Chapter 32 Rune #2
Aura and Hawk didn’t pass their mission. Aura’s imp magic popped off halfway through, blinding the supernatural they needed intel from. Hawk tried to cover for her, but it only made them suspicious, and the guard threw them out.
Jarvins sighed, tapped his tablet, and cut the simulation short with a ding.
“Extra drills for you two,” Jarvins announced dryly.
Aura groaned, covering her golden pendant with her hand.
Hawk muttered something about it being his fault, but Aura shoved him with her elbow, her ears burning red.
The screen went black.
“Dimitri and Rune, you’re up,” Jarvins called.
The silence between Dimitri and I stretched thin.
My hand twitched against my thigh. “Ready?”
His red eyes slid toward me. “Try not to make us fail.”
I smirked. “I’ll be the one making us win. I beat you last time.”
He huffed, but he didn’t reply as we walked inside.
“Kill it, venom baby!” Slater cheered.
Zuko elbowed him. “As perfect as she is, we’re trying to beat their score.”
“But she’s our mate,” Slater whined. “I have to cheer for her.”
“You can’t go easy on her either,” Zuko snapped, but there was a hint of affection in his tone. “She’d kick our asses if we let her win.”
“Letting her win and cheering her on are two different things,” Slater grumbled.
The simulator’s door shut and swallowed us whole. The scene built around us with fae light, velvet curtains, and a shit ton of smoke. Music boomed, vibrating through the floorboards.
A large bar gleamed under the floating fae orbs.
Patrons lounged in different areas, and many of them looked sketchy enough to be targets.
Three supernaturals glowed faintly in my vision as the simulator marked them for us: a banshee woman stacking chips; a fae man with too-bright fire red hair; and a bored-looking warlock tapping a pen between tattooed fingers.
Our glamours slid into place, and the information about our covers popped up in front of us.
Sally and Spunk. They were absolutely terrible cover names. We were info dealers who’d apparently rather kiss than kill but would happily do both for the right price. And we were…mated. Fated, arranged, or chosen, it didn’t say. But my stomach flipped at the word mated.
“Fantastic,” Dimitri grumbled, swiping away the text with a jerky motion. “Let’s go.”
“Be nice, yeah?” I whispered. “You are my mate. Aren’t you?”
He tensed but gave me a jerky nod. We moved in sync toward the table in the darkest corner. Dimitri’s hand found the small of my back, and mine slipped around his waist.
We sat right next to each other, and a server glided over.
“Order?” he asked robotically.
I leaned into Dimitri’s shoulder and smiled up at the server, feeling Dimitri tense. “Something spicy,” I said. “He loves spice too. Right, Spunk?”
Dimitri’s mouth curved in a lazy, dangerous smile. “Of course, Sally.”
“Spicy drinks for two,” the waiter replied.
Under the table, our fingers threaded. He trembled under my touch in a way that made my skin buzz.
We listened, zeroing our supernatural hearing in on the three targets, as the waiter walked away.
The banshee said nothing useful. She complained only about the smoke giving her a headache.
The fae bargained with a woman who couldn’t look more uninterested, but the way his magic was buzzing around him made me suspicious.
The warlock murmured softly to a courier whose hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Try not to fail us,” I repeated the same thing he told me before we started, gaze flicking toward the warlock. I was almost positive he was our guy, and it wasn’t even him who gave himself away. It was the courier.
But…it could’ve also been the fae. His magical essence was going crazy.
The only thing I knew was that it wasn’t the banshee, who had already set her head down on her arms to take a nap.
“I wouldn’t,” he murmured back, thumb sweeping once against my palm, “but you might.”
“Me?” I gasped.
“Definitely not me.” He cracked a smile, as if he were really entertained by himself before dropping his voice even lower. “Remember, the code phrase should be hidden in casual conversation among our three targets. I think it’s the warlock.”
I pursed my lips and studied the warlock and the fae closer this time.
The fae had an overconfident smirk on his lips while the warlock looked frustrated.
“Tell him now,” the warlock snapped.
The courier nodded and rushed out of the bar.
“You don’t know who I am,” the fae told the woman he spoke to. “That’s the only reason you won’t agree to the bargain, but I’m telling you, I have some information you might want to hear.”
“Not interested,” she sighed.
“I know the mission. I’ll get closer to make sure we aren’t missing anything,” I said sweetly, peeling away from his side and drifting through the crowd toward our fae target, letting my instincts guide me.
The fae’s gaze slid to me. I moved as if I were bait, drawing his attention from the other supernatural he’d been chatting up with ease.
The woman had taken her chance to leave, so I slipped into her seat across from the fae.
“Hi, I’m Sally,” I purred, fluttering my eyelashes at him. “What’s your poison?”
The fae’s blazing red eyes raked down to my cleavage and stayed there. “Anything you’d offer.”
“I’m not inclined to offer anything without some kind of encouragement.” I leaned forward, letting my breasts spill out of the sweetheart neckline of this fancy cocktail dress.
“Encouragement? After you just let my contract scurry away?” Flames licked up his fingers as he tapped them on the table. “Regardless, I’m very motivated to give you encouragement, Sally. Especially if you make a bargain with me. What do you want from this contract?”
“I’m a collector of information, if you will,” I explained.
His eyes didn’t meet mine. They were still glued to my breasts. This patron was a creep.
“I have some information.” He smiled slyly. “Any you could possibly want.”
“What were you going to tell her?” I pursed my lips into a pout.
“Make a contract with me, and I’ll tell you,” he whispered lustfully.
“My mate is not making a contract with a fae.” Dimitri’s hand gripped my wrist and tugged me up and into his chest. I was suffocated by cinnamon and nutmeg and a feeling of home as I caught myself on his pecs. “I’ll give you an ultimatum. Tell us the information, and I won’t kill you.”
“Well, that’s no fun.” The fae sighed, moving his gaze from my boobs to Dimitri’s eyes before freezing.
“Tell us the information you were going to tell that woman,” Dimitri compelled him.
“Ice bleeds,” he croaked.
Dimitri broke eye contact and guided me away from the fae and toward the warlock instead, who was scribbling something on a napkin.
He lowered his head to my ear. “Try not to enjoy this too much.”
“Enjoy a creepy fae staring at my boobs? I didn’t. Oh, and jealousy doesn’t suit you,” I whispered.
“Neither does betrayal,” he said, voice velvet over a knife. “For this simulation, you’re my mate. Act like it. Let’s both stick to what we’re good at and get the code words.”
My heart swelled as I nodded. “Okay, but I feel like those were the code words.”
“Could be, but let’s make sure before we tell the bartender,” he replied as we moved through the crowd and glanced at the napkin the warlock wrote on.
He wrote the same two words over and over again:
Ice bleeds.
Dimitri and I traded a glance.
That had to be it.
We turned toward the bar when a guard peeled off the wall and cut us off. “You two. Names.”
My gaze widened a fraction as Dimitri stepped into my space. He cupped my jaw and pressed his mouth to my cheek in a slow, deliberate kiss.
It set my skin on fire.
“Sally and Spunk,” he answered the guard in a bored tone. “Do you always harass members?”
“Members? Carry on.” The guard bowed his head left.
“That was good.” My magic flickered, as if responding to his proximity, and my fingers dug into his wrist.
His lashes lowered as he stared down at me. “I have a suitable partner for this mission.”
I gasped dramatically. “You think I’m suitable?”
After letting out a breath, we turned away, the sound of the crowd growing louder as we moved toward the bar.
Dimitri rapped on the bar with his knuckles and muttered, “Ice bleeds.”
The bartender blinked twice before she nodded.
The simulation shattered, and we walked out to see Jarvins and the rest of our squad waiting for us.
“Are you going to let go of my girlfriend?” Slater teased, staring at where we were still holding hands.
“Our girlfriend,” Zuko muttered with an eye roll.
“Very convincing mission,” Jarvins said dryly. He tipped his head toward our hands, beady eyes gleaming. “Too convincing?”
Heat flashed up my neck as Dimitri dropped my hand like it burned him.
I flipped my hair off my shoulder and smiled. “Fake it ’til you make it. That’s the assignment, right?”
Jarvins’s smirk said he didn’t believe me. “Pass,” he said. “Both of you.”
My palm still felt the shape of Dimitri’s in it. I snuck a glance to find him staring straight ahead, jaw tight, like nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened, so why the Fates did it feel like something big happened?