“Come on.” She grabbed his hand and walked with him right into the water.
“We’re swimming back?”
“I’m taking you to my home away from here. Where it’s more private.”
“Ah,private.Now you’re talking.” He followed her into the water.
Her eyes glowed, able to see in the darkness. “Follow me and don’t fall behind.”
He saluted, his eyes a bright red that burned. “Gotcha.”
She had no idea if he could communicate the way water-magir could, but they needed to leave. Swimming on the surface until she could submerge fully, she sped away, Orion by her side.
Now where to go with a bespelled vampire in her wake?
CHAPTERSIX
Kaia didn’t have much to say to him since he followed close. They moved like sharks through the water, bulleting through Puget Sound in a blur until they made it to the beach where she’d left her car.
She popped her head up while treading water and reactivated the camouflage charm.
“That won’t work on me,” Orion said right next to her, so silent she hadn’t realized he’d joined her on the surface.
She found her breath and forced her nerves to stop jumping. “The charm will cover me. Wait until I’m at my car then join me. If you’re fast enough, they won’t see you.” She knew some vampires could move so fast they could almost teleport.
“No one will see me if you don’t want them to.”
“I don’t.”
He nodded, looking at her as if content to stare at her forever.
Kaia had so much to do before her mother learned that her vampire had gone missing. But none of it could be done here in the water before daylight, which brought its own issues. She had to get Orion safe inside somewhere, protected from the sun.
She moved as quickly as possible to her car, still parked alone in the lot, and purged the water from her. Now completely dry, she waved at Orion.
He appeared by the passenger side in seconds.
“Wow.”This guy can end me in so many ways.“Hold on.” She focused on the water all over him, envying the glide of droplets across so much muscle. “Focus, Kaia,” she muttered and purged him of the water in his clothes, drying him off. “Let’s go.”
She drove them not home, but toward the one safe space she knew she could protect. She parked in a common lot away from the Alister Doctrina Repository, her camouflage charm still working. “We’re heading inside the basement of that building.” She pointed to it. “We need utter si—”
“—lence,” she finished, in his arms in front of one of the basement entrances. When he would have smashed open the door, she put a hand to his chest that stilled him without her having to ask. “Wait, please.”
She muttered the unlock spell keyed to the entrance and let them inside, allowing herself the comfort of basking in his arms for a few moments before getting down. Kaia immediately missed his strength and slowly beating heart. For all that people referred to those Of the Bloode as the undead, they weren’t. Vampires were very much alive, just different from most magir.
“Follow me,” she whispered to Orion.
“Yes, mistress.” He winked and rubbed her shoulders. “Let’s get somewhere private.”
Oh God.She refused to answer that and hurried them through several passages dimly lit by fae lamps and down the one passage she sometimes used when she needed a break. No one knew about it, which she appreciated, and she led him into her special room.
“We’ll be safe here.” She watched him studying the large room filled with empty bookshelves, a large couch, and some old study carols and cabinets pooled in one corner. And there, the couch she’d had teleported into the space last year from one of the open study rooms on the third floor that no one used. It hadn’t been a cheap spell, but it was so worth it when she worked late nights.
The couch wasn’t large enough to fit Orion comfortably, but he could let his feet fall off the end while he slept.
He yawned. “Sun’s coming.”
She looked at the phone she’d tucked in her back pocket and frowned. “I can’t believe it’s that late already.” She glanced at him, wondering what to do. He had been bound to her mother, but she couldn’t sit in Sabine’s magic forever. Her coworkers would notice the change in power signature, as would anyone she happened to run into who knew her.
