Heat suddenly unfurled in her belly at that last name. Shivers raised goosebumps along her skin. Memories assaulted her of his body pressed against hers, his strength as he held her firmly and whispered threats in her ear…
She ripped her mind away from the gorgeous gargoyle-monster that dogged her steps.
“You know…” She paused at the edge of the hallway beside the kitchen. “No one ever found us in those caves. Maybe we should establish a permanent residence again. Then we can employ some staff and actuallyuseall this money we’ve accumulated.”
Sebastian layered one measly slice of cheese onto a piece of unbuttered bread. Did he not have any taste buds?
“We’d stepped away by that point,” he said, not looking up. “Only the Guild was really looking for us, and they were woefully ineffective. You said it yourself—Momar’s people have been asking a lot of questions. They’re cunning in the way the Guild isn’t. Momar wants us brought in, and if he can’t have that, he wants us dead. Moving around is the only way to keep him guessing.”
Nessa twisted her lips to the side, knowing he was right. “Okay, well…I need to do a little work.”
The hollowness of the house pressed on her as she continued down the hall. The weight of loneliness put a lump in her throat. She hadn’t ever felt this…solitary before. She had Sebastian, but he didn’t feel like enough anymore. She’d gotten used to the Ivy House crew. To the small but growing town of O’Briens. To having people around all the time, laughing and joking and being okay in their weirdness. She’d thought the homesickness would fade, that she’d once again get used to life on the go, but instead, the loneliness kept worsening. The work was more dismal, the misdeeds more incriminating.
She sighed and pushed her way into the tiny office in the corner of the house. She shouldn’t have let the Ivy House crew in. She shouldn’t have gotten so familiar with them, so dependent on them. She’d tried to protect herself from the pitfalls of her upbringing, not allowing people close so that it wouldn’t hurt when they abandoned her or turned on her, but this time, she’d been the one to do the abandoning, the one towalk away, and it somehow hurt just as much. The heartache was a tough thing to bear.
Curse this life. Curse this road she was forced to tread.
Feeling sorry for herself, which wasn’t like her, she glanced at the encrypted phone perched on its charger in a prominent location on the desk. She didn’t dare turn it on. Tristan would surely be paying attention at this time of day. He had a very strict lunchtime relaxation policy and always took his breaks.
Then again, it had been over two months now of no contact between them, and he was incredibly desirable among the ladies. He’d probably moved on by now. He probably didn’t check the phone all that often or think of her. Or dream…
“That’s not helping your heartache, Nessa,” she murmured, running her thumb across the blank screen as she sat down at the desk.
It was then that she noticed the line of notifications flashing across the computer monitor.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
She clicked to check them out. Her entire network was abuzz, everyone discussing Elliot Graves’s latest move.
Frowning, because there shouldn’t be anything newsworthy for another couple weeks, she clicked play on the video everyone was talking about. A camera mounted up high showed a large warehouse in the distance. The structure stood alone at the corner of the block. Abandoned cars littered the curb, many sprayed with colorful graffiti. Cracks marred the dirty street and what she could see of the sidewalk. It looked like a rough part of town, run-down and forgotten. Which town? She had no idea.
As she watched, several figures ran from around the back of the structure, and then one man strode after them. His gait was long and his shoulders back, utterly confident. His pristine suit said he was a man with means, something catching and throwing the light on his wrist suggested an expensive watch—which denoted his status as a player in the mage game—and his slicked-back hair and thin frame was uncomfortably recognizable. His face was obscured, likely by magic.
He’d barely exited the screen when several explosions made her jump. Glass blew out of the windows, and then large patches of the walls went tumbling away. Fire shot up over the roof. The camera shook on its base. More explosions, these on the roof. Additional explosions went off into the twisting black of the interior.
Two people from inside tried to run out, but cracks from what sounded like gunfire dropped them to the ground. Someone jogged along the front, and then two people. One tossed something into the smoking inferno—grenades, Nessa realized, as the new explosions sent a body flying through one of the holes.
“Sebastian,” she called as she yanked her keyboard closer and went to work, trying to figure out what she was looking at.
In a moment, she had it. Momar’s storage facility.
He had a few such strongholds for the bulk of his decently powerful potions. They were all said to be heavily protected with spells and guards; the spells covered the doors and windows, while the guards were rumored to prowl the interior and look after the workers and their creations. Mages would want to get into the building to steal the goods.Normalmages wouldn’t want to destroy all that bounty.
But Elliot Graves wasn’t a normal mage. He was as powerful as they came, and his spells were much more effective than anything in that warehouse.
And he’d just walked away from the scene of the crime.
“Sebastian!” she yelled as she replayed the video and paused it on the figure.
That wasn’t Sebastian, of course. Too thin, too tall. But damn it, from a distance, it might as well have been.
“Sebastian!”
“What?” He raced into the room with wide eyes. “What is it?”
She started the video over as she worked on the other monitor.
When it got to the person leaving the scene, he shoved forward. “That kinda looks like me.”
