Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ilyas
If it wasn’t so inconvenient, I’d almost be impressed by how thoroughly the human had ingrained herself within our team—not that she didn’t do her job.
I actually had time to file my own reports now that she was running the hotline during the daylight hours.
It also allowed me some rejuvenation time in the rising moonlight.
What was inconvenient was that Syke was now hers, and Louis was one pining glance away from being hers too. I worried the higher-ups would separate the team if they were part of the same family unit.
I couldn’t even be mad at her about it, though, because none of this was her fault. She was just a fleeting mortal caught up in a world she had no idea how to navigate. I could definitely be pissed at Syke though.
“You’re angry,” he remarked as I sat down at my desk. He had his ass cheeks beside my in tray, and I moved it over with a grunt.
“No, I’m not.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Don’t lie to a demon, Ilyas. I can literally taste how mad you are. It’s delicious, basically an aperitif before dinner. Do you want to tell me why?”
A few hundred years in creature circles taught me some less than ethical skills, like how to lie to a demon.
“It’s just flight bullshit. The ball is on Saturday evening, and I’ve been ordered to go. No excuses.” An entirely true statement, and it was certainly a fact that aggrieved me, but it wasn’t what I was angry about when he asked. Sometimes you had to operate in gray areas.
“There are worse things than dressing in a tux and eating fancy little canapés, Ilyas. Be as obnoxious as possible and turn off all those possible gargoyle suitors. You’ve done your duty, and the key can climb out of your ass.”
I gave him a tight smile. With the exception of pissing in the punch, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to disgust the potential mates the key and his cronies had lined up. They wanted more pureblooded baby gargoyles, and they weren’t above coercing the younger generation into pairings.
My parents had been a political pairing for the good of the species. They hated each other. They hated me. It had been a lonely, miserable existence that I wouldn’t force on any child of my own.
If the species died, so be it.
Syke slapped me on the shoulder. “Come eat. You can watch Louis make heart eyes at Hailey and Eric and be too nervous to do anything about it. Honestly, it’s delicious.”
I frowned again, losing the gray area I’d been trying to create. Syke’s eyebrows shot up, but I stood and strode into the common room before he could poke at the emotion.
Louis was indeed making moon eyes at Eric and Hailey, though he was hiding it well—unless you knew him from years of friendship, which we did.
There’d be no political repercussions if Louis got his wish. There were a lot of human/werewolf pairings. They bred prolifically and had operated in the human world for a long time, far longer than creatures had been out in regular society.
His alpha would give them his blessing, and his family would drag them into the fold. It would be a joyous occasion for everyone.
If I mate bonded a human, let alone a human and an orc, I would be excommunicated from my flight. I would never be able to return to my home, and if any other gargoyles saw me in public, they’d have to physically turn their back to me, giving me their wings and never their eyes.
The threat of that outcome was beginning to feel like a relief rather than a punishment.
Everyone served themselves dinner, except Hailey, who got the best of everything compiled by Louis. It was kind of cute.
I groaned and shut down the thought. It wasn’t cute. It was a problem.
Finally, with the cordless hotline phone sitting in the middle of the table like a jack-in-the-box, we sat down to eat.
The orc who sat across from me was an entirely different being from the shadow of a man he’d been when we’d first met.
He was a vibrant green, and his purple eyes sparkled in the overhead light.
He was softer than most orcs I’d met, but undeniably handsome.
I could see why he’d entranced the little human at a random bus stop. Together, they were a beautiful couple.
“So, I hear you had an eventful day with the arches. Having met them in the office once or twice, I can’t say I envy you,” he said lightly to Syke, and the demon gave them his signature cocky smirk.
“I may have hijacked your mate momentarily. I promise to make it up to both of you.” Hailey flushed, and Eric lifted a single brow.
He pursed his lips, and while his eyes danced with mirth, he didn’t turn into a lustful puddle like most of Syke’s conquests.
I’d only ever been to that club he liked to frequent with him once, but they treated him like a god there, falling to their knees at his feet and trying to suck his immortality out through his cock.
“Well, Hailey likes those little chocolate truffles from the store on the corner of Seventh and Heather downtown. I’d start there.”
Hailey looked over at her mate. “You really were a stalker.”
This time, Eric did flush. “I noticed the little paper bag you carried when you finished work every Thursday, when you got your pay stub.”
Louis chuckled. “That doesn’t make you sound less stalkerish.”
Eric shrugged and kissed Hailey’s temple.
“Not to break up the lovefest, but have you thought about what you’re going to do now? Michael will be watching, and he isn’t just going to overlook you living separately and Syke heading to the club every other day,” Otis rumbled, and I resisted the urge to agree with him.
Syke just winked. “We’ll make it work.”
* * *
The rest of the week passed as it normally would without any major, life-altering events. We got all the usual calls, but it was just another week in the office. Otis, in his wisdom, sent Syke home earlier than normal to prevent a crossover between him and Allison.
Still, when we did the handover, the rest of the team let her know our feelings on her betrayal.
I stared past her like she didn’t exist but kept it as professional as necessary, and I was happy to get away from the traitorous bitch as fast as possible.
She nearly got Syke sent back to hell, and for what?
For preventing a rape and potential murder?
“Ilyas, I was only doing what was right,” she tried to tell me and Louis, but I didn’t give a fuck what her version of right and wrong was. I turned my back on her, giving her my wings.
The tension between our teams was high, even if the rest of team two didn’t really understand the animosity. Otis and Chet would talk, and then it would be up to Chet as team lead to decide if he told the rest of his team or not.
Despite the fact that I had the stupid ball tonight, I was happy to be done for the week and to have some time away from Hailey.
She was a distracting presence, and I liked it a little too much.
The whole team hovered around her like she was the sun, and she smelled like flowers, sunshine, and warm summer days, and I found it… irritating.
I saluted Louis and Syke then walked over to my bike. I didn’t have a lot of time before the formal dinner, so no matter how badly I wanted to take a long ride down the coast, I had to head straight to my apartment.
There was a brand-new tuxedo hanging on my apartment door, and I growled at it. I wasn’t a fucking show poodle. I had my own clothes. I didn’t need to be dressed like a toddler.
Dragging the garment bag inside, I dropped it on the couch and walked into my closet.
I pulled out the tux I’d had for nearly a decade.
Gargoyles loved formal events, and I’d been going to black tie parties since I could walk.
I could wear a tux with enough finesse not to embarrass my parents.
Besides, they embarrassed themselves enough.
Twenty minutes later, I was styled black on black.
Not particularly etiquette friendly, but everything from my bowtie to my socks was black.
I was being forced to go to the event, but they would assume I was there voluntarily.
My shoes cost more than most people earned in a month, as did my suit. Gargoyles loved appearances.
I slipped on the Mickey Mouse watch Louis had bought me for Christmas. It would annoy the key and be a very subtle fuck you to the event. Besides, I liked to know that outside the cold embrace of the flight, I had friends, people who cared about me.
The building where we held all our formal events was closer to a castle than a public building. Made of stone and marble, it wouldn’t have been out of place in the mountains of Bavaria, but it stuck out like an ostentatious sore thumb in Central Valley.
I parked my bike on the sidewalk and ignored the stunned expressions of the creatures employed as valets for the night.
Straightening my jacket, I ran my fingers through my hair and strode into the great hall, giving a tight smile to the other members of my flight but not stopping to make small talk.
The sooner I suffered through whatever introductions needed to be made, the sooner I could head home and relax after my long week of work.
I spotted Adrik across the room. There were two ways I could do this.
I could go over there, make sure he saw me, and leave, or I could avoid him, make shitty polite conversation with a handful of flight members so someone would tell him I was here, and then get the fuck out before he could force me to sign some kind of prenuptial contract.
I was going with option B.
Heading over to the bar, I stopped and kissed the cheek of a matriarch, one of my mother’s former friends before she left for Europe, then I shook hands with her mate. I grabbed a glass of champagne from the shiny silver tray on the bar and took a sip to hide my grimace.
“Just so you know, I don’t want to marry you either,” an accented French voice said beside me. A delicate hand reached over and gripped a champagne flute. Unlike the majority of the party, she wasn’t in her gargoyle form, instead opting for her human visage. An interesting choice.
She was in a pretty gown, dripping in something that sparkled, and it clung to her curves like a caress.
She did absolutely nothing for me. “It’s not personal.” It wasn’t. She was beautiful, in both her human and gargoyle forms. Pureblooded gargoyle for sure, and the flashing lightning in her deep blue eyes was probably mesmerizing for some.
“Another lover?” she asked lightly, taking a sip of champagne.
I just gave her a stony expression. She wasn’t here to extract my secrets, especially when I wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t just go running back to both our keys with my answers.
“That is the reason I do not want to pursue all” —she indicated my body— “this.”
Well, now I was intrigued. “Wrong species?” I asked softly.
She gave me a bitter smile. “Wrong gender.” I sucked in air between my teeth. That was rough. She smirked at me. “And wrong species. She’s a gryphon, the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”
I grunted a noncommittal noise. I felt sorry for her, but I doubted our definitions of beauty matched. “Not going to fuck to save the species? I imagine your flight took that as well as mine.”
“Indeed,” she muttered, and her eyes caught on someone behind me. She plastered a pleasant expression on her face, though it was easy to see it didn’t reach her eyes. “Ah, Key Adrik, your flight holds a fine ball, if I do say so myself.”
“You look stunning, Alizee, even in this form.” Yeah, the key never sullied himself with a human form. I thought it was because it would make him look like a weasel.
Alizee bowed her head. “Human couture isn’t made for gargoyle bodies yet, sir, and I am a Parisian girl after all. Fashion is in my blood. Maybe one day there will be great gargoyle designers.”
Adrik stopped listening to her halfway through because he was a prick. Alizee seemed to notice by the way her lips pulled taut.
“A shame, indeed,” Adrik commented condescendingly. “I see that you’ve met one of our flight’s finest bachelors. His pedigree is exemplary.”
He spoke like I was a stud horse and not a sentient being.
I could see Alizee’s irritation. “And is he a good person? A kind father? Husband, mate, or partner? A kind friend?” She straightened her shoulders.
“His bloodlines mean little to me if he is a cruel monster, Key Adrik. If you’ll excuse me, I see one of the members of my party beckoning me.
” She swirled in a kaleidoscope of reflecting crystals and sashayed away.
Adrik glared at me. “What did you do?”
I raised a hand and smirked. “I think that was all you, Adrik. Apparently, your manners grate against the refinement of our French counterparts. I believe she thinks you are boorish. Perhaps you’re the one with rough edges that need to be smoothed.
” Like Alizee, I sauntered away like he meant nothing to me.
“Ilyas?” he called out to me, and I forced myself to turn around. “A report crossed my desk last week regarding misconduct at the Creature Crisis Center, directly from the arches. The committee has decided to investigate.” His tone was light, as if it was just an aside and not the threat it was.
He was going to make trouble to bring me into line. Let him try.