again around my waist, crushing my rib cage as my back slammed against a hard chest, and my feet left the ground.

“NO!” I screamed, as the familiar heat surged through my skin from where his body touched mine, making me feel lightheaded. But then the air swiftly left my lungs as we hurtled through the trees at alarming speed, back toward the house.

I wriggled and struggled as much as I could, but the arm held fast. I was expecting him to fly me right through the front door and lock me back up, but instead, he was shooting for the roof. We landed with a thud, and I stumbled, terrified as I scrambled to find my balance on the mossy wooden slats. Once I’d obtained some semblance of stability, I raised my head to find myself face-to-face with Navan.

I cursed silently. Had he heard me running? Maybe his senses had become sharper again, having cooled down outside the house?

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his brow furrowed and toned arms crossed over his chest. “You do realize you’re basically a mouse trying to escape from a hawk.”

I glared at him, trying my best to ignore the painful lump forming in my throat. I was not going to cry right now—there was no way I was going to let him see my tears. Yet I’d been so close to escaping, only to be caught at the last minute. The frustration of that, more than fear, forced the tears to pool in my eyes and I turned my back to him, blinking furiously.

He spoke up again. “Well, I’m fine with the silent treatment so long as that includes you drinking the Elysium.”

I wiped at my eyes quickly before whirling around to face him. “You basically just threatened my life!” I shouted. “You’re telling me and my friends we have to drink some substance that’s going to erase our memories!” My voice sounded strong, but to my horror, I could feel tears starting to fill my eyes again, and no amount of blinking this time was going to hold them back. But I kept yelling, because at least if I did that, I might not break down into sobs.

“I’m not drinking your stupid potion! We don’t even know who you are! Or what you are! Or what that potion is! Who are you to even make such a rule?! You have no right to hold us here!”

He looked at me curiously. “You’re crying,” he said finally.

I wiped at my eyes again. “Yeah, no kidding,” I snapped.

He paused, eyeing me closely, as if deliberating his next words, before informing me, “I don’t like making girls cry.”

I blinked, once again confused by his manner. “Oh, really? You could’ve fooled me. Just let us go, okay? That’s all we want. We just want to leave without having to drink that weird potion of yours.”

“I understand,” he replied after a moment, his voice low.

“W-What?” I spluttered.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. “I said I understand. I understand that we have no right to detain you or your friends like this, but you’re just going to have to trust me when I say there is a reason behind our actions.”

“What reason?” I demanded, tears dangerously close to escaping from my eyes again. I choked them back, absolutely refusing to let this stranger see me cry again.

He started to say something but then stopped, pressing his ashen lips together.

“Please,” I urged, my voice thick. “You can’t keep us in the dark like this!” I couldn’t bear the thought of being thrust back into one of those dust-choked rooms, probably with two of these coldbloods guarding us this time to make sure we didn’t escape again.

I felt Navan’s wintry eyes scrutinizing my face, as if debating whether to finally give in to my request.

I drew in another uneven breath, and repeated, in what I hoped was a calmer tone, “Please.”

He ran his tongue over his full lower lip, then finally nodded ever so slightly. His voice was much softer when he spoke again—and once more it confused me what an utter contradiction his attitude was compared to the fearsome display he’d given us barely an hour ago. For that matter, his general demeanor was far more light and conversational that I would’ve expected—not just from a fanged monster, but from the stiff man he’d introduced himself as yesterday, when we’d first come across him and his two companions by the fence. I was still trying to place his personality.

“I see my attempt to scare you earlier didn’t exactly work,” he muttered, almost ruefully.

I frowned, surprised that he’d admit that out loud. He broke eye contact with me and his gaze passed casually over the empty roof surrounding us.

“In any case,” he continued, “all I really want is to get all three of you out of my hair. I may be willing to make… certain compromises, in order to achieve that.” His eyes finished their wandering and returned to me, imbued with concentration. “Are you saying that if I agree to tell you about ourselves, who we are, and why we are here, you will agree to drink the formula?”

I bit down hard on my lip, considering his words. It didn’t exactly seem like a fair question to ask—our agreement to drink his potion would depend on his answers, of course, but… I was desperate now, and the idea of finally getting answers was too tempting for me to turn down.

“Yes,” I replied bluntly. Though in my mind, I added, I’ll consider it.

“Is that a promise?” He took a step closer toward me, close enough that I could feel the heat emanating from his imposing form, and it made me feel lightheaded again.

I took a step back, needing to place more distance between us, but I took a misstep on a patch of moss and slipped. His arm shot out to grab me before I could fall, and I gripped it hard, using it to steady myself again. I met his intense gaze as his nauseating heat flowed through me, his face a few inches from mine. Close enough to kiss, a voice whispered in my mind, and I shook my head in alarm, trying to banish it. Clearly, this was how my brain dealt with stressful situations—by suggesting the most ridiculous, outlandish thing it could think of. Kissing Navan—whatever he was—was the last thing I was ever going to do.

Swallowing, I nodded. “It’s a promise,” I croaked.

“Good girl,” he said, the muscles in his face relaxing.

I frowned at his response, unsure of whether it was meant to be condescending or just… good natured, but before I could remark, he put his arm around my waist and lifted me up again, engulfing me in another wave of heat that made my head spin. He soared with me over the roof and down to the back of the house, where he planted me on the ground, near the back door.

As I found my footing and re-orientated myself, I was alarmed to see Lauren and Angie through the open back doorway, struggling in the grips of Ianthan and Navan’s brother. The girls’ hair was disheveled, and Lauren’s glasses were askew and loose on the bridge of her nose.

“Hey!” I exclaimed. They all looked over—Lauren, Angie, and the two coldbloods.

“What’s going on?” All four of them asked a variation of the same question in unison, which I probably would’ve found amusing, in different circumstances.

Navan stepped around me, and I gaped as his wings retracted beneath his shoulder blades… This was the first time I was witnessing it with his back facing me, and it was like one of those vacuum cleaners that sucked up the cord after you were done cleaning—the wings folded into compact lengths, before whipping back within his body. Where did he even have space to store them? I mean, their backs were broad, but… I shook my head, pondering their bizarre anatomy while Navan picked up his torn shirt, which was resting on a log near the door. He shrugged it on as he approached his brothers. “You can let them go,” he said, gesturing to my friends. “I struck a deal with their friend, in exchange for them drinking the Elysium.”

Angie and Lauren’s eyes bulged as they stared at me. I nodded back at them, trying to give them a reassuring look—which was hard, considering I did not feel in the least bit reassured—before I hurried to them, grabbing their hands and pulling them out of the house, into the backyard beside me. Their skin felt hot, just like mine did, and I assumed it was the effect of the coldbloods’ touch on them.

“We heard you scream,” Lauren explained unevenly. The poor girl was shaking. “We climbed out of the room to come look for you—and we probably would’ve made it out if I hadn’t dropped my damn glasses!”

“You really need to try wearing contacts again,” Angie muttered, brushing down her shirt and shorts to straighten them.

“Guys,” I said in a hushed tone, glancing hesitantly at Navan, who was muttering something to his brothers, his back turned toward us. “You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one… At the very least, we’re going to get some answers.”