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“And you do?”
“Yes.”
That didn’t seem to please Harper at all. “Does Raini know that?”
“Of course.”
Harper’s lips thinned. She opened her mouth—no doubt to give him shit—but then her eyes turned inward, and he suspected she was having a telepathic conversation. Harper abruptly snapped her mouth shut and slid her grandmother a put-out look. “Fine,” she finally bit out.
Maddox wondered why Jolene, of all people, would ask Harper to let it go. But he didn’t enquire as to why. He simply stayed where he was.
As the group was too large to fit into the elevator, Hector escorted Knox and his companions out of the office first and then came back for Jolene and her sentinels.
Once the elevator began its descent, Carmen blew out a breath and turned to Maddox. “I think it’s safe to say you haven’t been welcomed into the fold yet. Which pisses me off, because you healed the little imp.”
“But I didn’t do it out of kindness or concern for Khloë, I did it for Raini,” Maddox pointed out. “And I extracted a fee of sorts from her.”
“Do you think they’d prefer to have you out of the picture?”
Maddox shrugged. He really couldn’t care less. “I don’t see how it matters one way or the other. I’m firmly in the picture now. I’m not going anywhere.”
Hector teleported back to the office. “They’re gone.”
Intent on making enquiries about the dagger, Maddox said, “Let’s get her home.” He carefully slid both arms under Raini and cradled her against his chest.
They teleported to her house. All descendants possessed the ability to teleport. He suspected that was due to their angelic blood, since angels were also able to teleport—something they referred to as “wavering,” since the air itself wavered when they appeared or disappeared.
In her bedroom, Maddox flipped back the coverlet and laid her on the mattress. He tugged off her shoes and, knowing she wouldn’t want to wake to find herself still dressed in bloodstained clothes, he took off her tee and jeans. The sight of her in only her underwear went straight to his cock, making it twitch and swell.
With a silent curse, he dragged the coverlet over her, felt the air chill … and realized her eyes were now open. But it wasn’t Raini looking at him, it was her demon. And he could see the agitation in those obsidian eyes.
He slanted his head. “You’re not very happy with me, are you?”
“You think you can control the bond’s call if you control her,” it said, its tone flat and cold. “You are wrong. You are also wrong if you believe she is truly under your control. She has too much fire for that—she just hasn’t let you see it yet. But if you push her too hard, she will push back. Harder. Then you will finally see what you have so far failed to realize.”
“And what’s that?”
The demon smirked. “She can kill you easier than she can breathe.” It then retreated, and those eyelids fell closed once more.
Hector sidled up to him. “What do you think it meant by that?”
Maddox pursed his lips. “I have no idea.”
“Do you think it was bluffing?”
“What I think … is that my anchor has secrets.” But then, so did Maddox.
CHAPTER FOUR
Listening to her father rant the next morning, Raini sighed. She loved the man. She truly did. He was fucking extra. But she really had no idea why he insisted on proclaiming himself “laidback.” No imp was laidback. Hell, they didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Imps were bold, wild, daring, and delightfully uninhibited. And “in the name of the sanctity of retaliation,” which was a phrase her father Lachlan commonly used, they always hit back. You often didn’t know how or when they’d do it, you just knew it wouldn’t be subtle. So the one thing that was always guaranteed to set them off was when they didn’t know the identity of the person they needed to strike back at. Hence Lachlan venting his ass off while pacing up and down in front of her fireplace.
It didn’t matter to Lachlan or any of her other relatives that Raini hadn’t been the intended target of last night’s clusterfuck. Nope. They still intended to shit fury on the person responsible. She’d anticipated that, of course, so she hadn’t been shocked when she came downstairs to find a bunch of people helping themselves to coffee and food—sadly, Demi had brought Dwain along. Something that seemed to annoy Jolene almost as much as it did Raini.
There was one thing Maddox must have forgotten when he’d had Raini’s security system installed—no system was imp-proof. Nu-uh. They could get in and out of pretty much any building, and you’d never even know they’d been there. They left no trace of themselves behind. Though … her uncle Bram had been known to take a dump in the houses he’d robbed over the years. Usually right on top of a bed. Just because.
