Chapter 23
Josh
Ifrowned and stood up from the bed as the wall turned clear and started to open.
Yanesh wasn’t due for another visit that I was aware of, not that I had any means to keep track of time.
Even my sad attempts to keep better tabs on how long I’d been down here had gone out the window since my breakdown, and considering I was in wolf form half the time anyway, the moon wasn’t much help either.
I walked to the center of the room and waited patiently for whatever dignitary had come to ogle the latest addition to the government’s secret hoard of criminals too politically dangerous to be allowed in even a maximum-security prison.
It was odd, though, that they opened the door rather than view safely from a distance.
The clear glass finished sliding back, and to my infinite surprise, my lawyer stepped inside.
He wore his trademark fine Italian suit that cost more than most people made in a year and did absolutely nothing to make him stand out.
The nondescript appearance may have been something Lombardi hadn’t chosen, but I pitied the soul who made the mistake of underestimating him.
No one should ever make the mistake of underestimating a dragon.
“Detective Hart.” I still found it amusing that he’d retained the slight lilt of an accent after all these years.
“Lombardi.”
“You officially have a court date.” He reached for the micro data tab that he typically kept in his suit’s inner pocket, then sighed when he found the pocket bare. That alone confirmed that he’d used the legal process to be here.
“It’s about time.” I covered my sigh of relief and reached for a handshake to give his suddenly anxious hands something to do. Lombardi had been a meticulous man for as long as I’d known him. Even being intentionally ill-prepared would bother him to no end.
His mouth twisted into a frown. “You seem to be implying that acquiring said date was in any way a trivial task. It was not. The legal gamut alone that I was forced to traverse could inspire great epics. Not to mention the paperwork and clearance levels required to get to this moment. I could be mistaken, but I’m quite certain you were not meant to be found.
So, do refrain from insinuating that I ‘took my time’,” he said, sneering at the colloquialism.
“You were fully aware of the risks when you—”
I held up a hand before he could say too much and surreptitiously glanced around the room.
“Of course.”
“Are my affairs settled?”
A hint of anxiety entered his fire-filled eyes. “All of your affairs are in order. There is, however, one final piece that needs your attention.” He stepped away, leaving me to stare after him in confusion.
“Is it the property? I told you how I wanted that handled. You don’t need me for that.”
Rather than alleviate my concerns, he continued to retreat until he was outside the room. He glanced to the side where the panel rested and made a subtle come-forward gesture.
The figure stepped free of the wall, and I forgot how to breathe. I blinked several times, suddenly uncertain if I’d ever actually been awake. “Elijah?” I blinked again for good measure, but he was still there. “Are you really here?”
The man who had to be a figment of my imagination, a delusional dream I’d concocted during my latest break with reality, walked into my cell. Ambient light reflected off his gray hair and made his cognac eyes shine like pools of amber. “Hey, moonbeam.”
The bond pulsed weakly in my chest. Then, like a dam bursting after a storm, it erupted with light.
I gasped at the force of it and clutched my chest. Without a second thought, I launched myself at him.
I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, while he encircled my waist and crushed me against him.
I hiccuped a sob into his neck as the heat of his touch warmed my cooler skin and his summery scent filled my nose.
He smelled like sunshine and earth and outside, like freedom and love all rolled into a big ball of warmth.
My brain finally kicked in, and I pushed back. “Wait. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
He cupped the side of my face, and I leaned into the caress, desperate for his touch. “First things first.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine.
If he hadn’t still had an arm wrapped around my waist, I would have collapsed from the shock of it. The kiss deepened, defined by a hunger that matched my own. The feel of Elijah’s mouth on mine swallowed my whole world. I put my arms back around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth.
When he pulled away, he took my heart with him.
He licked his swollen lips and took a steadying breath.
“Much as I wish we could just do that, I’m here for a reason, and we only have a few more minutes.
” The hand that had been holding my face dipped beneath the collar of his shirt and came back holding the thinnest piece of nano-paper I’d ever seen.
“What’s that?” I whispered. It did not escape my attention that he was carefully keeping the paper obscured from the guard who’d accompanied them.
“I need you to sign it.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll be arrested and thrown into my own cell. I doubt it will be one they'll let us share.”
I took the flimsy page, and it flared to life at my touch, sending colored spots of light dancing across my vision. “Why would they arrest you?” I asked a touch too loudly, then horror squeezed the air from my lungs. “What did you do?”
“I did what I had to in order to see you again,” Elijah hissed. “I still don’t understand why we can’t tell anyone we’re—”
I clapped a hand over his mouth. “Do not be deceived by my isolation.”
He gave me an indignant glare and gently removed my hand. “Have it your way. You and I both know if it were known, it would afford you privileges.”
“I’ve spent my whole life with privileges. Trust me, everything comes with a cost.”
A less than subtle cough came from the entrance.
Elijah huffed and took the page back in order to lay it on his smooth chest. “Hurry up and sign, my time is up.”
“What? Already?”
“Josh, sign. Don’t worry about the dates or the seals, Lombardi is taking care of it.”
I squinted at the overly bright page, trusting it even less now, and tried to discern what in the seven hells was contained in the excessively small script. “How the hell am I supposed to sign something when I don’t know what it is, let alone where the damn line is?”
He grabbed my wrist in a light but firm hold and guided it to what could have been the proverbial dotted line. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you.”
His face softened at my words. “Then sign.”
In a leap of faith, the likes of which I only ever seemed to take when Elijah was involved, I swirled a formal signature while staring deeply into his eyes. “There.”
Lombardi’s silhouette reappeared at the entrance. “Excellent. Now, if you’ll excuse us. We must be going. I have paperwork to collect for your imminent trial.”
Elijah passed him the signed page without a word, still endeavoring to keep it concealed, and Lombardi tucked it out of sight.
I stepped forward to follow them out and only just remembered not to cross the invisible line separating me from the rest of the world. I jolted to a halt, my heart already aching with our imminent separation. The fleeting contact hadn’t been nearly enough.
Suddenly, Elijah spun on his heel and rushed back to me.
He grabbed my face with both hands, then snared me with a fierce kiss that curled my toes with longing.
I wrapped my fingers around his wrists as if I could somehow keep him here.
“I’ll see you again soon.” Elijah’s promise washed over me as Lombardi pulled him back and the wall began sliding shut.
I didn’t look at whoever was operating the controls; I only had eyes for Elijah. The fear in his eyes scared me more than I could ever admit to myself. The glass kissed the wall with a soft hiss of air, and all additional scents and sounds vanished, even the bond’s fierce glow diminished.
“No!” My hand smacked into the glass as I was forced to watch Elijah walk away down a dim corridor without me, the shadows reaching out to obscure his retreating form with each step he took.
“Elijah!” I pounded on the barrier in vain.
He couldn’t hear me, couldn’t even see me as the wall once again became opaque and indiscernible, as the cage it was to the outside world.
Elijah
Back at the hotel, there was nothing to do but fret.
Theodore Lombardi had vanished practically the moment we’d been magicked out of that oppressive hallway to pursue, as he put it, “an endless mountain of paperwork”.
As long as he was able to get the document backdated and filed, I didn’t care if I didn’t see him again until the trial, the date of which he’d conveniently neglected to mention.
But there was absolutely no way I was calling him to demand an answer.
The more time I spent in the unusual man’s company, the more he scared the bark right out of me.
Of course, learning he was some type of dragon only made me more anxious in his company.
I heaved a frustrated sigh into the empty room and raked fingers buzzing with nervous energy through my hair.
Josh had destroyed my usual bun like he always did, and I hadn’t bothered to tie it back again.
Thinking of Josh sent a pang of longing through me.
I’d been almost completely overwhelmed when the bond had suddenly flared to life again at seeing him.
When the wall had slid shut and the bond faded to a glimmer of what it had been only moments before, it had almost destroyed me.