“Uh, no reason.” I took off my gardening gloves and reached into my pocket, swiping the answer button and putting the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Oak, we need to go to the tower.”
I sighed, and Keryth’s eyes glowed in amusement as he whisper-yelled, “Holy shit, you have a special ring tone for Roman!”
I swiped at him. “I do not.”
“What? I mean—”
“Not you,” I said into the phone. “Ker’s being an asshole.”
Ker flipped me off, giggling like a hyena at my expense.
I ignored him, pretending that my lips weren’t twitching in amusement. So what if I gave Rome a different ringtone. We were partners at work, and I needed to make sure I answered his calls. That was all.
Psh.
I couldn’t even pretend to myself. Sigh.
“Sorry, Rome. What’s going on? Why the hell would we go to the tower? I don’t really want to talk to Dad yet.”
“I’m really sorry, babydoll, but I don’t think we have a choice.”
I could tell something was wrong from the sound of his voice. “What happened?”
“The team Garrick sent, the one that took our place, they… well, only one of them came back alive.”
My breath caught, my heart freezing in my chest.
All those people, all those fellow guards, they were dead?
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Fly. We need to get there fast.”
“You’re not going to insist I take someone with me?”
He sighed, sounding put out.“Actually, you need to take Terrell with you.”
My brow furrowed. “What? Isn’t he at the tower? Why…” I trailed off as realization hit me square in the face. “Holy crap, you have a guard sitting outside, don’t you?”
What an ass. And he’d had to have made the poor man promise not to tell my dad where I was today. Not that it mattered since it wasn’t like my dad was after us or something ridiculous like that. I just… didn’t want to be near him at the moment.
“Yes.”
“Roman! I thought you trusted Remi.”
“Of course I trust him. But he’s working, running a business, and I wanted to have backup there in case you need it. Remi knows he’s out there, and he wasn’t offended.”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll fly the gargoyle to the tower.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever.” I wanted to sit in my annoyance for a while, but I couldn’t, so I sighed. “Rome?”
“Yeah?”
“Bring me some clothes. I’m covered in dirt and—”
