My jaw clenched. I didn’t know which Hamid annoyed me more: the arrogant one or the one before me now. It was hard to believe they were the same person.
Hamid’s tone became more businesslike. “If we are finished discussing your ground rules, we should inform your friends that you will be returning to California with me.”
I let out a resigned sigh. I wasn’t ready to leave Sara and Beth, but Hamid’s place was in Los Angeles, and I had to go where he went. His investigation was bigger than us and our problems.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said flatly, starting toward the door.
“I’m sorry you have to leave your friends,” Hamid said, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
I opened the door. “It’s like you said. We’re warriors, and we do what’s required of us.”
I felt him come up behind me. He reached for the heavy door to hold it open for me, but he made sure our bodies didn’t touch. Not that it mattered. His nearness and his scent were enough to make my skin tingle with awareness of him.
Assuming the annoyed expression I usually wore around Hamid, I entered the building. I wasn’t surprised to see Sara and Beth lingering outside the living area, waiting for our return.
Hamid headed for the control room, most likely to talk to Nikolas and Chris, and I walked toward my friends.
“What’s wrong?” Sara asked before I’d even reached them.
I gave her a rueful smile. “Looks like I’m going to have to cut my visit short.”
Beth reacted first. “No! Why?”
I waved at the door to the living area. “Let’s go sit, and I’ll explain it to you.”
Once the three of us were comfortably seated, I told them what Hamid had said about the two of us being a part of the spell that had closed the barrier.
I left out the part about the bond for obvious reasons. I felt a twinge of guilt over my lie of omission, but I knew they wouldn’t hold it against me. Bonding was intimate and personal, and they understood that better than anyone. Plus, I was a private person when it came to certain aspects of my life. I joked around about men and sex, but I wasn’t a kiss-and-tell kind of person. Not that there would be any kissing going on here.
“So, you have to go wherever he goes?” Sara asked when I finished.
I made a face. “You make it sound like we’ll be joined at the hip. We have to be in the same house, but if I’m lucky, I won’t have to see much of him.”
Beth made a little swooning sound. “It’s like something out of a romance novel. Two people who secretly want each other are forced to spend time together, and they fall madly in love.”
“Whoa.” I held up a hand. “You need to lay off watching the Hallmark channel. There is nothing even remotely romantic about this situation.”
Beth snickered and leaned in closer to Sara. “Did you notice she didn’t deny they secretly want each other?”
Sara laughed, watching me the whole time. “I did.”
“Ugh!” I threw a small pillow at them. “To think I was going to miss you two.”
Their smiles fell, and Sara said, “Do you have to leave tonight?”
“Hamid didn’t say. I guess I should ask him.”
Hamid’s voice came from the doorway. “Ask me what?”
I looked over to see him enter the room with Nikolas and Chris.
“Whether or not we’re leaving tonight,” I said.
He looked like he was about to say yes, but he surprised me by shaking his head. “Tomorrow morning.”
Beth smiled at me. “At least we have you for one more night. But it’s too bad we never got to go shopping for that slinky new dress you wanted.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’ll go shopping when I get back and buy something special for when I come to visit again. Hopefully, that will be soon.”
I could feel Hamid’s gaze on me, but I avoided it. I didn’t need to look at him to know he was also hopeful this nightmare would be over soon and he’d be free of me. I just had to keep reminding myself he wasn’t the bad guy here. But I wondered if he would have jumped in to save me if he’d known we’d end up bonded and in this predicament.
Who was I kidding? With his arrogance and sense of duty, he would have considered it a worthy sacrifice and all in a day’s work.
“The boys are going to be so disappointed that you can’t continue their lessons,” Beth said. “They had a blast with you today.”
“Boys?” Chris asked.
“Two Vrell teenagers we met at the wrakk. I agreed to give them self-defense lessons.” I smiled at the memory of the boys’ enthusiasm as I’d taught them a few simple moves today. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed working with them, and I was a little bummed I had to give it up.
Chris laughed. “You gave self-defense lessons to demon kids? How did that come about?”
“Beth and I gave some Gulaks a little beatdown and sent them on their way, and I –”
“Gulaks?” Chris’s gaze shot to Beth.
She shrugged it off. “It was nothing. They snatched the Mox girl we went there to find, and we got her back.” Her eyes met mine, and she grinned as she told them about my self-defense demonstration with the Gulak.
“You laid down your weapon to fight Gulaks unarmed?” Hamid asked with a hard edge to his voice.
“One Gulak,” I corrected him. “And Sara fights better than he did.”
“Hey.” Sara gave me a look of indignance.
I smirked at her. “Sorry, girl, but I’ve seen you training. I’m amazed Nikolas still has all his limbs.”
Everyone laughed, everyone but Hamid. It was a relief seeing him back to his usual surly self, and some of the tension from our talk left me.
“Anyway, after the Gulaks left, the boys asked if I would help them learn to defend themselves. It’s not like they have someone else to teach them, so I agreed to give them lessons as long as I was in Chicago.”
Sara pressed her hands to her chest. “That was so sweet of you.”
“I feel bad that I’m going to let them down.” I looked at Beth. “Before I leave tomorrow, I’ll drop by the wrakk to tell them.”
“I can continue the lessons for you,” she said. “Until you come back.”
“Thanks.” I leaned back into the cushion with a sigh. Staring at the skylight above me, I sent up a silent prayer that I’d be able to come back very soon.
* * *
The next day, Beth and I went to the wrakk to tell the people there that I had to leave town but that Beth would continue the lessons for anyone who wanted them. The two boys were disappointed at first, but after Beth did a demonstration with a staff, they quickly warmed up to the idea of her as their instructor.
We got back to the command center ten minutes before Nikolas and Chris were supposed to drive Hamid and me to the airport. But when we entered the building, there was no sign of any of them. We found Sara in the state-of-the-art control room that could probably rival NASA’s.
“They left half an hour ago to drive to Detroit to check out some suspicious activity,” she said when I asked where they were.
“Suspicious like what happened in L.A.?” I asked. Detroit was almost five hours away, so it had to be important for Hamid to drive there and delay our flight.
She stood and stretched her back. “All I know is it has something to do with a summoning. Hamid said to tell you that you guys would be staying another day.”
I frowned. Hamid had my phone number. Would it kill him to call and tell me this himself? Then I remembered he was the last person I wanted calling me.
“We get you for another night.” Beth gave me a one-armed hug. She looked from me to Sara. “Who’s up for lunch and shopping?”
Sara declined in favor of a nap, so Beth and I spent the afternoon shopping. When we returned four hours later, Sara informed us Nikolas had called to tell her they’d be late getting back that night. He’d also let her know it had been a false alarm. The Detroit team had overreacted when they found the scene of a failed summoning, and they’d called it in. Everyone was a little tense these days, not that I could blame them with all the craziness going on in L.A.
Sara, Beth, and I enjoyed a pleasant dinner together, followed by a few hours of quality girl time. At ten, Sara yawned and bid us good night. She could barely stay up past that these days. Mohiri females didn’t get tired this early in their pregnancies, but apparently, growing a Fae-Mohiri baby was exhausting.
As soon as Sara was gone, I stood and looked at Beth. “I need to get out of here and ride for a while. Feel like doing a patrol with me?”
“Sure.”
The two of us patrolled for hours, but it was a quiet night and we didn’t see anything suspicious. I was so used to Los Angeles where you couldn’t travel five blocks without coming across some vampire or demon up to no good. For all its size, Chicago didn’t have the activity of places like New York City or Los Angeles.
It was just after 1:00 a.m. when Chris called Beth to let her know they were back. Since there was nothing going on out here, we headed to the command center.
We pulled into the parking bay, and it was like déjà vu when I saw Hamid striding toward us. Only this time, he looked angry and I was at a loss as to why.
“You went out without a team,” he said in a harsh tone that had my hackles rising.
I took my time getting off the bike and setting my helmet on the seat. “We’ve been over this before. We don’t patrol in full teams.”
He stopped a few feet from me. “You do now.”
“Excuse me?” I said slowly.
Beth cleared her throat. “Um, I’ll just leave you two to talk.” She shot me an apologetic look before she hurried away.
I turned back to Hamid and spoke with as much civility as I could muster. “Please, explain.”
He glanced around then pointed at the open gym door. “Let’s talk in there.”
“You expecting this to come to blows?” I asked when we had entered the room.
He shut the door. “No, but I believe this room is soundproof.”
My mouth fell open. Did Hamid just make a joke? I stared at him, but his face gave nothing away.
“I’m adding a new ground rule,” I said when he faced me. “No acting like an overbearing bonded male, and definitely no bossing me around.”
He leaned against the door. “This has nothing to do with the bond, except for its connection to Orias’s spell. If anything happens to one of us, the bond will break and the spell could fail. That is why we must minimize risks.”
“Wait. If that were true, the Council would have whisked us away to some safe location.” Not that I would have stayed there for long.
He didn’t answer right away. I didn’t like it when he was slow to respond. Turned out I was right to be wary.