AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His green eyes full of golden specks analyzed my face for a moment, and like a fool, I held my breath. Like a fool, I expected him to kiss me again, just like I did back home.
Something was definitely wrong with me.
With a sigh, Dominic stood up, squeezing his eyes shut. “The crew will be here in the morning to get us ready. We’re going to be attending San Francisco’s International Auto Show tomorrow and the day after. Noah Bennet hasn’t missed a year since he was a teenager, so if anything is going to get him out of hiding, it would be this. The rest of the day, we’ll be required to eat in restaurants, go clubbing, do exactly what Noah Bennett did here last year, until the crew spots whoever will be watching us.”
“Who’s the crew?” I asked, and my voice sounded dry as hell. I needed some water asap.
“The local ODP crew. They’re working with Noah Bennett’s business manager, and they’ve all been preparing for the past two weeks. They’ll be monitoring us from a distance twenty-four-seven,” he said.
I nodded. The ODP had offices in all parts of the world. Supernaturals—those who liked to cause trouble, at least—tended to stick to large cities and crowds, and wherever they went, the ODP followed.
Still, I had never even worked with my own crews out in the field before. Not only that, but this was an undercover mission. I’d have so preferred to be out in the field chasing bad guys without having to pretend to be someone else, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
“Get some rest,” he said, nodding at the bed. “I’ll need to keep watching Noah’s videos.”
“Do they have footage on the girlfriend?” I asked, hopeful. Watching videos right now was going to be the perfect distraction because, though it was almost dawn and I hadn’t slept since the night before, I couldn’t even think about lying down and closing my eyes. Too much on my mind.
“Not really. We don’t know much about her, except that her name is Aurora Flynn. They were only spotted for a weekend. The ODP just took advantage of it.” He started for the door.
“Hey, wait!” I said, standing up. “Am I going to need a British accent? I could totally do a British accent.” And I was about to show him exactly how much I’d learned from Peaky Blinders, but the wolf-ass shook his head.
“No. The Bennetts are American, and so is the pixie.”
Well, damn.
“Dominic, wait,” I said again, when he pulled the door open. He turned to me, furious, his eyes a bit bloodshot. Wow, he really deserved an award for being the rudest person in the world. Couldn’t he just pretend to be able to stand me for a second? It’s like being in the same room with me for longer than two minutes made him crazy.
As much as it hurt, I pretended I didn’t care. He was going to have to suck it up and deal because we were partners. We were in this together—and it was all his fault. He’d been the one to break Mathews’s leg. Nobody had made him do it.
“Are we gonna, erm…sleep here? Together?” I pointed at the bed.
“Yes.” He walked out the door and slammed it shut behind him.
I fell on the bed again, suddenly exhausted. I didn’t mind being here. I didn’t mind having to pretend to be someone else. I didn’t mind risking my life by playing bait—but what I did mind was Dominic Dane treating me like I wasn’t worth his time. Like I didn’t deserve to be here at all. Like he was better than me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, just in case tears wanted to slip out. I wouldn’t let them.
“It’s my first mission,” I told myself. I’d wanted this. I’d prayed for this every night. I’d worked my ass off for this chance. Nobody said it was going to be easy. “Nothing worthy ever is,” I mumbled. Those damn Instagram quotes again, taking over my mind.
But they were right, at least. It was normal to panic, but this was my chance to prove myself. And I’d be damned if I didn’t do a great job of it.
So, while Dominic stayed out of the room, I took my journal and wrote down everything he told me, all the information he gave me about the mission. I made a plan, and I read over it five times to make sure I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I left the journal on the bedside table and went to the bathroom. Even if Dominic came back and opened it, he wouldn’t be able to read anything. All the pages on it would be blank to his eyes. That’s why I always took the time to enchant every pen or marker I used with germin powder, my magic and my blood. Not too much—all it takes is a drop to mix with the ink. Add a bit of the germin powder my mom grew back home, and nobody in the world who didn’t have my blood in their veins would be able to read a single word I wrote. A neat little trick my older brother Asher taught me when I was a teenager, and Alex, the youngest, found my diary. He read everything I’d written, then mocked me about it for months. Since then, every word I’d ever written had been invisible to the eyes of the world.
I took a shower, hoping it would calm my mind a bit, so I could actually get some sleep tonight. The shower was big, the panel thin and long, letting out water like a waterfall. There was even a seat at the corner of it, made of the same tiles as the walls, that fit me perfectly. I’d never washed myself sitting down before, and it wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I enjoyed it anyway. All the shampoos smelled of coconut, and it reminded me that I needed to check out the minibar to see if they had any coconut flavored chocolate bars in there. I hadn’t forgotten my epiphany at the airport—chocolate was how I was going to survive this. I needed to get my hands on as many bars as I could.
When I was done showering, they had the fluffiest, whitest, softest bathrobe I’d ever seen in my life hanging behind the door. I felt so fancy wearing it. I wondered if they’d let me borrow one when I left. I was totally going to ask the reception desk.
But once I was dry, I had no choice but to take off the robe. It was too warm to keep it on, plus I needed to smell like Dominic Dane now apparently, so I had to go to his duffle bag and pick a shirt of his to put on. He hadn’t taken much with him, either. As soon as I undid the zipper, I didn’t need to look deeper before I found what I was looking for. The shirt was old and wrinkled, grey with a faded design of Nirvana in the front. I’d never seen Dominic wear anything that wasn’t black or white before, but this smelled like him. Woody and leathery and man. I brought the fabric to my nose and sniffed like a freak.
And when I realized that I was getting turned on by sniffing a wrinkled shirt, I was disgusted with myself. That was it. As soon as I got back, I was going to ask my friends to go out with me, and I was going to pick a guy to take home and get laid.
It wouldn’t even matter who it was, just that he had a dick between his legs. That was going to be my standard, everything else be damned. I couldn’t walk around being turned on by shirts, for God’s sake. It was time I ended my over two-year-old dry spell. Just as soon as I was back in the City.
For now, I put the clothes I’d taken with me in the gigantic closet next to the bathroom, the door of it covered in a large mirror.
The one behind me opened just as I was done.
