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Willow moved slowly and started to cross the room, but he caught her hand, holding her back. “I’m going to take care of this, but I want you to stick close to me. I don’t want you hurt because something falls on you.”
She nodded. Her skin was pale and her eyes painfully wide. She was clearly shocked out.
Still holding her hand, he got on his phone and contacted one of his favorite troll contractors and explained the situation.
Hank spoke the words Malik wanted to hear. “That fucking asshole is at it again. Okay, give me the coordinates and Mastyr, I will have both my teams at this residence within the hour.”
When he delivered the basic realm map coordinates, Hank said, “Wait a minute, you’re at Willow’s property. Are you telling me that bastard wrecked Willow’s home?”
Malik frowned. He knew that Willow kept a spell over her property. If a fae had done this, then she had tremendous power to have broken through the charm. “Not Axton. Someone aligned with him, though, and very powerful. I’m thinking one of the fae who sell on the black market.”
“Well, fuck! I did the original work on that complex.” A string of curses followed that made Malik smile.
Hank let him know about when he would arrive, then hung up.
Malik squeezed Willow’s hand. “Hank is coming.”
“Hank, the contractor?” Tears filled her eyes and the next moment, she was hugging him hard and pathing, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Hey, it’s what I do.”
She laughed at that, then lifted her face to him. “I mean it. Thank you. This was the worst ending to a long, difficult night and you’ve made it better, almost tolerable.” She then pulled away from him and looked around. Every wall had been damaged. “Hank will be furious.”
“Yeah, he already is. I don’t suppose you have beer in the house, do you?”
“Oh, what a good idea.”
She started to cross the kitchen area, but again he held her back. “Let me go first, just in case.”
He moved quickly into the kitchen and tested the support branch, but it held. He moved inside and opened the fridge. Sitting there, lined up in perfect waiting order, were several cold bottles of brew.
He smiled. He loved this woman.
He loved this woman.
He’d meant it only as a flippant response to Willow keeping beer in her fridge, but the words kept sinking deeper and deeper. And as he turned toward her, with her green silk dress still unmolested by recent events, his heart stopped all over again.
Was this love he felt or the beginning of love?
And had she always been this beautiful with her creamy skin and thick wavy auburn hair, her hazel eyes and softly arched brows? Or was it her blood rose gift that made his heart swell, then squeeze up tight?
Right now, he didn’t care. He let his gaze rest on her and savor what the Goddess had made so incredibly well. As he twisted the caps off and tossed them in a nearby wastebasket, he handed a beer to her.
She made no apologies as she drank deep.
He joined her.
Fucking Society that acted however it wanted to act. Somehow, if it was the last thing he did, he’d run it to ground. Maybe all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours had occurred to show him one simple thing: that Axton had the support of a fae powerful enough to destroy Willow’s shield. And if Malik hadn’t been there, the charm would have won the day.
What would have happened to the wraiths then?
And who was this fae that seemed to be in league with Axton? He knew that the black market was alive and well and that there were several very powerful, hidden fae in his realm that supplied charms for a price. But this one had to have Guild level powers.
The thought ran through his head that maybe Margetta the Ancient Fae, the one that had created the Invictus, might be involved. Yet he couldn’t imagine Axton aligning himself with someone who was part wraith. And if she was involved, why wasn’t his land filled with her army of wraith-pairs? For both those reasons, he tended to think Axton had made an alliance with a black market fae.
For now, at least, with dawn creeping closer, he could let it all go. Axton, as a vampire, wouldn’t be active during the day.
He ran his hand over his night-old beard. He had one more call to make. He reached his housekeeper and gave her a list of things he needed, including something to sleep in and a fresh uniform for the next night. At the last minute, he requested jeans and a tee, since he’d be up for a while before he actually went to work at full-dark.
