“Alright then. I’m sure someone will have a cell phone in the infirmary, so I’ll call up from Clement’s phone when I’ve checked in with him.”
“Not necessary,” Freya said, brushing me off. “Oswald can tell me.”
Shan, Cas, and I had matching confused expressions. “How?” I asked.
“We can talk to each other the same way we could before.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, glancing to Ozzy, who shrugged. “He’s not your familiar anymore, is he?”
“None of this makes much sense, and Ozzy has a fuck ton of explaining to do, but it’s going to have to wait. We need to clear the building, find Emmett, and within the next hour I’m going to need to be back in my nest getting knotted again. Fucking annoying heat.”
She turned on her heel and left before anyone could argue, Shan and Cas following her out the door. I stared after her until Oswald’s hand landed on my shoulder. “I should check on Ama,” I said, stepping out from under his touch and up to the closed bathroom door only to stop short at the sound of a faint moan. “On second thought, I’m sure her and Mabel are fine.”
Releasing a soft snort, Ozzy stayed incredibly close to me as we stepped over bodies. When I tripped over an arm he caught me before I could catch myself, the touch sending a zing through me. “You can’t touch me like that,” I murmured.
Oswald dropped my arm like it was on fire. “Fuck, sorry.”
“Not what I meant. Every time you touch me, I feel it in the bond. Since we haven’t, uh, consummated it yet, it makes me really fucking horny.”
I avoided looking at him, but there was a thrum of satisfaction through the bond. “We can consummate it whenever you want,” he said smugly.
I rolled my eyes. “I have work to do.”
If I didn’t have work to do… well, gods knew I would be all over him.
He didn’t touch me again as we navigated out of the room and down the hall, but I felt him close. Going down the stairs we passed a group of my guys who were making their way through the building, clearing each floor. They nodded to me, staring curiously at Oswald behind me, and told me Clement was still in the parking garage cleaning up the mess and coordinating efforts to secure the place.
The man needed a damn raise.
I’d been upstairs getting marked, Ama had been fighting to get to Mabel, and he was the only one who had been running the company as it should be ran.
When we made it downstairs and into the bloody garage, his no-nonsense expression dropped for only a second, long enough I saw he was relieved. “This has been a fucking mess,” Clement said, jogging up to me. “Whoever was on outer guard duty is probably dead, and if they aren’t I’ll kill them myself. Who the fuck is this guy?”
He gestured to Ozzy behind me, and I wasn’t sure how to explain it. Oswald held out a hand to shake and Clement took it. “I’m Oswald.”
A few blinks later, and Clement snorted. “The cat?”
“The one and only.”
“I don’t even want to know what happened with you guys. Is everyone alive? Ama?”
I nodded. “Everyone’s fine. We don’t know where Emmett is, have you seen him?”
“Infirmary. He got a bit torn up in the fight. Sky magicked him up there and you know him and Altair stick to each other like glue. All our other assassins are inside now, trying to flush out the last of the intruders. The temp guards are down here.”
Clement saw the mark on my neck as he was talking, staring between it and Ozzy. I’d forgotten to hide it. Fuck, I didn’t want to hide it, but it might harm my credibility if everyone around here knew I was now claimed by an Alpha. Especially if they thought it was a non-consensual thing. For all intents and purposes, it had been, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t pleased about it now.
“Do we have any of their guys alive?” I asked, pulling his attention away from my neck.
“One. Doesn’t seem eager to talk.”
He led the way through the massacre to a storage closet he used as an office. Among the bodies were a few faces I knew, and I had a flash of regret for bringing this fight to them. It was too late to take it back. Kylan was ready for war, and this was only the first strike.
Three men held one thrashing male vampire, ropes not enough to restrain his significant strength. The vamp was snarling, with blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, but didn’t appear to have any magical abilities like my control of air. If he’d been able to do something to escape, he would have done it already. Ignoring the thrum of concern coming through the fresh bond, I put on a smirk and stepped up to the vampire.
“You look like you’re not having the best day,” I commented.
He spat at me.
