13. Chapter 13
“What is everyone thinking?” Raz asked, glancing around the conference table at Lewis, Sid, and Caige.
Kate had left to grab them Chinese after her hours-long explanation.
An irrational thought had him feeling like she might leave and never return, but she’d been too much of a team leader, standing there painstakingly going over each minute detail, for her to run now.
She’d come prepared—the strategy flawless for someone who didn’t know them.
His attitude shift had seemed to surprise her when he’d grilled her over every detail.
That was something he would do with his own team, making sure every scenario was planned out to mitigate any risks.
But she had met every question with an answer or, to his heart’s detriment, worked with the team rather than just herself to come to a solution.
No wonder the police couldn’t catch her. He had only caught her because she let him. The trust she had in them, and their capabilities, warmed him. But that didn’t mean his team wanted to take the risk.
“I don’t trust her,” Sid said. “We can’t check that her motives are sound. She went through a lot of effort to find us, but I’m not above thinking it’s an elaborate setup. If Midnight kills us at the bottom of the ocean, there will be no evidence.”
Sid’s implication clawed seething heat up Raz’s back. “She’s not Midnight.”
Sid gave Raz a pointed look. “Sorry if I don’t trust the judgment of the guy sleeping with her.”
The truth doused chilly water over Raz.
“We all know it’s more than that,” Lewis chimed in.
“And that seriously fucks everything up.” Sid threw up his hands.
Sid was right. Raz trusted her intentions and character.
But risking his body and soul was very different from leading his team into danger.
Desperation could make the best person choose the worst decisions, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone he trusted used him and hurt people he cared for.
And that’s why he needed their opinions.
“Two coincidences don’t definitively say she’s Midnight,” Lewis said. “And we don’t know Midnight’s true motivations, even if they point to a cold-blooded killer.”
That was three opinions, and as a group, they turned to the last member.
Caige sighed, arms crossed. “Kate has to attend the Hackers Gala and get the security codes before we can enter the submarine. She didn’t have to include us in that part of the plan, so let’s use it to our advantage and gain more intel before we decide.”
“Practical Caige comes to the rescue as always,” Lewis said.
Raz grinned along with the rest of the team.
“We agree, then?” Raz asked as Kate’s delicious scent wrapped around his senses. Kate had entered the bar. His tense muscles relaxed into the seat.
Everyone nodded.
Lewis stood. “In that case, let’s try not to interrogate her and enjoy a meal together.” Lewis opened the door as she lifted her full arms as if to knock.
“Oh…” She cleared her throat. “What’s the verdict?”
“We’ll help you with this first part as a trial and decide from there.”
Her chin wobbled as if she suppressed the joy that already spilled into her eyes. The tear that escaped tugged at his heart. Please don’t let me be wrong about you.
Raz couldn’t stop staring at Kate.
Her laughter from something Lewis said bubbled a smile to his lips as they sat around the conference table, sharing in the Chinese food spread across the table.
Large family-sized dishes held everything from fried rice entrees to crab rangoon.
Kate’s expression was alight. The serious gleam in her eyes seemed to dissipate.
Raz’s muscles loosened. He had hated to see her close in, especially knowing he was the culprit for walking out on her.
“So dragons need medics?” Kate asked, placing the chopsticks she used with expert ease softly on her makeshift chopstick rest.
Lewis chuckled. “Yes, there are Healer dragons. A spirit wound on our dragon can be fatal for the mortal body. I have to heal both the spirit and the human form.”
“Makes sense.” She shrugged. “Fallen can detach into a spirit form and make it solid enough to act human and even get injured. We can only heal by using a host’s energy, even if that’s our own human body.”
Her face brightened as if she never talked about her Fallen side with anyone. She’d taken the knowledge about the dragons in stride, while he had doubted the Fallen when he first heard about them. She was as much open-minded as she was perceptive, and he found the combination attractive.
“And what made you interested in tech?” she asked Sid, who had his face plastered to his laptop screen, an egg roll stuck in his mouth. The hit Raz had given him earlier under the eye was darkening to purple.
“Numbers make better company than humans…or dragons.”
“Hey,” Lewis smacked him on the shoulder.
Sid grinned. That was one thing about the introvert Raz could rely on: his blunt honesty.
Kate glanced around the room. “I get their roles in this group, Caige being the Mirage in all, but what do you do, Raz?”
Spittle landed on Raz’s arm as Lewis, laughing, choked on his water.
Despite the hit to his pride, Raz chuckled and grabbed napkins to dry his arm. “I’m the muscle.”
She pointed at Lewis again and deadpanned. “I think the healer has you beaten.”
“Oh,” Lewis exclaimed, teasingly throwing a fortune cookie at Kate, which landed in her lap. “I knew I’d like you in person. You’re my kind of gal.”
Despite her mockery, or because of it, Raz’s gaze locked with hers. He lost himself in her dark and playful gaze as he had during sex. His fists clenched, wanting to crush her black bob between his fingers and suck her bottom lip between his teeth. He wanted to hear her giggle again as she came.
His thoughts stopped cold, and he looked at his plate and dug into his food. Apologize. He needed to apologize first. The sooner the better. As Raz ate his spicy General Tso’s chicken, his jaw twinged from the hit Sid had given him.
Lewis said, “In all cliché fairness, Raz is the glue that holds us together.”
“I’d have left their sorry asses ages ago if it weren’t for him,” Sid muttered.
Caige grunted as if in agreement.
Heat centered at Raz’s heart and flushed up his neck.
Lewis laughed. “This man carried my hallucinating ass across the desert even when I was screaming how much I hated him. Could have parked me in the shade and come back, but he nearly killed himself carrying me.”
“You don’t leave anyone behind.” A motto Raz would live by until he died.
Kate coughed and sucked in air before coughing again, partially choking on whatever she had eaten. Raz tensed, ready to assist if needed, but she held up her hand in a stopping motion.
“You good?” Lewis asked.
She nodded and took a drink of water. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”
“Oh, look. I found your programming code problem,” Sid mumbled, half-eaten egg roll in hand.
“What? Really?” Kate rose to her feet and walked around the table to Sid. “Let me see.”
“There”—Sid pointed to something on his laptop screen—“you missed closing this part.”
Kate leaned across his shoulder. The near contact between the two felt like someone shoved a red-hot poker up Raz’s spine.
The pressure in his skull had steadily been building to a peak, and it reached eruption level.
His fists twitched, muscles flexing throughout his entire body as his dragon pushed against his skin, filling the surrounding room.
Caige yanked Sid’s chair away from Kate.
Had he not, Raz might have reactively jumped over the table to give Sid another black eye.
As it was, his energy sought to dominate the room, and the other dragons rose to the challenge, creating a fierce ache in his head—the pressure of all the fighting forces a heated powerhouse against his skin.
Kate’s angry gaze flew to Raz, her hands on her hips.
“What the hell is going on? What’s with the pressure? ”
Raz cleared his scratchy throat and tried to offer her a grin. “Dragons are terribly territorial.”
“What does that—?”
Lewis cut her off, voice tight with alarm. “Raz, you’re going to have to…”
“Yeah. I know. I’ll get some air.” He needed to remove his dragon’s attitude from the others before he started a fight between everyone. Leaving the room, he sucked the dominating vibes with him until they pulsed hot against his skin.
He unlocked the front door and exited into the city.
Taking a deep breath, his Insight filled with the spirit essences of every human on the street and in their cars.
Each paw print of every dog or cat that walked the sidewalks.
The energies crammed his brain to the brim, masking the urgency to Mark Kate.
He headed straight for the parking garage and climbed up the steps to the fifth floor, taking three at a time. Once he reached the top, he breathed in through his nose and out of his mouth and paced beside his car.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kate’s sharp tone cut through him. “Seriously, how can we get anything done when you keep leaving me—err—us?”
She followed me without my noticing? He closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her spirit essence, purity and metal, even as his dragon threatened to blind him.
“Kate.” He turned toward her, and a car honked behind her. A couple walked to their SUV. “Not here. Will you come with me?”
“What? Where?” She walked closer to him with drawn eyebrows.
“Somewhere more private. I need to explain myself. I didn’t mean to fuck this up.” He took the last step toward her, his instinct to crush his lips to hers. Claim her with his dragon. Instead, he leaned his forehead against hers.
She didn’t back away.
Sweet relaxation filled his head, like a painkiller taking effect. Her hands on his abdomen were soothing. She tilted her head against his, hands moving up his chest to around his neck. Her lips whisked against his as if she too couldn’t resist the pull. The light touch sent lightning through him.
“Raz…” her voice quivered with vulnerability.
“Please come with me.” He leaned back, studying her. The explanation he needed to give her required a more private location. His heart thundered as he thought her hesitation was her finding a way to deny him.
Instead, she nodded. “Let’s go.”