“You don’t know?” Emmett asked. He sounded annoyed, and when Jonah looked up at him, he was frowning at the woman. She frowned right back at him.
“Unfortunately, not all the IT personnel feel like they need to keep me in the loop. I do what I can.”
“Ignore him,” Jonah interjected, elbowing Emmett lightly. “He’s just grouchy this morning.” Which felt a little like Jonah’s fault, so he figured it was best to get things under control. “Kian said the IT department needed help setting up the new Cyber Security floor?”
She dragged her gaze from Emmett, forcing a smile for Jonah’s benefit. “Ah. That’s right. They have been asking for some help down there.” She pointed toward the stairwell. “One floor down. Go right down the hallway, and check in withRosalind Winterblossom.” She studied him for a moment before wrinkling her nose. “You might want to invest in some ear plugs. You’ll need them.”
That confused him, but he noticed Emmett opening his mouth to comment, and he didn’t want the overprotective werewolf saying something that might get him dropped from this job.
“Thanks for the warning. We’ll be going now.”
He grabbed Emmett’s hand, dragging him toward the stairwell, and didn’t let go until they were at the halfway point and he knew Emmett wasn’t about to turn around and change his mind. He would not admit out loud that he held on probably longer than he needed to because Emmett’s hands were warm, and it felt kind of nice to hold hands with someone.
The werewolf was still grumbling when they opened the door to the Cyber Security floor. It was definitely under construction with exposed wires and half-finished walls, plastic blocking off some areas where Jonah could see silhouettes of people working. At first he thought the woman was warning him about the hammering and sawing and the other sounds of construction, which yeah, would be a little loud if he was around it for a while. But as they headed down the hallway the receptionist had told them to head down, Jonah found out really quickly what she had actually been talking about.
Emmett’s ears flattened as they got closer to the pounding music emanating from the room at the end of the hall, and he grimaced like the volume hurt his ears. That was something Jonah knew even before he started working with supes—werewolves, along with a lot of other species, had heightened senses, and the volume was probably painful for poor Emmett.
“I can ask her to turn it down before you go in,” Jonah offered. The music was earsplitting even for him.
Emmett didn’t look happy about separating, but the pain must have been bad enough for him to let go of the protectiveness for a minute because he nodded. “If you don’t mind. I’m not old enough to start losing my hearing just yet.”
Snorting, he ducked into the large windowless office where the music was coming from. It was so loud, he had to cover his ears, and the fairy who sat on the chair facing no less than six screens didn’t notice his approach until he was directly behind her. He tapped her shoulder to get her attention and she squealed, wings flitting to lift her high above his head and out of reach. Jonah took a few steps back automatically, hands lifted in surrender, only to clap them back over his ears to protect them.
The fairy made a frustrated sound, snapping her fingers, and the music turned off, leaving a ringing in Jonah’s ears as the silence descended. Slowly, he lowered his hands just as Emmett came into the room with a surly expression.
“Why are you playing the music that loud?” he demanded of the fairy, glaring at her. “Anyone could have approached you!”
“You mean like you?” she shot back.
Jonah’s brows drew together slowly. There was something about her speech that was off. Not an accent, but something different about it that stood out. It was barely there, but there was something familiar about it that he couldn’t quite place.
“I’m part of the security team. Does your manager know you play your music like that? It’s a security risk.”
The fairy rolled her eyes. “No one comes in here.”
“But you can’t hear them coming even if they did!” Emmett growled. He was getting a little bent out of shape about the whole thing, but Jonah was getting more and more suspicious that they were missing something.
“Are you deaf?”
He didn't know how to ask that question without potentially offending anyone, but if she was, it wouldn’t matter if she was playing music or not. She wouldn’t hear anyone coming anyway.
“Bingo. Give the human a cookie,” the fairy said dryly, flitting to her chair and sitting down again. She sat in it backwards with her chest against the back, but he figured that was a comfort thing since she had wings. The chair actually seemed to be built to be used like that, the back of it shorter and the arm rests were farther back. There was even a footrest attached to it, which made Jonah kind of jealous. He always sat weird in his chairs, it was the only way he could think to get comfortable, and a footrest would be nice.
She cocked her head at him, and once again he realized he was staring. This time, though, he was staring at the chair, not at her, and he quickly told her so she wouldn’t think he was some kind of creep.
“That’s a cool chair. Is it as comfortable as it looks?”
A grin pulled at her lips and she nodded, using a toe to spin herself in a circle. “It’s one of the nicer chairs I’ve ever had. Why are you here?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Emmett still wanted to complain about the music, it seemed really unsafe for it to be played that loud, but if she was deaf…
“Why would you play music if you’re deaf?” Emmett asked before Jonah could respond to her question.
She’d been looking at Jonah and didn’t respond to him, but Jonah answered for him. “I’m assuming the music was that loud because she can feel the vibrations. My cousin is deaf, and he does the same thing.”
The fairy swiveled lazily to look at him, raising an eyebrow. Almost daring for him to argue with that. He bit back a growl. He still didn’t think it was safe.
