City of Magic: The Complete Series by Helen Harper (book club recommendations TXT) 📕

shook his lupine head, his fur bristling in the wind. His hackles were still raised, a line right across his spine. If there was nothing up there. Maybe it had been bad luck. Except I didn’t believe in luck.

I twisted round, scanning the other roof tops for signs of life. I couldn’t see a thing. Then, from the darkness beyond, a tiny dark shape tumbled toward me with a series of panicked squeaks. Lucy flung herself into my arms, almost knocking me over a second time.

Monroe’s blue wolf eyes stared at her, suspicion clouding his gaze.

‘It wasn’t her,’ I told him. ‘It couldn’t have been.’ I swallowed. ‘It must have been an accident.’

Monroe shook out his fur, transforming back to human before standing upright and facing me. ‘That wasn’t an accident,’ he said grimly. ‘No way.’

Chapter Sixteen

We argued all the way home. Monroe was far more shaken by my near-death experience than I was.

‘It wasn’t Lucy,’ I insisted.

‘We already know she’s intelligent. It could easily have been her.’

‘And how exactly would she have loosened a chimney stack? She’s a baby.’

‘A baby,’ Monroe growled, ‘with giant friends. Friends who will be incredibly pissed off that we killed one of their kind. We can’t assume that the shadow beasts don’t possess intelligence to match our own – or the desire for revenge.’

I sighed. ‘I’m not denying that they might be very clever but do you really think they’d perform such an underhand move? If they wanted revenge for what we did to Lucy’s mother, they’d just attack. It was dark and we were on our own. Even if only two of them had banded together to fight us, it would have been touch and go for us to win.’

‘I’m not saying it’s not unlikely. I’m saying that it’s a possibility and that bringing Lucy back with us again is asking for trouble. Serious trouble.’ He scowled down at her, as if expecting her to whip out a dagger and start stabbing me with it.

‘You’re jumping at shadows,’ I told him. ‘Literally.’

Monroe crossed his arms over his chest and stopped, turning towards me. He was oblivious to the fact that he was stark bollock naked. I couldn’t work out whether that was a good or a bad thing. Good – I got to gawk at his naked body. Bad – right now he didn’t care. ‘You have an analytical mind,’ he told me. ‘You can’t expect me to believe that you think what happened back there was just bad luck.’

‘I don’t,’ I said quietly. ‘I just don’t think it was anything to do with Lucy.’

‘Then who?’ The words were already out of his mouth by the time he’d worked out who I was thinking of. His jaw tightened. ‘Barrett.’

I didn’t answer immediately. I didn’t have any proof. My self-doubt and suspicions were becoming crippling. Perhaps I only needed to pin the blame on someone other than Lucy.

I sighed and looked at my feet. ‘He’s the only person with any motive,’ I mumbled.

Monroe stared at me. ‘I thought you liked him.’

‘He charmed me initially,’ I admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t think he might have wanted to get rid of me. I was asking him several awkward questions earlier. And it was his main bodyguard who spotted Lucy in the first place.’

‘Boyce didn’t imagine her, though. She was definitely there. You’re holding the proof of that.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe he saw an opportunity and took it.’

Monroe was struggling to contain himself. Patches of dark red fur kept springing out all across his body. ‘Then let’s go and ask him about it.’

‘No.’ I was adamant. ‘Without actual proof, we’re going to make ourselves look like idiots. And if Fab and his goons had nothing to do with this, then all we’ll do is annoy them. We need them and the supplies they can offer. Besides, he wouldn’t have attempted murder because of a few questions. If he’s ultimately responsible, there must be another underlying reason. We need to find out what.’ My gaze hardened. ‘Without making our suspicions obvious.’

‘And if we prove that it wasn’t him?’ Monroe asked quietly. ‘Then what?’

‘Then we should be thankful that his intentions towards us are genuine,’ I shot back.

His blue eyes dropped to Lucy, who was blinking at him from the crook of my arm. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said.

I sighed. ‘I know.’ I drew the little shadow beast closer. She let out a tiny purr and nuzzled my elbow.

From up ahead, Felicity came running towards us. ‘What the fuck was that? I heard some sort of loud crash. It echoed all the way up here. What happened?’

I glanced behind her. Other people had obviously heard it too; faces were appearing, gazing out from behind the barricade, nervous about what they might see.

I spotted a figure wearing a hazmat suit. I couldn’t tell for certain, but it appeared to be Boyce. Damn it. I’d wanted to be able to watch his face when he heard the news that I was still alive. From a distance – and with that hazmat suit on – I had no hope.

‘Everything is fine,’ Monroe said brusquely. ‘It was just an old building that had taken too much damage. Part of it fell away. It wasn’t anything to do with us.’ He didn’t look at me. ‘We weren’t even close at the time.’ He clearly didn’t want to draw anyone else into our conspiracy theories. I appreciated that. Unfounded gossip and insinuations could do a lot more harm than good.

‘We found Lucy though,’ I said cheerily, holding her up.

Felicity’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘Hey, cutie.’

Lucy purred louder; Monroe frowned harder.

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘we should get in.’ I nudged Monroe. ‘We should go and find Julian and tell him that Lucy is back. Don’t you think?’

He flicked me a narrow-eyed look. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s do that.’

We walked up past the barricades. I made an effort to smile at everyone. Monroe didn’t have it in him; he simply glowered, unable