Conrad’s reply came smooth as sin. “Jealousy is anuglyemotion.”
Zeth’s angry inhale and laser-burning eyes almost made me laugh.
Heading through the doorway first, I led them down a short hallway and slid around the large vault door until I saw Deslen standing atop a gaping hole in the floor. His worried eyes flicked to me then down at the hole, but all I saw was miles of smooth, dark skin I wanted to lick. When my eyes traveled down, my heart stopped for a beat.
“Is my mate having trouble focusing?”
His deep, soothing voice woke me from my lust-filled stupor, so I tore my attention away from him and down to the hole in the ground. “Did you go down?”
The wild, loose strands around his face moved as he shook his head. “Not yet. Waited for you first.”
Zeth walked up to it, crouching beside the hole. “What’s the plan?”
“We still haven’t met the air mage,” I said, “so no magic tech. No watch. We move slowly. Check every corner.”
I had stepped to the edge, about to jump down, when I realized Deslen didn’t offer his hand to me. His gaze was fixed behind us, body tight as he looked down the hallway.
“Des?” I asked. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he shook his head and forced a smile as he extended his hand. “Sorry. Here. Let me help you.”
Suspicion prickled. Annoyance, too. I didn't have time to argue about it, so I ignored the hand and dropped down alone, landing in a crouch.
The others followed one by one. Deslen shifted midair, landing in his jaguar form, dark fur glistening like wet ink. He padded to my side and nudged his huge head beneath my hand. Feeling petty, I resisted, but he nudged again and again until I finally slid my fingers through his fur. All forgiven.Boy, am I turning into a pushover.
We moved down the carved, underground pathway in a silent formation, each step measured. Ears tuned. Breath slow.
A soft hum bled through the tunnel as a low, steady vibration began to pulse under our feet. At the far end, a hazy green glow seeped from the left-hand corridor, casting the stone across it in an eerie tinge. The closer we crept, the louder the room sounded—liquid bubbling, machines chirping, a wet churn like something alive being fed.
Just as I was about to turn the corner and head in, Conrad’s hand landed on my shoulder, his grip firm but careful. “Let me check it.”
Before I could answer, he vanished in a blur and reappeared an instant later. “Empty.”
We all walked into the room, still moving cautiously despite Conrad’s go ahead—because you never knew. My eyes grew wide as I looked at everything before me.
The lab sprawled out before us. Tubes twisted across the table like veins. A bead of bright green fluid floated through a clear line, burbling as it traveled into beakers, then vapor chambers, and finally emerging as a syrup-thick mixture that dripped into a vat at the end of the table.
So,thiswas where he birthed the substance.
My legs moved without permission, drawn to the grotesque beauty of the set-up. Each step followed the absurd path of the formula, from liquid to vapor to liquid again, like he was coaxing life from poison.
Pulling out my phone from my boots, I took pictures and sent them to Calix. I didn’t know what the fuck all this was, but he would have the best idea. This was definitely not in my wheel house.
Past the vat at the end of the table, a desk waited with a laptop and a large warped notebook. I flipped the notebook open as the guys looked around the room. Pages were packed with equations and jargon I couldn’t decode. This was another Calix job, so I swiped the book and tucked it into the back of my pants.
Once this was over, I’d have my team confiscate everything, but I had a feeling this book needed to stay away from the wrong hands.
I didn’t sense movement behind me until the notebook was snatched clean from my waistband. I spun, claws out, ready to take on whoever dared to take what I had fucking stolen, only to find Zeth looking at it with a critical eye. He casually lobbed it over to Conrad, who caught it with ease.When did they start working together?
“Keep it for her,” Zeth said dryly. Before I could get a word in, he followed with “She forgets that sometimes she doesn't go home with clothes.”
Conrad slid it into a cargo pocket on his pants, giving me a conspiratorial wink. I wanted to smack both of them… mostly because they were right. If I shifted, that thing would’ve hit the floor and probably disappeared, which would just piss me off.
All our heads snapped to the entrance when a cry tore down the tunnel, raw and panicked, followed by a heavy smack. We could come back to the lab. What laid ahead of us might be even better.
We quickly moved out of the room and went further down the pathway, staying tight to the shadows until we reached another brightly lit entrance. Pulling my back to the dirt wall, I peeked around the corner, making sure I did so at a glacial pace.
A grey-haired man in a white lab coat was leaning over a metal table where a supe was secured with chains. The captive’s voice cracked as they begged. “P-please… don’t… I don’t want to be… l-like them…”
