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Could this night get any worse?
“We were just . . .” she began. “I was just . . .” She bit back a curse. Her jumbled mind was making her sound like a freaking idiot. “Kragen needs to be taken to the hub for interrogation.”
Julian didn’t move, and for that, she was grateful. It was bad enough for one of her men to find her in such a ridiculous position, but damned if Declan O’Hara was going to get a peek at her naked bits.
Declan’s grin widened. “Where is he?”
Jaden frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean?” She looked up at Julian but his eyes were focused behind her, his expression thunderous.
She glanced back and hissed as she shook her head.
Kragen was gone.
“How in the hell?” The words slipped out of her and she winced at the stupidity they represented. “He was right here,” she finished lamely.
“Probably used a simple cloaking charm. If you two were”—Declan cleared his throat, obviously enjoying the show—“otherwise occupied, it would have been easy for him to sneak away unnoticed.”
Julian glared at her, his eyes flat, his lips pulled back in a snarl. He cocked his head to the side. “Can it, O’Hara.”
She looked away as silence fell between them all.
Awkward didn’t even come close to cutting it.
“Where’s Nico?” she asked hesitantly, but before anyone could answer, the warrior strode into the garden, his arms clasped around a dazed-looking Kragen Black.
His eyes swept over the scene, and he stopped abruptly.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his eyes flashing with accusatory zeal as they locked onto hers. “This is how you conduct an investigation?”
Julian turned though his body still blocked her nudity from the men. “Take the sorcerer down for interrogation.”
Nico blew out a hot breath, loudly. “You do not give me orders, Castille.”
“No, but I do.” Jaden spoke quietly. “Take him down, Nico. That is all.”
Nico glared at her, and though the hard lines of his face were set in stone, she saw the disappointment that shadowed his eyes. It cut her deep inside, and Jaden shook her head, hating the way Castille had managed to come between her and the team in only twenty-four hours.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Nico turned abruptly and left, dragging a protesting Kragen with him. Finn glanced her way, his eyes somber, and turned to follow in his wake.
Great. Now she felt like absolute shit.
Declan arched an eyebrow. “I’ll leave you two kids alone to, uh, do whatever it was you were doing.”
Jaden watched him disappear into the darkness.
She didn’t know what to say, how to feel. Nothing felt right. Her eyes shot bullets at Julian’s back. When it came to the jaguar, she didn’t know jack shit.
He turned abruptly, and the breath caught in the back of her throat at the feral look that haunted the golden depths. Slowly, her eyes swept across features carved from stone, lips that she knew from experience gave great pleasure, until she rested once more on the scars that marred the otherwise perfect flesh.
“This isn’t gonna work,” he said, and she looked up in surprise. “What the hell was I thinking?” His eyes flattened to that dull color she’d grown to dislike, and all expression fled his face. “I can barely stand to be around you.”
She’d like to say that his words meant nothing, but that would have been a lie. They cut her deeply, and she felt the prick of tears sting the backs of her eyes as she stood like an idiot, staring up at him.
Julian turned from her and slipped into the darkness, disappearing as quickly as he’d come.
She sniffled and gave herself a mental shake. Enough of this crap. It should have been her leaving after dropping a line like that.
Jaden clenched her teeth and spying her heels by the bench in the corner, grabbed them. She shivered as the damp air caressed her softness.
