Cody glanced at Kitani, who was removing trays of sausage rolls from the oven. Their savory aroma drifted through to the main living area.
“Take some to Ryan and the twins,” Cara suggested. “We’re good here.”
“Are you sure?” Kitani asked, her gaze moving from Cara to me.
“Yes,” the Watcher said. “What we need at the moment, is simplicity.”
“Okay,” Cody conceded, flashing me a look. Then he approached as close as he dared, and said, “I blamed you for my girls getting taken. I was wrong, and I am sorry.”
It was like he spoke from down a long, long tunnel lined with accusing eyes. I could barely nod to him. His mouth twisted, and he glanced again at Cara, brows raised.
She nodded as Kitani emerged with a plate filled with morsels. Cody snatched one before following her out the door. But not without a backward glance at me.
He was correct to be worried. Even immersed in Anna’s scent, my world was dissolving.
Meanwhile, Matt did his best not to slice my skin with the cutter. “Hey, mate, can you grow some scales under this? No point in hauling your lizard ass back here, only to slice your jugular with this bloody thing.”
Scales. Right. I was so absorbed in battling my beast I’d missed the obvious.
“That’s better.” Matt altered the angle of his cut. “Almost there.”
The words were meant as reassurance, but my beast used them as an excuse to push my wings free from my shoulders.
Anna’s eyes narrowed. “No shifting,” she said, but her voice lacked her alpha power. She sounded worried, and I sensed her exhaustion.
“I wouldn’t mind a cathedral ceiling,” Cara said as she placed another plate of sausage rolls down on the table, “But Amadeus might object to the abrupt renovation.”
She offered me a smile, but I caught the glimmer of concern as she scanned me.
My entire focus was on one overwhelming desire. “I need”—my teeth clenched—“to fly.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Anna hedged.
“It’s a shifter thing, Angel,” Matt said as he altered his attack angle again. The metal was growing hot against my scales. “It’s how we sort life.”
It was. But it was also more than that. All I knew was that I needed to be in the sky.
Like,now.
Matt cut through the collar in one spot, moved to my other side, and started there. I kept gritting my teeth to keep from screaming.
The Watcher tapped her chin as she regarded me. “Lucky this is just iron,” she pointed out. “I have removed some that were infused with life energy. They were tricky.”
Tricky was not something I could have tolerated. I could barely stay still for this.
“Easy, mate,” Matt crooned. “Almost there. You’ll be kissing clouds before you know it.”
My talons had erupted from my fingertips, and I had to stop my wings from expanding, or Cara might get her cathedral ceiling.
I smelled molten metal, and the collar grew uncomfortably hot. I reached up and hooked my talons through it.
“I wouldn’t—” Matt warned, just as I yanked hard.
The metal creaked, and Matt pulled the cutter away. I yanked again, and it fractured, falling away in two pieces.
I was at the door in an instant, but Anna moved faster than me. “I am coming with you.”
No.“You can’t.” She couldn’t come. I needed to flee Xumi. The voices. And her. “I’ll be flying too fast, and too high.”
