He grunted.
“You’re a dumbass, you know that? Hopefully, they’re smarter than you are.”
“Says the one who handed herself over to a murderer and rapist.”
Nolan piped up, his control of his wagging tongue already vanishing. “You luckily ended up with a man who is only one of those things! And it’s not a rapist.”
Shan glared at him, still a pro at controlling his expressions. However, I was getting better and better at reading him. If I was correct, I caught a hint of interest, possibly of the sexual variety. Possibly just because Nolan acted nothing like he would have expected a cousin of Kylan Jitara’s to act.
“I’ll admit you’re the lesser of two evils,” I said. “So far.”
“I will continue to be the lesser evil, I promise.”
“You know what would help you prove it? If you put Shan in this cage with me.”
He laughed, and Shan raised an eyebrow at my tiny accommodations. “You haven’t earned the privilege yet, love. If you answer the questions I ask you later, I might be convinced.”
There was little to no chance I’d be giving him the truth, but I might be able to fabricate a convincing lie. As annoyed with him as I was, having Shan and I together was our best chance of escape. “Fine.”
“We’re going to get Shan settled in his proper room now that he’s out of medical and able to walk on his own. I’ll be back in a while for our chat.”
“Looking forward to it.”
They left in a mess of tropical print button-ups and tantalizing scents, Clement sweeping the head back into the bag on the way out.
ChapterSeven
OSWALD
My night was puttering along like every other night I’d spent as a cat. I cleaned my fur to a pristine orange shine, coughed up a small hairball, and curled onto the couch to nap sporadically. Sleep wasn’t something my body required much of in its current state.
Nothing was out of the ordinary until I felt Freya leave the club.
I glanced at the green clock glowing above the stove. It wasn’t late enough for her to be leaving yet, which meant something was wrong. The foreboding settling into my stomach was another powerful indicator. As her familiar, I had access to her emotions when she was projecting them strongly enough.
I’d teleported to her side before I could wonder why she’d never called me, only to be faced with her back as she stepped through a portal she hadn’t created. Careful to ensure the orange-haired witch didn’t see me as she entered behind Freya, I tried to figure out what was going on.
She hadn’t been fighting.
What the fuck had they done to make her stop fighting? I’d been trying to get her to do that for years and I’d come up empty.
This time I didn’t teleport to her. If she wasn’t trying to free herself from Kylan’s men, or whoever else was holding her captive, there was no point in me following. I’d be captured too, leaving her with fewer hopes of escape. Instead, I went to Club Chaos to try to piece together what had happened.
I hung around in dark corners and slunk along the shadowed edges of alleys, following the path of Caspian and Shan. Small pieces slotted together as I eavesdropped, but the mystery of her obedience was only solved when they mentioned the necklace and Mabel.
Fuck.
They’d found her sole weak spot. If they’d taken Shan or Cas or even me, she wouldn’t have caved. Freya would only give herself up for her family, particularly the weakest and kindest member of it.
When Shan left, wings carrying him into the air, I left the other two to their own devices. She’d been in the same place for a while, leading me to believe she was at her final destination. Possibly only somewhere she was temporarily being held, but hopefully somewhere we could break both her and Mabel out from.
It was across the city and I teleported closer, following the thread connecting me to her through the streets. I wasn’t one to panic, but every hair on my back was standing on end and my claws were retracting and extending to knead nervously at the ground. This was the worst situation she’d ever been in, and it was my job to protect her. I was contractually obligated. More than the contract, I needed her to be safe for my own sanity. Sanity she’d tested repeatedly, and would continue to test when I got her out of her cage.
“Here, kitty kitty,” a soft feminine voice called from a doorway.
Her offering of treats shook me from my thoughts, but I gave the woman a wide berth and turned a corner to find an apartment building across the street. Freya’s signature was pulsing from the left side of the building, somewhere around the second floor. At first glance there wasn’t anything odd about the building. When I’d slid behind a dumpster to observe the area, I realized it was an inner-city fortress.
People in plainclothes ran or walked in front of the building, which was odd for this time of night to begin with. Then, instead of vanishing into the night, they would circle around. Again and again, until I’d seen the same three people four times each. They were patrolling.
