Once inside Balthazar’s front hall, I had to admit it; I did feel safer. Certainly safer than I’d felt back in the eerie atmosphere of Holly’s empty place. And Lord knew Luke’s place had turned from my home into the cold, stifling abode of a stranger in mere moments.

In his dark-walled hallway, Balthazar leaned past me to hang up his coat, filling my nostrils once again with that rich, masculine scent. I took a step back, briefly gripped by the urge to reach out and touch that firm, solid frame beneath his shirt.

Son of a nutcracker. What the heck was wrong with me? Maybe it was the shock of the evening.

I snapped myself out of it, though, because Balthazar was looking at me again in that glaring and thoughtful way. “Your clothes,” he said, his voice almost a growl, his entire body rigid.

I looked down at the outfit he seemed so intensely angry about—or maybe I was reading him wrong. In any case, the outline of a pink bra shone beneath the damp material. Worse, my headlights were turned on. Again.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Yeah. My clothes.”

“I’ll get you something dry to wear.”

He left me alone in his foyer, and his footfalls creaked up the stairs.

Might as well invite myself in…

My teeth chattered, and I crossed into his living room again, scanning the opulent setting. Amber light from a chandelier washed over the bookshelves, the tapestry, and the particularly inviting crystal flasks of whiskey on a mahogany table. He hadn’t offered me any, but I needed a drink more than anything right now. Plus, he’d pretty much seen my nipples, so the least a gentleman could do was give me some of his booze.

Even if he’d made a point to tell me he wasn’t a gentleman.

I grabbed myself a glass from the table, plucked off the top of a decanter, and poured myself a shot. I sniffed the peaty Scotch before taking a sip, and it warmed my throat.

By my third sip, Balthazar was coming back into the room, gripping a button-down shirt, a pair of his pants, and a towel. His own dark hair had been toweled off. He nodded at my glass of Scotch. “Help yourself,” he said gruffly.

“This hardly seems like the time to worry about manners. Isn’t that what you said?” The whiskey burned going down, but it felt strangely soothing at the same time.

Balthazar thrust out the clothing. “I don’t have dresses around here. This will have to do. You can change in the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs.”

“Good enough.” Reluctantly parting from my whiskey, I grabbed the clothes from him.

The stairs creaked gently as I walked to the upper floor, my hand brushing over the smooth oak bannister. I pushed through the first door into a large bedroom, my breath catching at the beauty of it. I prided myself on my taste, but Balthazar’s rivaled my own. The dark wood panels that made up the wall complemented the pewter gray and pale gold of the luxurious duvet. A sleek chandelier cast the room in a glorious honeyed light, washing over the hardwood floors, along with some iron wall sconces.

It was pretty clear to me now—if it hadn’t already been from the way the rest of the house was decorated—Balthazar was old money rich. He had money: serious money.

I closed the door behind me. Cream-colored curtains hung over the windows, so even if any nefarious types lurked outside, at least I had some privacy.

In the warm light of Balthazar’s guest room, I pulled off my sodden dress, my bra, even my wet underwear. I draped my clothing over the iron wall sconces to dry, then toweled off.

At last—dry and completely naked—I pulled on Balthazar’s button-down shirt, enveloped in his musky smell. The silky fabric slid luxuriously against my bare breasts as I buttoned it up, and the hem reached my mid-thighs. I attempted to pull on the pants next, but the waist was enormous on me, and they immediately fell down to my knees. Not to mention that I’d be tripping over the extra foot of hem on the stairs.

The shirt would have to do, I supposed. Like a short dress. I left the pants on the bed and strode out of the room to join Balthazar again. Hopefully I’d get some answers out of him.

By the time I got downstairs, goosebumps prickled my skin. I rubbed on my upper arms as I joined him in the warmly lit living room.

From his spot in one of the chairs, his eyes raked over me, and his fingers clenched tighter to his glass. “What happened to the rest of the outfit? What happened to the trousers?”

“They didn’t fit.” I snatched my whiskey off the table, taking a sip.

Now, in front of Balthazar, I felt completely exposed, and strangely aware of every place his silk shirt touched my naked skin. Maybe it was the fact that his gaze was slowly sweeping over my bare thighs like he wanted to lean over me on the sofa and spread them.

My skin heated, and I tried to focus. “So, are you going to tell me what in the blazes is going on? I know you’re not telling me everything.”

He tore his gaze from my legs. A muscle tensed in his jaw, and he slammed his glass down on the table. “What the blazes?” he repeated. “Where the fuck do you come from, anyway?”

I cleared my throat, holding his gaze. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. “Just because the world is apparently ending, I don’t see a reason for vulgarity.”

Balthazar slid off his chair, turning to the fireplace. He grabbed an iron poker and began jabbing at the logs.

I sat awkwardly perched on the edge of his sofa, staring into the budding embers in his fireplace as he stoked it. A lull fell over the room, filled only with the sound of my own heartbeat and the crackling fireplace. I couldn’t take my eyes off the shape of Balthazar’s forearms—he had rolled up his shirtsleeves, and the muscles were tensing and relaxing as he coaxed the fire to life.

I cleared my throat softly. Time to try again. “I need answers. You said something about dark forces conspiring. About me being in danger. What makes you think that’s the case?”

Without looking at me, he said, “I know you’re in danger because I believe you. I believe that your friend lived in that apartment, and that you saw the man who took her. I believe that he might not have been human. I’m going to help you find your friend. Drink your whiskey, warm yourself by the fire, and tomorrow you’ll learn the rest.”

And that pretty much summarized what I’d learned of Balthazar so far—a combination of helpful and infuriatingly cryptic.

The flickering light illuminated the firm curves of his arms and the angular lines of his face in profile. Strangely enough, I believed him when he said he’d help me find Holly. Maybe Balthazar was dangerous, but every fiber of my being told me he wasn’t dangerous to me. As if he was here to protect me, somehow.

Still, I needed answers. “Do you honestly think I’m going to sit here and relax, just because I have whiskey and a fireplace, when my friend is missing and you’re telling me absolutely nothing concrete?”

He cut me a sharp look, then returned to stoking the flames.

Maybe I shouldn’t piss off the one person willing to help me right now. I ran my fingertips over one of the silky sleeves of the shirt I was wearing. What was that expression about honey and flies? I could be nice. “Thanks for the shirt. I’m much warmer now.”

“Pass me another log,” he said in response, meeting my gaze with an intensity that rivaled the flames.

After a short pause, I knelt on the hearth and leaned forward to brush my palm over the logs piled in a metal basket. I sized them all up, then plucked out a hefty one and handed it over.

His fingers brushed mine when he took it from me, and electricity sparked between us.

I swallowed, shifting back to the sofa. I tugged the shirt’s hem down around my thighs.

A heavy silence fell over the room until he slid back into his chair, his dark eyes piercing me. “All right. I understand that you’re confused. I’m going to explain some things now, so try to listen carefully and don’t get distracted.”

Ahhh, there was that delicious condescension.

I felt the need to cut in before he could continue. “Oh, I’m listening. My life is flaming garbage right now, but I think I can manage to not get distracted.”

He glared at me. “Let me speak, Dawn. I am affiliated with something known as the Academy of Light. Are you with me so far?”

I tried to bite my tongue, but instead I snapped back, “I understood the simple sentence, yes. I’m not stupid. I just don’t know what the Academy of Light is. Is it some kind of secret club?”

“It’s like an academy of scientists, a group of experts who have been inducted because of their specializations. In our case, it’s a secret order,” he replied. “We study the paranormal. Things that others can’t see.”

I stared, waiting to see if he was about to burst out laughing and tell me this whole thing was a joke. “What, like ghosts?”

His jaw clenched. “Not like ghosts.”

I blinked. “Okay. Shadow angels?”

If he was annoyed by my dismissive tone, it didn’t show on his face. “Yes, in fact. We search for things in the shadows. Things that wish to remain unseen.”

I had to admit to myself that these words—ridiculous as they may have been—sounded convincing coming from him. If my mother had said the exact same thing to me a few days ago, I’d be asking the doctors to up her meds. But that was before Holly had disappeared, before I’d seen the shadows whirling around a demonic man.

“Can you be more specific?” I asked.

“Dawn, the things you called shadow angels…” He closed his mouth, tightening his fists again as if fighting with himself. “I can’t be more specific, actually. That’s not how the Academy works. We don’t give answers. We allow you to discover them. It’s always been this way. And it’s the only way true knowledge has meaning.”

Infuriating. I swallowed hard, thinking over my reply. “Well, obviously I need to work with you,” I said. “With the Academy. Even if I have to discover everything for myself.” I still didn’t quite know what he was talking about, but I had a best friend to find, no one else was listening to me, and frankly, I had nowhere else to go.

“Are you sure?” asked Balthazar.

“I saw something, didn’t I? Someone who didn’t look human.” I swallowed again, my throat dry. I had a lot to process, but my head ached, and the room’s heat didn’t help. “I don’t know what he was, but you might need my abilities.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded.

My chest clenched. “I need to find Holly. She’s my best friend. Something’s happened to her, and if I can help her, I need to. I’ve never believed in magic or ghosts or whatever, but… you’re the only person who is actually listening to me. According to everyone else, Holly never existed at all. And I know that’s not right.”

“And you trust me?”

An unexpected question, one that I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to answer. I decided to go with the truth. “Not entirely. But you’re the only one who seems to believe anything I’ve said. The things you’ve said match up with what I’ve seen tonight, and you don’t seem to have lied to me yet either, from what I can tell. That’s the best I have.” True—and depressing.

Balthazar didn’t look too convinced by my arguments, but he had stopped pushing back for now, so I considered it a partial victory.

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes slowly sliding over my body once again. His jaw tightened. “You should go upstairs. Get some sleep. I’ll tell you more about the Academy tomorrow.”

As if his words had been a soporific spell, my eyelids suddenly felt heavy, my body dragging. Now that the adrenaline of the day’s events had left my system, all that was left was a kind of exhaustion, both heavy and hollow. I wouldn’t be able to think clearly until I’d had a full night’s sleep. If nothing else, I had a place to sleep with a roof over my head tonight. It was more than I’d have had going for me if I hadn’t run into the Lord of Cambridge.

“I’m completely worn out,” I told him truthfully.

“I’ll walk you to your room.” He rose, gesturing for me to go upstairs.

I obediently crossed to the staircase with my fingers pressed, as casually as possible, to the hem of the shirt to secure it to my thighs. With him behind me, I didn’t want to accidentally give him a show, especially considering that the sight of me without pants on seemed to provoke some kind of primal rage in him every time he looked at my thighs.

At the top of the stairs, he pushed open the guest room door, and his eyes locked on the sight of my pink panties and bra hanging from his iron sconces. “I see you’ve decorated already.”

Flames heated my cheeks. “Thank you for giving me a place to stay.” I sucked in a deep breath. Strangely enough, some part of me didn’t want this condescending professor to leave.

“You need sleep,” he said, nodding at the bed. “You have a lot in store for you tomorrow, Dawn.”

“Care to be more specific?” I asked, not for the first time tonight.

“Tomorrow evening, you will meet the members of the Academy.”