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“Word spread about our little team, so there are people here. Colter showed up, Fredrick is over there, and someone from the mage’s guild, I think. I’m sure they’d rather be here with you, but business calls.” He peered to the side, then sighed. “And it’s my turn to go on and make nice, as well. I just wanted to save you from Lilith.” He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss before backing away. “Be careful, shadow-girl. People are taking notice of you.”
With that, he left, and I had to admit…he might have been correct. When I peered around the room, eyes would shift away from me and back to their conversation, as if whoever they were talking to was just there as cover.
After a lifetime of no one really seeing me, I feltfartoo on display.
As I moved through the room, I spotted Kase first. Sure enough, he stood beside Colter, and again I struggled to believe he was older than the coven leader. Kase was many things, but he wasn’t the monster that Colter was. Why not? What made Kase different?
It didn’t matter at the moment since there was no way I was going anywhere near Colter. The last time I’d had to see him, he’d threatened me, and sure, I’d been threatened alotsince then, but there was something special about a person’s first one that made me want to stay the hell away from them.
Troy was beside Fredrick, though Sarah was nowhere around. Then again, who really wanted to bring their mate to hell?
No one ever takes me anywhere nice.
I was going to avoid them as well, but Troy turned to lock eyes with me, giving me no real out.
Instead, I trudged over, not bothering to look excited.
“Ms. Harlin,” Fredrick said, a smile to his lips that looked honest, but I couldn’t figure out why.
He’d also threatened me, though in a much nicer way than Colter, into doing a job for him.
A job I didn’t really do all that well.
“Fredrick.”
Troy wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his side, a clear power play to remind Fredrick that I wasn’t just anyone. Wolves and their games…
“I have to say, when I heard about this, I hardly believed it. That little human here in hell? That was the sort of thing I couldn’t miss.”
I tried to stick my hands into my pockets before remembering that dresses didn’thavepockets. “The world is a crazy place.”
“So it seems. I never attend these things—I find hell a depressing place—but this was worth the travel. Not to forget that Troy in the games is a surprise as well. I would ask how that happened,” Fredrick’s gaze dropped to where Troy’s are was wrapped around me, “But I don’t think I need to.”
It took me a moment to realizewhyI disliked him so much.
Troy.
It was the tension Troy had, the way he wanted me nowhere near anything pack.
“Have there been any more cases of werewolves going crazy?” I asked.
Fredrick’s smile fell. “Yes, a few. I’ve stopped putting them down and converted an old storage area we had into holding cells. Now that I know it isn’t some sort of infection, I am hoping we can fix it.”
I frowned. “How do you even know what happened? It wasn’t like we had time to leave a note.”
Fredrick turned his gaze from me Troy, like a question, as if he wasn’t sure Troywantedhim to answer.
The gesture annoyed me.
Thankfully, Troy shrugged, a safe response.
“The mage with you enabled communication between Troy and me. We’ve spoken a few times since you arrived there.”
“No one ever thinks to tell me about this stuff, do they? Maybe I had people to call.”
Troy lifted an eyebrow, his polite way of calling me out for the blatant lie.
Everyone I cared about or spoke to was here, in hell, other than Gran who I was pretty sure could have talked to me whenever she wanted.
