“Why me?”
“You have the most power at your disposal. I will ward the windows and ensure no one can get inside except for members of the Hunt.”
Maurice’s scowl deepens.
Asher pushes away from the wall at the back of the warehouse. “Should I keep watch during the day?”
The Huntsman doesn’t blink. “No,” he says, and Asher flinches, just a little. He’s got the most tentative grasp on the magic the Huntsman gave him, from what I can tell, but that’s because he used to be a wolf, and wolf magic and fae magic don’t mix.
My eyes skip back to the tear. Except here. Wolf magic did this. Wolf magic and the Huntsman’s blessing. I let my eyes unfocus until the edges of the tear blur and it’s nothing more than a pulsing light. How did the fae know this would happen? Cassian put it together just like I did; I don’t think the Guardians knew this was a possibility before today.
“Paxton, you will watch in the day. Someone will be present in this room every minute until that tear has healed.”
Jeremiah looks even less pleased than Maurice about this development, but that’s hardly surprising. He’s a vampire.Paxton isn’t. They’re together and this is dangerous, so it makes sense that he’s worried.
“Vladimir, with me,” the Huntsman says, and then he strides over to the warehouse door and out into the night.
I glance up. Vlad is closer than he was before, and he gives me a stern look before he follows the Huntsman out. I sigh and look at the tear again. I’m in for it, which is silly because I’m a grown man and I shouldn’t be getting shit for leaving my house in the middle of the night. Vlad should be glad I was here. If I hadn’t been, when might we have found the tear?
“Uh-oh.” Maurice comes up on my right. He stops next to me and inspects the tear himself. “You don’t look pleased.”
“Neither do you.”
He snorts. “Why would I wish to be here when I could be spending my time with Njáll?”
Njáll. His lover and the head of the clan that contains just about all of London’s vampires. Cute.
“Hm, guess that makes sense.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“Are you… all right?”
He says the words like he’s not used to them, and I can’t help my smile. Maurice is fine, really, even if he’s a bit more wild than I expected from him at first. That’s fine. Not like he was expectingmeat all.
No one knows why Vlad turned me, least of all me.
“Fine,” I say after blowing out a heavy breath. “Vlad’s going to want to talk about this when we get back.”
Maurice nods. “Not his preferred method, of late.” His gaze flicks to Jeremiah and Paxton, who are having their own quiet conversation. Asher ambles over to join us.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re discussing whether Vladimir will actually decide totalkabout all of this,” Maurice says.
I glare at him, but he only grins, unrepentant.
Asher grunts, but the expression he gives me is sympathetic. “You’re still okay staying there?”
He’s offered to move me out of the base three times in the last couple of months. Maurice is in on it too. I know that because my alternatives seem to be either Kieran’s pack house or the clan house, but neither is what I want.
I mean, I want to spend more time with Quinn and the rest of his pack. I can’t pretend I’m not a little envious of what he has—I miss having so many people around. But I’m not going to leave my home either. I’m not going to leave Vlad.
It’s not like Vlad is doing anything to me. He’s not actually confining me to the house or whatever. But there was enough trouble before, even more now, and I don’t want him to worry about me on top of all that.
“It’s my home,” I say and peek over at the tear again. Is it getting smaller? Can’t have in the last five minutes, but I’d like to think so.
