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“Get eyes on her now,” I said. “Not in ten minutes. Now.”
Vale was already typing. “Done.”
“No one touches her.”
“Understood.”
“No one says her name over open channels.”
“Already locked.”
“If that car circles back—”
“It disappeared.”
For now, I would keep every hungry eye on me. For now, I would let her believe she still had time.
Even if I no longer did.
Chapter 21
Liv
By the time I walked out of the fridge, I felt like I had been hit by a bus. Kalon hovered by the doorway, pale and shaken, his aura still crackling faintly around the edges like a power line after a storm. He had one hand braced on the wall, the other wrapped around a paper water cup, and he was watching me like I might sprout fangs and a tail.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I pulled my apron straight, then pulled it straighter, because my hands needed a job. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to . . .”
“Stop.” His voice came out rough. He gave me a small smile that missed his eyes by a full mile. “I get it. You’re okay. I’m okay. Nobody died. We’re good.”
“So, is that the new work standard for a good day? No one died?”
His mouth twitched. “Probably.”
Out front, someone slapped the bell on the counter.
A tiny silver sound that sliced right through my nerves. “Hello?” a customer called. “Does anybody work here?”
Yep, fuck my life completely. “I’ll be right out,” I called back. I desperately needed something to feel normal today. Normal was a blessing. Normal was steamed milk, burnt espresso, rude people in expensive coats, and pretending my body wasn’t trying to turn into a supernatural vacuum with increasingly voluptuous tits.
Mandi had sacrificed her pastry to Kalon and Sam was forcing water down his throat as I stepped over Kalon’s legs. The clock above the pastry case read 11:12. Four hours and forty-eight minutes until my shift ended. Four hours and forty-eight minutes until the car would come for me. Four hours and forty-eight minutes until Tonight, you are mine stopped being a line that had ruined my brain and became an actual problem.
The first hour tried to pass for a normal workday. A woman ordered a sugar-free vanilla latte and cried into her phone while I made it. A vampire complained his cold brew had “too much emotional acidity.” A demon with a fresh mate mark kept touching his neck while his girlfriend glowed beside him, and I had to turn away before my face did something tragic.
The cappuccino machine hissed like it had personal beef with me. “Don’t you start,” I muttered at it. Steam spat from the wand in an angry white burst.
Kalon appeared at my side before I could blink. “Need help?”
“No.” I wiped my hands on my apron and reached for the little screwdriver we kept taped behind the syrup rack. “I need this machine to stop acting like a drunk banshee.”
His brows rose. “You know how to fix it?”
“I know how to beg it, threaten it, and replace a gasket.” I crouched, popped the lower panel loose, and stuck my hand into its hot metal guts. “Which is more than most repair guys have given me.”
BANG!
Steam blasted out in a violent cough. Every head in the café jerked toward us.
