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“Accepted with pride. I better head back to Club Chaos and see if anything new has happened. No one has gone missing or turned up dead since that guy two weeks ago. It confirms my theory that the murderer is protecting Freya. We killed the last guys who came for her, so they didn’t have to.”
“I’ll check up with the lab, but it’s looking good for me not having any counter-curses on me. If the test results work out, I’ll be back tomorrow, or possibly the next day.”
“Good. We need you in the field. I hate having to do all this fighting,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Emmett was usually the fists, Cas was the distraction, and I was the strategy. Missing one third of our trio fucked up the flow of it all. And Em was terrible at research, so I’d be happy to have my job back. He snorted, taking over my weight rack as I strode toward the door. “You don’t hate the fighting, you hate having to keep them alive.”
That was accurate, though I’d been doing a terrible job at keeping them alive recently.
Chapter 27
Freya
Withtheirscoutdead,I assumed it wouldn’t be long before they sent more underlings to the club to keep track of me.
As usual, I was right. Caspian came with me to the club after our morning together and immediately spotted two men hanging out by the bar who didn’t belong. They weren’t vamps this time, but a shifter and an incubus. Were they trying to tempt me now? Would he attempt to catch me in the back alley after my shift and coerce me into doing his bidding with his sex powers?
Cas was clearly worried about that, considering how close he stayed to me throughout my shift. Loretta worked the side where the men sat, much to her discomfort, but Caspian trailed me back and forth as I made my drinks. He seemed to think I’d be kidnapped somewhere on my three metre stretch of counter, so he needed to be close.
At first it was sweet and protective, but by an hour in, I’d had enough. “Cas!” I snapped. “Sit your ass down on a stool and stay there, or I’m going to make you leave. You’re confusing the customers and bothering me.”
He gave me a worried look, glancing over at our company. If they didn’t have proof he was protecting me before, they sure as fuck did now. “But…”
“No buts. Sit down. Now.”
His cheeks went pink, and I noticed a bulge growing in his pants, which may have had something to do with why he sat down so quickly. Grudgingly, he took the gin and tonic that I offered him, sipping slowly from the glass. He was still staring, but at least he wasn’t following anymore.
It’s not like he was the only one staring at me. I had Kylan’s men on the end of the bar, and Shan keeping a bird's-eye view from up in the VIP lounge. He hadn’t spoken to me. Which was good. He fucking shouldn’t until Em was back, and he was willing to tell me what I needed to know.
If I made it that long.
“Freya, those guys…” Loretta said behind me, trailing off when I turned to face her. “They say they have a message for you? Have you met them? They knew your name.”
Caspian went on high alert, glaring over at them like he wanted to start a fight. That drew Shan’s attention, and he made his way down to the main floor. Someone had to hold Caspian back, because getting into a fight with these guys in public would be bad for both Mattie and us. “Tell them I say they can go eat a dick,” I said, smiling sweetly over at them and giving a faux dainty wave.
She cringed. “Um, they said you would say something like that. Told me to give you this when you did.”
In her hands was a simple amethyst necklace on a worn silver chain, energy pulsing from it. Everything around me went quiet all at once. The beat of the music, the words falling out of Loretta’s lips as she asked what was going on. All sounds, gone, as I snatched the necklace from her. My vision went red when I felt the familiar magical signature emanating from the gem. She’d always used this necklace to dispel negativity around her, not that she needed much help with that. I’d helped her make it when we were children.
The necklace belonged to Mabel.
Shan grabbed my arm, pulling me out of my fury spiral. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. These guys think they’re fucking funny, apparently.”
I shoved the necklace into my pocket, glaring over at Kylan’s men. Serving a few customers, I tried to calm the rage I felt, but it didn’t dissipate. Loretta was still standing behind me, shuffling from foot to foot, Shan and Cas watching me work. “Lor, tell them that their stupid little message is received and that it’s time for them to fuck off. We can have the bouncers remove them if they won’t leave.”
She nodded a few times, bouncing back over to them and standing more than an arm’s length away at all times. I was sure she paraphrased what I said, because Lor would never tell customers to fuck off, but it got the point across. When she finished, they downed their drinks and got up to leave, vanishing into the throng of people dancing between the bar and the front entrance.
My body relaxed a bit. The only way I was going to shake Cas and Shan at this point was if those guys were out of the picture. And I needed to shake them because I doubted they only had Mabel’s necklace. She wore it all the time — never took the chain off, not even to sleep or shower. It’s not like they could have snatched it from her bedside table while she was out. If they had her necklace, they had her.
They’d finally figured out my weakness and were using it against me. I was out of fucking time to figure out how to kill Kylan Jitara. It was time to call Jude back about that ‘job’ and hope for the best. If I was lucky, I might find an opening to kill the big boss, though I’d inevitably end up dead myself.
“Freya, what the fuck is going on?” Caspian asked, leaning across the bar towards me again.
His scent helped to ground me, giving me confidence in what I had to do. Originally, I’d planned to tell them if something came up and Kylan tried coming for me before they could tell me their secrets. I hadn’t anticipated this. If I told them about Mabel, they would lock me up somewhere before letting me exchange myself for her.
“They gave me a necklace from my personal magical collection,” I said, coming up with the lie on the spot. “It was at my apartment. I guess they figured out where I live.”
