Page 28 of The Monster I Am

“He’s clear. Nothing implanted, no strings,” Sebastian said.

Rhys barely even glanced at him. “Good. So it’s safe to take him home?”

Jared made a frustrated noise. “I know that’s what it was,” he muttered. “But it wasn’t like that. You didn’t— You didn’t do anything that didn’t feel good.”

Sebastian and the woman exchanged another glance.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll have you taken back.”

Rhys squeezed his arms then released him. “We’ll talk about it when we get back,” he said. “If…” He trailed off.

Jared waited, but Rhys didn’t finish the sentence.

“Thank you,” Rhys told the woman instead. “It’s late, and I’d like to get some rest.”

“He will remember that he met others and spoke with us, but neither who we are nor the contents of anything we spoke of here,” Sebastian said, his gaze holding Jared captive for several moments before he looked at Rhys. “The rest I leave to you.”

“I understand,” Rhys replied.

The woman led them out of the conference room and back to where Aidan was waiting to take them back to the car they’d arrived in.

“I’ll send you an update on the situation when I have one,” Rhys told her.

Aidan looked at Jared before glancing away. “I— heard,” he said awkwardly. “I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” Rhys said again. “Let’s get out of here. Is Geoff sorted?”

The two of them continued to chat, but Jared’s mind wandered until Rhys tapped his hand. “Are you all right?”

Jared blinked, rousing a bit from the fuzziness that had started to set back in as soon as the adrenaline had worn off. He was exhausted several times over and his headache from earlier in the evening that had never fully dissipated had returned with a vengeance when he was yelling.

At a supe.

Because those had to have been supes. And gods, what had he been doing?

He offered a tentative smile though and nodded. “Yeah,” he said before rushing a belated “sir” on the end of it.

Rhys nodded. “Rest. It’ll be a bit before we’re home, then we’ll need to talk before bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Jared said, surprising himself with a yawn.

He tried to stay awake. He very much did, but the car was warm and the crash after the adrenaline had him slumping against Rhys’s arm as he fell into sleep.

Chapter 9

Rhys

When Jared’s breathing evened out into sleep, Rhys asked Aidan, “How much do you think I should explain? He’ll have questions, regardless of what Sebastian did. Maybe because of what he did.”

He hadn’t done this before. He didn’t know how to balance having a slave with everything else.

Aidan considered the question for a few moments. “He could be an asset,” he said. “Few watch what they say around slaves, and they often go unseen. But not more than he has to know to gather useful information if there’s any to be had. Who we are, specifically what we’re trying to do, no.”

Rhys nodded. “Agreed,” he murmured. “I don’t plan to go to many parties while we’re settling in. But when I return to the circuit…” He trailed off. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to think about that.”

Hells, after the last time, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about it either.

Aidan made a little throw-away gesture with two fingers. “I won’t say they don’t infuriate me beyond reason, because they do. But I shouldn’t have taken that out on you. I was caught by surprise. I don’t think you’re a monster.” He gave Rhys a wry smile. “It’s not like I didn’t know what you were into in the bedroom before all this. This world makes me forget that it’s not always bad, but he had no trouble expressing his opinions on that.”