Chapter 9
Chapter nine
She was almost late.
Mira increased her pace, nearly speed walking the final few blocks. She turned and glanced over her shoulder once more, but there was no sign of Dominic.
Yet, she could feel him there.
There was no way in hell he hadn’t followed her. He always followed her. For once, he was staying out of sight.
She was glad. It gave her time to clear her head while ignoring the slight dampness in her underwear. Apparently she had some kind of latent kink for a little hair-pulling, and he’d found it.
That, or he’d given it to her.
Maybe it wasn’t about the hair-pulling, at all. Maybe it was the control. Or his almost feral intensity whenever he drew close.
Dismayed, Mira blinked and shoved the entire topic out of her mind. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t crossing that bridge. Ever.
She smelled the food festival before she turned the corner. The food trucks, carts, and stands had fully taken over the city park for the event. Music blared, and colorful signs beckoned people to sample different cuisines.
Mira tucked her earbuds in her ears and pretended to listen to music. She took out her phone and scanned the local networks, wandering slowly around the park until her unit’s private wi-fi came into range.
She opened the app Aubrey had built and connected her earbuds as a bluetooth headset. “I’m here,” she said.
“Cool,” Aubrey replied in her ear.
“Everyone, get in position. We’ll sound off in ten.” Jackson went silent over the audio feed once more.
Mira could hear the annoyance in his voice. She’d shown up nearly late, and had only replied to the last of his three texts.
She strolled around the park, making note of the event security and police on hand, then headed toward the nearest row of food tables.
“Test flight complete,” Max said over the feed. “Grounding her until go time.”
Mira turned casually and caught sight of the drone zipping by overhead. “Nice paint job.”
“It looks just like a real police drone,” Aubrey added.
“I hope so. It took fucking hours to finish.”
“Keep the comms clear,” Jackson ordered. “Today isn’t a big deal, but save the chatter for later.”
Mira suppressed a sigh and muted her mic as she reached the food stands.
“Christ, Mira,” Dominic muttered beside her, startling her. “Could you be any more predictable? I should’ve just met you here instead of bothering to follow you.”
He’d changed, into a sweatshirt, different jeans, and sneakers. A White Sox ball cap was pulled low over his eyes. It made his square jawline with its few days’ worth of stubble stand out even more.
The entire outfit made him look like someone else entirely. Mira wondered if she’d walked right past him through the park.
He gestured to the black hoodie she’d pulled over her head. “You also stand out like a sore thumb. Every police officer here noticed your arrival.” His eyes continued down, sliding over the black leggings that hugged her ass.
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t look at me like that.”
He glowered, his jaw flexing. “They’re welcomed to fucking try.”
A strange, forbidden thrill went through her. Fighting a smile, she turned and accepted a small plate of falafel from the food stand’s attendant.
Dominic shoved the last bite of pizza into his mouth and dusted his hands, looking back at the food stands.
“You seem really hungry,” she noted.
“Actually, I am.” He looked almost guilty. “It’s a blood sugar thing.”
Mira frowned.
“Here.” She gave him her untouched falafel. “This is more filling than pizza.”
Dominic seemed taken aback. “Thanks.”
“Wait here.”
She hurried back to the food stand, and returned with more falafel for herself, and a plate piled with sliced gyros, pita bread, and tzatziki sauce. “I charmed a little more out of them.”
His falafel had already vanished, and he accepted the new plate without a word. With a few quick movements, he tucked the meat into the pita bread and dug in.
Watching him eat was fascinating, and oddly satisfying. He watched her in turn with heated eyes while he chewed furiously.
She finally glanced down from his hot gaze. “Eyes on the pita bread. I’m not your meal.”
Dominic wolfed down the last bite, and swallowed. “I beg to differ.”
Mira bit her lip, and more heat rushed between her legs at his suggestive voice.
The entire moment felt surreal. She was flirting with a Council Counter-Terrorism agent. Surely, she’d lost her mind.
It was reckless and dangerous. Dominic wasn’t someone she could play around with. One look at his intense eyes, and she knew he didn’t do casual.
You don’t know what possessive looks like.
And he would likely teach her. It’d be nothing like the on-again, off-again relationship she’d had with Jackson that had quickly spluttered out into a tepid friendship.
Dominic’s hard tugs on her hair had been a warning. If she let him sink his teeth into her, he would never let go. He’d own her.
Consume her.
Breathlessly, Mira realized she’d been staring at him for too long without replying. His expression was fierce, and tension radiated from him. Like a predator ready to pounce at the first signal.
It was like staring into the eye of a dangerous storm. She knew it was time to retreat, but she couldn’t seem to move.
Dominic took a small step toward her, his eyes slightly unfocused. “Mira—”
“Comms, in position.”
Aubrey’s voice in her ear shattered the spell. Dominic froze as though he’d also heard it, even though Mira knew it was impossible.
“Distro, in position,” Max said, a few seconds later.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
Slightly unnerved, Mira tossed the remainder of her food into the nearby trash. “It’s been real, but I have somewhere to be.”
She ignored his reply as she turned sharply on her heel and cut a path across the park, toward the empty stage that the last band had just vacated. Her brisk, purposeful stride drew the eyes of the nearby security immediately, but she didn’t slow.
“Megaphone, in position,” Jackson said.
“Mira.”
Dominic’s voice was low and urgent behind her, and approaching quickly. She spun abruptly to face him.
He came up short, eyeing her warily. “There’s a lot of eyes on you, right now,” he murmured. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
Mira held his stare as she briefly unmuted her mic. “Decoy, in position.”
Dominic’s face clouded with confusion. He glanced around in alarm.
“The live stream is now up,” Aubrey said. “Everyone stay clear of the stage, unless you want your mugshot on the evening news.”
“Roger,” Max acknowledged.
Dominic stepped closer to Mira. “What—”
“IMAGINE.”
Jackson’s single, barked word boomed across the park from the hidden loudspeakers, immediately drawing everyone’s attention. He let the echo fade into silence before continuing.
“Imagine waking up tomorrow to discover that a second government had formed, one never ratified into law. You didn’t vote for it, and you sure as fuck didn’t elect it. No executive order decreed it. The Supreme Court never reviewed it. Yet, that’s exactly what’s happened. A new government set up shop right next to the first. With the powers of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, all rolled into fucking one.”
His voice trembled with such barely contained rage that most of the crowd remained frozen, listening. Some lifted their phones to record, panning their cameras around the park as they search for the hidden voice.
Fervent emotion was Jackson’s specialty. The first few times she’d heard him speak, Mira had stood there slack-jawed, too.
One of the event staff scurried over to the stage, checking the speakers before turning to shake his head at the security officers.
“The original government keeps limping along in its usual, ineffective way,” Jackson continued. “Because the new one is only concerned with a third of the country. A third of your neighbors. Its singular goal is to repress, disenfranchise, and incarcerate one-third of humans. That new, unlawful government is the North American Council, and it calls its victims demons.”
The stage’s white backdrop lit up. Somewhere, Aubrey activated her display, projecting an image of the human DNA double-helix structure next to a demon’s DNA, along with a photograph of Professor Rellman.
A police officer glanced at Mira once more in confusion before lifting his shirt to speak into the radio clipped to his uniform.
“Dr. Rellman and his team spent ten years sequencing the DNA of so-called demons across the globe, proving that they’re not a separate species. They’re humans ,” Jackson raged. “His research was taken down by the Council almost immediately. In fact, the media arm of the Council spent over $3.2 billion in 2025 alone to ban news stories that humanize demons. Because if people had the chance to consider what the Council is doing, shit would start getting really fucking uncomfortable.”
Dominic searched the crowds. “Where is he? Where’s Jackson?” His nose twitched, and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the people more closely.
Something about his focus left Mira uneasy. “Hey. You’re stalking me, remember?”
Boldly, she reached out and gently turned his jaw, drawing his eyes back to her once more.
Dominic sucked in a sharp breath at her touch. He caught her hand, trapping it within his own for a few seconds, then dropped it like it’d scalded him.
He ducked his head, and reached under his ball cap to check his eyes, as though adjusting his contacts.
Baffled, she watched his reaction. “Are you afraid of being touched?”
Dominic’s head came up immediately. He tugged her close by her hoodie, until their faces were inches apart. “It isn’t fear, but restraint,” he growled. “If I start touching you, I’ll never stop.”
The booming speech faded from Mira’s ears as she searched his face. Her curious gaze was drawn to his lips, and Dominic’s eyes widened. He leaned closer, his nose brushing hers. She swallowed.
“Deploying distro now,” Max said over comms.
Something landed on Dominic’s ball cap. He looked up, frowning at the small, square cards fluttering from the sky like snow. He caught one, and turned it over.
DEMONS ARE HUMANS, the card stated in block letters, above a QR code.
They both turned when two police cruisers pulled up alongside the curb.
“We’ve got company,” Aubrey announced. “Wrap it up, Magician.”
“Look, there he is!” someone said nearby. Several heads turned toward a food truck.
Jackson was partially obscured in the trees from where he crouched on the truck’s hood, decked in all black with a bandana obscuring his face.
“…change is uncomfortable,” he was shouting into the mic cupped in his hands. “Progress is uncomfortable. Abolish the shadow government. Before it’s our only government.”
He stood, and took a running leap off the top of the truck as three police officers ran toward him.
“That’s a wrap,” Aubrey said. “Live stream is down. Comms are going down. Everyone stand by for the meeting location.”
Mira took out her headphones. “It was nice seeing you, Dominic,” she told him with a small wave.
“That’s it?” He caught her elbow when she turned. “What about Jackson?”
She looked toward where Jackson was already across the boulevard, with the gap quickly widening between him and his pursuers. “They’re not catching him. He does this all the time. That’s it for your little spy session. I hope you enjoyed it. I have a meeting to get to.”
“No, we have a meeting to attend.”
“What?” Mira gaped at him, then yanked her arm away. “I can’t just bring you to my unit’s meeting. That’s not how it works.”
“I think you’ve forgotten where you live now, Mira.”
She puzzled over his words. “Where?”
Dominic smiled, and pointed to his pocket.