“But he’s not invisible,” I said softly. “He’s not here, Axel.”
And if he ever managed to get here, I’d kill him way before he ever got near Axel again. I didn’t give aglaharal blachif the high court ordered me back home after the investigation was over. I wasn’t leaving Axel’s side until Zh’alek was back in prison or dead.
Visibly gathering himself together, Axel shook off my hand. “We can talk about this later. We need to get to the police station. They’ll be waiting for us.”
* * *
Nick
Larissa and family were safely on their way to Ella’s house. Two witches and two shifters from Max’s department had been sent to retrieve her. They’d encountered some magical resistance, but Yates clearly hadn’t expected Zane to talk to the police, and the witches he’d left there were no match for the highly trained members of the police force. With the element of surprise on their side, and the formidable strength of their shifters, it was nothing the paranormal police couldn’t handle.
As soon as Zane got the news she was safe, he’d started to talk.
I’d expected Max to send me home after we’d left Zane, but either he’d forgot that I wasn’t actually part of his team—unlikely—or he needed something else from me.
I sat in the conference room with Max and Mase, waiting for the go ahead to search Yates’s compound.
“Do you think it’ll be enough?” I asked, more to break the silence than anything else.
Max grimaced. “I fucking hope so. If everything Zane told us is the truth, then their operation is bigger than we thought. It needs shutting down before they have the chance to move it elsewhere.”
According to Zane, Tombs had been a talker. He’d told Zane all about how he and Yates grew up together. How Yates knew the witches before they got arrested and sent through the gateway to be imprisoned by the fae. When they were released, they set up a way to fake their deaths. Yates made sure his hunter group was the one to accept the call to hunt them when the police sent out the order. They were declared dead, free to work on the smuggled Blue Alhuirn in the relative safety of Yates’s compound.
“I still can’t believe he held on to all that bitterness and rage for five fucking years.”
Mase sighed. “I can. I should’ve known he’d never let it go. I’m just sorry everyone else got dragged into it.”
“Hey.” I gripped his shoulder, hard. “None of what happened was your fault.”
“He recognised you when he followed me here. He targeted you because of your connection to me.”
“Because he was a psychotic wanker. And whatever he had in mind, it didn’t work, and we all came out of it in one piece.” I gave him a squeeze before letting go. “He’s dead. Gone. Let’s focus on Yates and those fucking arsehole witches he’s working with.”
“Any news on when we can go do that?”
I whirled around so fast at the sound of Dathal’s voice that my neck cracked.
He stood in the doorway, dressed in a very snug, black leather uniform that hugged his body like a second skin.
Fuck me.
When Dathal’s eyes met mine, I felt the weight of his stare all the way to my bones. “I didn’t know you were on your way.” I shot Mase a glare because he could’ve fucking told me.
“Hey, I didn’t know, either.” He held his hands up as though warding me off.
Dathal walked into the room. “CI Thornton contacted Lady Sarhin and told her you were close to getting the required permits to search the hunter compound.”
“Oh.” Made sense.
I leant against the wall, tracking Dathal as he approached me. The last thing I expected was him to acknowledge what we were to each other in a room full of people, so I was totally unprepared for the way he slid his hands along my jaw, tugged me closer, and kissed me as though we were alone in my bedroom instead of the middle of paranormal police headquarters.
I melted against him, eyes fluttering closed as his magic sought me out like it did every time we were together like this. It had become so familiar that I barely registered it as something out of the ordinary anymore.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I tugged him closer, forgetting all about our audience until a throat cleared.
Arse.
Letting go of Dathal was harder that it should’ve been, given the level of embarrassment I was suddenly feeling. His magic brought me to life in a way I’d come to crave, and I hung onto it as long as physically possible until eventually Dathal stepped back and put some distance between us.
