His hair was dripping water down onto his chest, the curls more pronounced when wet. I’d never thought I could find a man in cargo shorts sexy in any capacity, but he somehow made it work. When he was damp, it was even better. I wanted to lick water droplets off of him, which was totally inappropriate.
“We don’t know that,” Em said, averting his eyes. I assumed not looking at Nolan was for Ozzy’s benefit.
“When I stick to my word, you’ll figure it out, I suppose.”
Slipping his arms through a fresh tropical-patterned button-up, he didn’t bother to do up the buttons. I kept my gaze focused on the peek of skin as he strode over to the kitchen and poured himself a cup, before moving into the living room. I’d perched on Emmett’s knee while he sat on the singular recliner, leaving nowhere for Nolan to sit. Unbothered, he settled cross-legged onto the floor, back leaning against the wall. Oswald was sitting a metre away, cleaning his tail and staring at Nolan’s torso.
“What do you insist on knowing about the plan to kill Kylan?” Nolan asked.
“Everything,” I said. “The entire plan.”
“We won’t have a full plan until your heat is over and we can time it properly. Kylan is hard to pin down and rarely stays in the same place for over twenty-four hours at a time. He’s incredibly paranoid.”
“How will you know where he is? I doubt he’s happy with you after you stole me out from under him.”
“I can’t tell you all my secrets,” he said with a laugh. He sipped his coffee carefully, consuming it slower than Em or I had. How he was awake on three hours of sleep, I had no idea. “There are sources inside Kylan’s organization and multiple homes. They don’t always know where he is, but when he’s at certain locations, I can track him. Once I hear from my people, we’ll have twelve hours to attempt the assassination.”
“Do you have a plan for each of the possible locations? Intel on how many people guard him? Agents on the ground to do surveillance?” Emmett asked.
He was smarter than I’d originally given him credit for. Then again, the first time we’d met he’d made the ill-advised decision to follow me to a back alley, and the second time he’d gotten himself captured before even attempting to break me out of here. The bar had been low.
“I’ve been planning this for years. Ama, Clement, and I have come up with contingency plans for most situations. Kylan travels with a team of twenty highly trained men, mostly vampires with a few shifters and the occasional incubus or other demon. No fae or angels. One mage who isn’t well-trained in combat, but can create portals between the realms quickly and with ease. The man himself is also lethal and hard to beat in one-on-one combat.”
“Why do you think Freya will beat him?”
I elbowed him in the stomach and glared. “Of course I’ll beat him.”
“Not as you are now,” Nolan said, shrugging. “You need to recover from overfeeding Caspian, and take an Alpha’s mark so you gain your full strength. I think it’s possible once those conditions are satisfied because it won’t be a purely one-on-one battle, and we hope to take him by surprise. He also would never expect an Omega to be a danger to him.”
It took me a second to register what he’d said.
“An Alpha’s mark? You’re expecting me to be a claimed Omega before we do this mission?” I asked, standing from Emmett’s knee.
Nolan scrunched his eyebrows together and nodded. “Uh, yes? Are you not fond of Caspian? I was under the impression your body was on the verge of killing you for not having a mate. We need you at full strength.”
“I willnotbe taking a mate mark. Being knotted will be enough.”
Everyone in the room looked hesitant, except me.
“It will be. When Cas knotted me I already felt stronger, and that was only one time.”
“Yes, but the additional strength won’t last. Your body won’t be happy when a knot doesn’t equal a mark,” Nolan said. “At least, that’s what my research on Omegas has told me. Resisting a mate mark is futile.”
He’d spoken my worries out loud, and I shouldn’t be mad at him for it. The thought had been rattling around in the back of my head since Cas and I had been in the cage. My magic had barely rebounded to the level it was at a year ago, let alone five years ago when I first revealed. That wasn’t enough to be safe in the face of Kylan and a team of twenty men.
I choked down words I knew I would regret. Then I turned on my heel and stormed from the room, cursing my biology because he was right.
ChapterTwenty-One
CASPIAN
Waking up sprawled over Shan, it was easy to pretend this was just another day on the job. Nothing special had happened to make me angry at him, and I was still living in bliss while hoping he never left me.
I lived in the delusion for a while until he moved beneath me and I was forced to face reality.
Shan was an asshole, and I had so many reasons to be mad at him. He’d fucked everything up with Freya, getting us in this situation, and then done exactly what he’d told us not to do and fucked things up even more.
Pulling away from him, I immediately missed his warmth. When I tried to get out of bed, his powerful arms grabbed me and had me back against him within seconds. His hard cock bumped against my ass and admittedly, I wanted it, but I didn’t want him to think everything was OK between us.
