Chapter 11 #2
“I don’t mean for travel, I mean… never mind. I think Elinor should go with you.” I don’t know why. I really don’t. If anything, if I’m really concerned there might be danger, it makes more sense for it to be Gideon—he can teleport. But it has to be Elinor.
Alistair’s stopped typing and is watching me with his face set in an uncustomarily serious expression. He gets up and comes around his desk to lean against it.
“Something we need to know?”
That same question is written on all their faces and screaming in the back of my mind, but I shake my head. “I don’t know. I just think it would be better if Ellie went with you.”
David nods slowly. “Okay. I’ll call her and let Percy know. Anything else you can think of?”
It’s a testament to how long he and I have worked together and how much he trusts me that he asks that. My instincts don’t always kick in, and they never provide nice, neat directions, but following them has always mitigated disaster in the past.
I shrug helplessly. “I don’t know. It… will be better if you take Elinor, but not good. So be careful.” I search the recesses of my soul for any niggle that could give us more information. “I’ll meditate on it tonight and see if that makes anything clearer.”
David’s nod this time is sharp, precise. “There are some contingency plans I can put in place. And I have a cache of emergency weaves I can activate and have ready. Whether something goes wrong or not, we’ll be ready.”
I guess that’s all I can ask.
Two days later, that low-level dread is still buzzing through my veins and driving me and everyone who comes into contact with me insane.
I can barely sit still. David and Elinor have been sending back a steady stream of positive reports, but the danger vibe is so strong, I can almost taste it.
I hate waiting. I want to be there with them, but the presence of yet another member of our team on the West Coast would make it hard to hide the fact that we’re there.
Plus, Noah’s here, and despite the fact that our ruse is working, he is still at risk. I couldn’t just leave him unprotected.
More important, I don’t want to leave him.
Living together, even when it was platonic, really forged a connection between us.
Even if we’d never ended up having sex, eventually we would have morphed into close friends.
We complement each other so very well, and I can’t deny how much I like him just for who he is.
More than that, being around him feeds something in me.
I’ve lived a long time, known a lot of people, been in a lot of relationships.
With Noah, I can be myself in a way that’s so rare—and I want him to be himself.
Let all his shields and guards down. Add to that the stupendous sex, and I never want to let him go.
Being without him for more than a few hours would make me miserable.
But that sounds selfish when stacked up against the possible mortal danger two of my teammates and close friends could maybe be in. So instead we’ll say I’m staying purely to protect him.
If anything’s going to happen, it will likely be tonight.
Elinor called before to advise that all our people are in place to take down Tish, and the human government has finally lined up all its pieces and is able to support us.
By that, I mean strings have been pulled by the few humans who know about us, and their agent on the inside has been fed some bullshit story about who we are and why we’re taking Tish out.
Whatever. Better that the humans stay ignorant for now.
So tonight is when David and Ellie will be facing down Tish and taking him into custody.
It’s also when there’s the greatest risk of exposing the community to the humans in the fundamentalist cult.
Is it any wonder that I’m a mess? Gideon should be ashamed of himself for kicking me out of the office halfway through the afternoon.
He and I, in an attempt to make things seem as normal as possible to anyone who might be observing—including the source of the leak we think we don’t have but can’t be sure about —have left our better halves safely behind wards at home for the past two days while we made the trek into the office.
As I’m sure you can imagine, neither of us have been fun to be around, to the point that Alistair, the only other team member left in the office, went to work in the breakroom and is telling everyone he comes across that we’re “churlish boors.” (Incidentally, Alistair is only just old enough to have been around when that expression was in use, and I question whether it was ever a part of his vocabulary.) The story circulating around the office is that Sam and Noah both have food poisoning after getting takeout for lunch.
Alistair assures us that the excuse works perfectly, as it comes with the implied explanation that Gideon and I haven’t been getting any for the past two days and that’s why we’re irritable asswipes.
That may have been the first time I fully understood why Gideon sometimes wants to maim Alistair. I even considered doing it myself. Just a little bit. He wouldn’t die from it or anything.
Anyway, Gideon’s so used to being the grumpy bastard himself that he has no patience when other people are in slightly unhappy moods, and so he called me all sorts of names and demanded I get out.
Don’t worry, though—I got the last word when I announced I was going home to work with Noah and he realized he could have seized the advantage to walk out, blame me, and spend the afternoon with Sam.
Seeing that look on his face did almost as much to improve my mood as getting home to find Noah taking a swim break.
Naked.
Of course, the downside of a naked swim break that somehow turns into a fuck on a sun lounger while I promise that none of the other buildings around us can see the terrace and pray to any deity that may exist that he never finds out otherwise is that you have to make up the time lost. Which is why Noah and I are still working at nearly seven thirty.
We would probably have been finished by now, except I can’t concentrate.
The minutes are ticking down to when David and Elinor will be springing their trap.
They should be nearly in place around the compound now, although of course they’ve gone non-contact.
So, you know, I have no way to know what’s going on.
If things have gone horribly wrong. If they’re dead and Tish is on the loose, hunting down my lover who I’ve finally found after centuries of searching.
That last bit was a bit more dramatic than I intended. But the thought of losing Noah sends chills through me like I’ve never experienced before.
“Okay, that’s it. We have to find a way to shut your brain up before I lobotomize you!”
Ah, the dulcet tones of my love.
“What?” I’m a little hurt. I haven’t even spoken for the last thirty minutes.
“I can hear you thinking, Andrew. You can’t sit still, and I swear, if you sigh one more time, I’m putting duct tape over your nose and mouth. You’d think you were fucking auditioning for the role of the big bad wolf.”
It takes me a few seconds to get that reference—when you predate children’s fairy tales, they don’t always become enmeshed in your brain—but when I do, I throw up my hands. “Forgive me for having a soul!”
He rolls his eyes. “Come on, get dressed.”
“Why?” I cross my arms over my chest, but I definitely do not pout.
“I left some notes I need at the office, and we both need to eat, so we’re going to the office, and then while I go up to get the paperwork, you’re going to get us takeout from that Sri Lankan place you love.”
As if on cue, my stomach rumbles, and he grins.
“It’ll do us both good to get out, and fuck knows you need a distraction,” he continues, but I don’t need any more convincing.
Twenty minutes later, I find a parking spot just yards from the entrance to the building that houses the CSG. There’s hardly any traffic in this area at this time in the evening, which meant a speedy journey and also allows me to better judge the danger level.
Noah leans over the center console and kisses my cheek, shocking me so much that my breath stutters. That kind of casually affectionate gesture is new for him. I really like it.
“Go get dinner. I’ll meet you at the restaurant.”
I hesitate, because since this whole mess started, he hasn’t been alone in a public space, and while I know the CSG offices are secure, the street between here and the Sri Lankan place two blocks over is not.
He huffs, knowing what I’m thinking without me having to say a word. “Fine. I’ll wait for you in the building lobby. But as soon as I see you coming, I’m coming out.”
“I can live with that,” I concede. The shared lobby isn’t as secure as the CSG offices, but a security swipe card and code are needed to gain access after hours, so he’ll at least be behind locked doors and have some warning if someone tries to get in.
We part ways, and I spend the walk to the restaurant trying not to think of all the things that could go wrong for David and Elinor.
By the time I get there, I’ve given up on that and am actively counting off all the things that could go wrong for David and Elinor.
I’m up to thirty-eight when I go up to order.
I sit in one of the chairs for people awaiting takeout, counting myself lucky there’s one free, and am just about to resume counting—I wonder how many things I can come up with?—when my phone rings.
It’s Percy, and my heartbeat picks up. I answer on my way to the door, waving with one hand to the cashier so she knows where I am, and tapping my Bluetooth earpiece with the other.
“Percy, hey, what’s happened?” The glass door closes behind me, and I move a few paces down the sidewalk, out of the way of traffic and away from listening ears.
“Hold on, I’ll conference you in.” He sounds grim, which is a very bad sign. “Andrew, are you still there?”
“Yes. What happened?”