Page 44 (1/2)

He had to find her before she was seen

When Matthias eed topside, he calmed himself, cleared his mind, and breathed in Jessa had left a trail of her scent through the little kitchen garden Rowan had planted that led out to the street He followed it, but once outside the property the scent thinned, telling him that she had broken into a run to the east

He should have told her where she was before this How frightened and confused she ht and see Sapphire House To know that she had been held beneath the home in which she had been raised all this tirateful only that it was still some hours until dawn He still had a chance to track her and catch her before she exposed her presence in the city He would explain how he had come to purchase Sapphire House at auction solely for the purpose of using its vast underground labyrinth of old sler’s tunnels as a safe haven for Kyndred on the run

He stopped in every place that she had, and with each step felt his skin tingle and his chest tighten E with fear, eer He had becoined he could feel her, body and soul Frouessed she was nearer to him, and she was afraid He lost the scent for a moment, and looked around before he realized that she had descended the stairwell leading to the riverfront He took the steps three at a time as he hurried down and ran out onto the river walk

Concentrating on the frighteningly acute sense of her, Matthias turned north andto the shadows as he looked ahead He would not charge at her or grab her He would call her to hiain her trust He had to

Clouds thickened across the sky, and then he heard her scream His muscles bunched and he broke into a flat run

Jessa stumbled backward out of an alleyway, almost into his arms She turned and shoved at him, but not to thrust him away

"He’s co," she said, her eyes filled with terror "Run We have to run"

"Don’t go, Jessa," Matthias heard a ht And to toward the about him made Matthias thrust Jessa behind him "She is not for you"

"I know you" The htened as he studied Matthias "You’re the man she hired to cut me"

He peered at Lawson’s face "She did not hire me I came to her aid"

"I knohat she had you do She told you to crippleto put me down? Kill me, just because I’d been injured on the job That wasn’t covered in the eraph on reasons employees will be terminated permanently"

Matthias knew then that Laas crazy His training also told hi to protect his woman

"Stay close to me," he said to Jessa before he looked up to the sky and drew on the power inside hi for a few seconds the face of the thing Matthias recognized the features as Lawson’s, but when he looked into its solid black eyes, all he saere the depths of hell

The clouds swelled full and ugly, and tiny drops of water and larger pellets of ice began to fall all around them Lawson skewed his head to one side and yowled as a chunk of hail bounced off his head Nothing touched Matthias or Jessa

"Why isn’t it hitting you?" Lawson des to me So does the woman" Matthias lifted his eyes once more and sent out his power An instant later a torrential flood of water ca down around them

Matthias seized Jessa’s hand and pulled her with hi rain Only his sense of the ground beneath his feet led him back to the stairwell to the upper street level He could feel the thing coh to scoop Jessa into his ar an arm around his neck and curled her other hand into his sleeve before she looked back over his shoulder "He’s coht quickly, and when he reached the top of the stairs he abruptly changed direction, across the narrow street and into the long park He headed for the se done to one of the old statues in front of the Cotton Exchange

The old lion statue, which had been struck by a driver who had lost control of her car, had been de behind only a paw Debate had raged back and forth for some time, but eventually the people of the various historical societies had agreed to replace the lion with a more modern work of art that embraced both the history of Savannah as well as its future

Matthias had seen the replaceh sculpture, ht iron recovered from the factory down by the river, for rods of iron had been stretched out into elongated strips and twisted into shapes representing the different continents of the world On the shape representing Anolia bloom