Amherst grins. “I found them, and about two hundred magic-sensitive individuals that the Zhao family were experimenting on.”
“Experimenting?” I say, disgust souring my tongue.
She grabs her bag and slings it over her shoulder. “I can’t say much more on the topic as it’s confidential, but they were controlling people with magic somehow.”
Flashes of dark wisps of energy making my fingers go numb come back to me.
“Lei chanted something, and then I couldn’t feel my hand, but it was still moving. I think he was going to use that magic to make me sign the contract,” I say with a scowl. “But why didn’t he just abduct me? What even was in that contract?”
“All things we’ll have to work to find out over the next year before trial,” she says. “I’m staying nearby, so I’ll be in touch.”
I walk with her to the door. “Hey, I’m sorry for getting upset before I knew what was going on.”
“I could’ve been more forthcoming if you’d been registered. The lack of communication was my own doing, but I thought I was doing what was right by chasing the bad guys first…”
I shrug. “It all worked out.”
“This case has been a lesson for me,” she says with grave seriousness. “I need to balance my priorities better and not let things drag out too long. I could’ve found the time to registeryou. I could’ve requisitioned a portal pass or had someone else take you. Really, it was my fault, in the end.”
“Now you’re just beating yourself up for the sympathy,” I say.
She chuffs. “You’re a wild one, Jiahui.”
“Can’t be tamed,” I say with a grin.
“But you can be punished,” rumbles a deep voice behind me.
forty-one
A Worthy Punishment
Armherst looks up over my shoulder and then smirks. “I’ll be going now.”
She hurries out the door, and I’m stuck rooted to the spot, watching her go. His heat is immobilizing, all-consuming. I want to feel his hands on me, but know better than to step back into him when a punishment is on the horizon.
“Hello, Rhazan,” Nai Nai calls in a singsong voice.
“Hello, Mrs. Feng,” he replies in a stern voice. “Jade will return shortly.”
Smoke surges across my skin and wraps me in a cocoon of cold. I gasp as the world goes gray, and then returns in radiant color. The spines of the books on his shelves. The fire in the hearth. Everything seems more real, more alive, than it’s been before. Is this what his world looks like when he’s not magically restrained?
“Jiahui,” he rumbles, an edge of anger in his voice.
I shiver. “Yes, RhazDaddy?”
He grunts, then circles in front of me. “YousummonedSkreet.”
I swallow hard. “Yep.”
“Knowingly.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What prompted you to be so reckless with what’smine?”
The possessive word is growled from deep in his chest, and I feel the tug on my astral tether. Iamhis. And he’s mine. Forever.
I worry my lower lip, pouting hard with my eyes wide. “I was desperate.”
