Oh wow! Delphi knew that if she looked at Arlee her friend’s mouth would be dropping open like hers at the sexism.
Not so Portia. The guardian fronted up to her colleague, the lead on this operation. “You screwed this, Martin. Right from the start. You’ve been more interested in your retirement plans than the case. Don’t be putting this blame on others.”
“Sort it out, later.” Jet’s tone of voice said he was through listening. “Perez?”
The jaguar-were stood with his hands on his lean hips, jacket pushed back, looking equally as impatient as Jet. “Yeah, I’ll phone the captain, let her know we have the girl safe. Captain Cosmatos will send officers to the hospital—”
“I ain’t going to hospital,” the girl interjected.
“You are,” Arlee said equally firmly. “And then you can come home with me.”
The girl looked at her in shock.
Arlee smiled faintly. “We’ll sort things out.” Her smile vanished as she studied the guardians. “Later.” She exchanged a look with Delphi. The girl would need support and a healer. Who knew what had gone into that bleeding tattoo.
“Come on, then. Hospital.” Perez bent and helped the girl up.
In silence, Arlee, Perez and the girl they’d saved—and whose name they still didn’t know—walked up the stairs.
When they were out of sight, and likely out of hearing of all bar Perez’s were senses, Jet spoke. “Delphi and I are going home.” He held Martin’s angry gaze. “We’ll debrief in the morning. I have Graham’s scent. You’re free to track him with whatever magic you can muster.”
Oo-eeh. That was a slam.
Martin rocked forward.
Jet turned his back, utterly dismissive.
Belatedly, Delphi realized that for all his noise and aggression, Martin wasn’t the angriest man in the basement. Jet had his rage locked down enough that she hadn’t sensed it even through the weird connection that was their mate bond, but he was furious. She clasped his hand, scanned the guardians in lieu of saying good-bye, and walked with her mate to the stairs.
Only Portia returned Delphi’s eye contact and nodded her head. Chad was poking around the massage bed and paraphernalia beside it. Martin made a sound of disgust and strode toward the shadows at the front end of the basement.
At least no one tried to insist on taking Excalibur from Delphi. That wouldn’t have gone well.
Walking through the empty warehouse, it no longer felt scary and foreboding. It was merely a shell, a place discarded and forgotten. Excalibur confirmed the absence of evil by remaining inert and dull. Jet, with his superior night vision, guided Delphi through the shadows.
It was a relief to be outside with the front door insecurely latched behind them. The night air was cold, damp and river-stinky. Delphi breathed it in, gratefully. “We saved the girl.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re mad?”
Jet didn’t answer. As they walked around the corner, they saw Arlee and the girl, standing in the shadow of the warehouse. They seemed small and lost, vulnerable, although Arlee could defend herself and take out a SEAL team.
“Perez has gone for his car,” Arlee said. “Mist and I are waiting for him.”
Mist. An unusual name.
“We’ll wait with you,” Jet said.
After contact with death magic, no one wanted to be alone or leave others alone. Delphi couldn’t have walked away.
“Are you a cop, too?” Mist asked Jet.
“No, but I lost my cousin to the two men who took you,” Jet answered more directly than Delphi would have dared.
Mist looked at him for a long moment. “You saved me.” Simple words. True words. But also absolution.
Jet smiled faintly. “I’m glad we did.”
“Me, too.” Mist’s smile was flash of unexpected joy in the shadows. She was slight and bowed. Jet’s jacket covered her to her knees and beyond and must have been pressing painfully on the raw tattoo, but she huddled into it.
If Arlee hadn’t volunteered to take Mist in, Delphi would have. “Do you want us to go with you to the hospital?”
Arlee watched a car slow to a stop in front of them. “Perez is here.” There was a hint of something new in her voice. Hope? Trust? A knowing? “We’ll be fine.”
The police sergeant got out and opened the back door. His rangy figure moved with deceptive casualness. In fact, he was swift to help Mist into the back seat.
Arlee slipped in beside her, with Perez’s fingers landing a moment on her shoulder in a touch that said, I’m here.
Delphi had a feeling that promise would endure. “Call us if you need anything.” She watched the car drive away, brake lights fading red in the distance before Perez turned a corner and vanished from her sight.
“They’ll be fine.” Jet wrapped an arm around her. “Where’s your car?”
“Two blocks over.”
They started walking. Behind them, she sensed the guardians’ magic searching the warehouse and stretching out in the first tendrils of their attempt to track Graham’s translocation. She left them to it. Excalibur was a reassuring weight in her hand. She’d torn away Arlee’s illusion on entering the warehouse, so the sword was on view for anyone who cared to look.
“I can make it home on my own,” she said. “If you want to hunt for Graham.”
“Not tonight. Mist is safe, which means our immediate objective was achieved. I’m too angry to hunt…that could be the trap you saw.” The last phrase was reluctant, the admission of a man fighting himself.
Delphi wasn’t sure how to respond, whether to ask about his anger, inviting him to talk it out, or to discuss her prophecy and the night’s events. She could guess the causes of Jet’s anger: the evidence of Graham’s evil, his escape, the guardians’ botched response, and even the fact that she and Arlee had been in danger. She leaned her head against his shoulder, snuggling as they walked. “I love you.”
The mate bond that he must have somehow shut to shield her from his emotions crashed open. Love, anger, his protective instincts, the sense he had of danger in this volatile part of the city, frustration, and need all combined in an avalanche of emotion. And fed into their kiss.
Passion.
Their mate bond roared with passion. It pounded into their bloodstreams, the feedback between them heightening their arousal to aching intensity. Delphi dropped Excalibur and clung to Jet, arching up, desperate for him.
“Your car,” he growled.
It was only a few steps away. “I can cloak it, us.” She wanted him badly enough that she’d make love in her car.
He stared at her, his hazel eyes flickering with gold. His bear-nature was near the surface. “I need privacy and space.” He was too big, too tall, for her car no matter how he contorted himself.
“Okay.” She panted, trying for control. “Home.”
He was trying for control, as well. When she’d beeped the locks on her car, he opened the driver’s door for her, and inhaled her scent as she slid past him and in. “I want to drown in you.”
“I think I’m already lost in you,” she said honestly, stripped emotionally naked by their mutual desire. Her hand shook as she fitted the key in the ignition.
He turned her face up to his, bent and kissed her fiercely, love and hunger torrenting through the mate bond, before he stepped back, closed the door, and slapped the roof of the car, indicating that she drive off.
She lowered the window, instead. “I’ll drive you to your car.”
“It’s not far and I can’t be in that small space with you. I’ll run off the wild on the way to my car. Drive safe. I’ll be five minutes behind you.”
She watched him in the rear view mirror. He waited for her to drive off before he ran for his car, moving lightly yet powerfully, as he’d move when he made love to her. She shuddered galvanically, and concentrated on her driving.
Jet was behind her when she parked in her driveway. He parked next door, at his house, and vaulted ove
r the broken fence between their front yards to wrap an arm around her. No words, just being there.
A night owl, Uma was still awake and watching television when they walked into the living room. “Everything okay?”
Delphi smiled at her cousin. “The girl’s safe, she’s with Arlee. We’re safe. Thank you for watching the kids.”
“No problem. They haven’t woken once.” Uma stood, stretched and grabbed her jacket. “Now, I have a dance party calling my name.” Plus, her grin suggested she was giving them privacy.
Jet’s hand stroking Delphi’s hip was an unashamed statement of how they intended to spend the night. “Thanks,” he said briefly.
The door closed behind Uma. Jet picked up Delphi and ran upstairs. “Can you do that thing where the kids can’t hear us?”
She concentrated, pushing aside her awe that he carried her so easily. Were strength, perhaps? “Done.”
“Just in time.” He put her down inside her bedroom and closed the door. He took off his boots, tore off his shirt, and kicked off his jeans, his boxers going with them.
Desire punched Delphi low in her gut, wrenching a moan from her. From the mate bond poured passion like fire, heating her. “I could come just looking at you.”
Jet grinned, slow and sexy. “Wait till I’m inside you, gorgeous.” He undressed her, taking his time, making them both wait.
She kissed his chest, licked a taut nipple, and touched him everywhere, loving how his breathing roughened but his hands remained deft and gentle. At his coaxing, she stepped out of her jeans and panties, and then, they were both naked.
The passion streaming through the mate bond was as if someone had set honey on fire. It stroked and fed and incited them. They rolled on the bed, skin to skin, everything causing pleasure, until Jet entered her. Then it wasn’t pleasure. Pleasure was too small a word. It was annihilation. Delphi didn’t exist anymore. Nor did Jet. They were one being, fiercely united in chasing completion, and finding it together.
She screamed and he swallowed the sound, his own roar a growl in his chest. He lay a moment over her, his weight an anchor that brought her back to her body. Then he rolled, bringing her with him, keeping them entangled.
His eyes, gold, wild and satisfied, smiled into hers.
Happiness. It was there in the mate bond and it danced in her soul.
They’d avoided the first part of her prophecy. She hadn’t needed to avenge Jet. He was safe and so was everyone they cared about. Mist had been rescued. The girl hadn’t become another lost person to haunt Jet. And…“I love you.” She would say it every day, at least once a day, because she meant it with all her heart.
He threaded his fingers through her hair and guided her mouth to his. “I love you, Delphi.”
The morning was crazy for how normal it seemed. Tony and Grace bounced through breakfast and raced up and down the stairs getting ready for school, all the time talking about the cat and dog they’d have.
Delphi stole a quiet moment when they were upstairs to whisper to Jet. “I forgot to ask. Can weres have pets or are other animals scared of you? You know, do they know you can shift into a bear?”
Jet’s raised coffee mug failed to hide his smile. “Pets don’t mind us. Those who grow up with us even get used to our shifted form. Well, some of them do. I had a German shepherd as a kid. Great dog. He’d wrestle with me when I was a bear.”
“Oka-ay.”
He laughed at her shock and gave her a quick, coffee-flavored kiss before the kids raced back into the kitchen.
“Uncle Jet, when can we get Mousey?” Grace asked.
Today was Thursday. Delphi would have loved to promise the little girl her much-wanted cat on the weekend, but who knew what today and tomorrow would bring? Delphi and Jet had to deal with the Collegium today, and more importantly, Jet still had to catch Graham and the lesser evil, Ian Lewis. There could be no promises until then.
“I’m not sure, honey.”
Grace’s mouth drooped. Her shoulders sagged. In the doorway behind her, Tony froze as if shot. But neither child protested. It was heartbreaking that they were so accustomed to disappointment, and too uncertain of belonging to argue, as Delphi’s niece and nephew would have, for their pets.
“We have to get the house ready for a cat and dog first,” Jet continued, calmly. “Mousey will need a basket, a litter tray, and a scratching post. We need to buy food, and food and water bowls. For the puppy, too.”
“And it’ll need a basket, too, Uncle Jet.” Tony bounced forward, his confidence in Jet restored.
“And a basket or bed for the puppy.” Jet nodded and crouched as Grace dashed to hug him. He hugged her gently. “I need to make sure Delphi’s backyard is safely fenced so that our puppy won’t escape.”
“We have lots to do!” Tony said importantly, then a bit shyly, hugged Jet.
“Yes, we do,” Jet agreed, returning the boy’s hug.
Delphi sniffed. It wasn’t romantic, but it was sniff or cry. The mate bond between her and Jet had settled after last night’s tumult, but tenderness ran through it now.
He smiled at her before asking the kids, “Now, do you have everything you need for school?”
Tony and Grace ran back up the stairs to check and to use up some of their excited energy.
Jet straightened. “I intend to have a word with Grace’s teacher. One of the girls in Grace’s class tried to make her feel bad that her mom was dead.”
“Kids don’t always understand how their words affect others.” Delphi attempted to be fair as protective anger bubbled up inside her. “But that’s wrong!”
“The teacher will sort it out.” Jet hesitated. “Will you wait for me or face the Collegium alone?”
Oh, so that’s what he’s worried about. Sweet. But Delphi didn’t fear her colleagues. “I need to speak to Tyrone, my boss, so I’d best get in.” There was also Excalibur to consider. She wouldn’t be taking the subway this morning, not carrying a sword, so she needed to go, now. Traffic would be hell. “Call me when you get to the Collegium.”
The kids ran in and Delphi caught Grace and swung the girl in a laughing circle, giving her that little extra attention because her supposed friend had been mean to her. “Good-bye. Be good.” Delphi set Grace down, smoothed Tony’s ruffled hair, and kissed Jet an in-front-of-the-kids good-bye. Excalibur was hidden from the kids under Delphi’s coat, so she gathered both up together and left.
At the Collegium her boss was in early, and Tyrone wasn’t much interested in Delphi’s transgression in removing Excalibur from headquarters without permission. What fascinated him was how Excalibur had broken a translocation spell. “That there is serious magic.” Tyrone swung Excalibur. “I don’t feel anything.” Anything magical, he meant.
Delphi sat on the edge of his desk. “It doesn’t test as magical. It’s just an old sword, except in the presence of evil, then it glows.”
“But it also tracks evil and can swallow it.” Tyrone passed the sword back to Delphi. “And it seems bonded to you?”
“Possibly,” she said cautiously.
“Study it some more.” Tyrone walked around his desk and dropped into his chair, the old chair rocking with his weight. “It might be an object whose power increases with use. Record everything, every detail.”
Delphi nodded.
Tyrone laced his fingers over his pot belly. He was an enthusiastic cook in his spare time and enjoyed his own efforts. So did the alchemists department when he brought in cookies and cake. “If you have any trouble with the guardians, let me know.”
“Thanks.” Delphi’s response was brief, but she appreciated her boss’s willingness to let his people fend for themselves. It encouraged resourcefulness and tenacity. However, he always backed them up.
Like now, with Arlee.
Tyrone picked up his phone. “I’ll tell Arlee to take whatever time she needs to stay with the girl. Mist, was it? Poor kid. She’ll be confused. I’ll get our welfare staff to intervene and arrang
e for Arlee to have temporary custody.” The Collegium had tentacles everywhere.
Arlee had phoned Delphi earlier. The hospital had kept Mist in overnight and Arlee had stayed with her. Delphi had activated her own support network—her family—and her dad was already on his way to the hospital to provide Mist with legal representation. With or without Collegium intervention, Mist would be released to Arlee’s care, and Arlee would have the Cosmatos Clan’s support. Nan was making her chicken noodle soup. Delphi knew all this because she’d talked with her mom on the drive in to the Collegium.
She took a deep breath as she left Tyrone’s office. It had been a busy twenty four hours.
Her phone rang. Jet. Just his name and the thought of talking to him sent a flood of happy hormones through her body.
“I’m here,” he said. “Kora wants to meet with us.”
And there went her happy hormones, fizzling out. “Now?”
“Yes. Her office. If you can make it?” A muttered word, impolite. “Sorry. I’m parking and some idiot…okay. You there?”
She smiled. “I’m here. I’ll meet you in the foyer and we can go up to Kora’s office together.” Jet agreed and hung up, and she slipped her phone into the pocket of her dark gray trousers. She swung Excalibur thoughtfully. No, she couldn’t take the sword with her to the public foyer. Mundane visitors—those who didn’t know about magic’s existence—would be freaked. She stashed the sword in her office, secured the ward on the door, and hurried down to meet Jet.
He came through the front door looking big, calm and utterly in control. Then he saw her and smiled.
The rightness of being with the person you loved flowed through their mate bond.
Delphi waited for him to reach her where she stood near the elevators. Guardians watched them, but she didn’t care that she was smiling giddily, newly in love. She did note, though, that none of the guardians showed even subtle disapproval of Jet’s presence.
Their meeting with Kora, commander of the guardians, might be interesting.
“Did you meet with your boss?” Jet asked as they waited for an elevator to arrive.
“Tyrone’s cool with Arlee and my actions, and he says I should keep using Excalibur.” An elevator’s doors opened and she walked in, standing close to Jet.
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