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She left the door open, clearly in an attempt to dissuade us from getting distracted once more. Danica stalked in the direction of the conference room, and an arm shot out of the next meeting room she passed, hauling her inside.
Samael.
Nathaniel’s amusement radiated down the bond. I leaned against the wall.
“Is it always going to be like this? Not that I don’t love feeling your emotions, but…”
“You’re worried there would be no room left for your own.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll settle down in a few days. And then we’ll only be able to feel each other when we reach for the bond.”
He leaned down and nuzzled me. “I love you.”
“I know.” I could feel that love, and there was no end to it. The bond made all of my previous insecurities irrelevant. I knew Nathaniel would never betray me. Would never leave me. He simply loved me too much.
“It’ll take me some getting used to…”
I wasn’t just talking about the bond. I could list my best attributes, and I was one hell of a catch. But knowing just how much Nathaniel loved me was both mind-boggling and a little difficult to believe.
He dropped a kiss to my nose and took my hand. “Let’s get this over with.”
Within a few minutes, we were all gathered in the conference room once more. Mere and Vas had joined us, and Mere already looked better. She was stuffing a burger into her mouth, Vas practically radiating contentment as he watched her.
Rose stood next to Kyla, and I smiled at her. Rose was the only human here—Steve was still working on the tech side of things—but she’d been instrumental in our research so far.
Finvarra lounged in a seat at the table. I took the empty seat next to him, Nathaniel sitting next to me. It seemed like a smart move to have someone between them.
Kyla leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room, ignoring the unseelie with a studied nonchalance that told me she was imagining ripping out his throat.
“Why are you here?” I muttered to him.
“Your uncle is unseelie,” Finvarra said. “That makes him one of mine. Not to mention, my greatest enemy has colluded with your little human hate group for years. That makes it entirely too likely that many ofmymissing people will be found in these labs.”
His face had turned so cold, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was ice if I were dumb enough to reach out and poke his cheek.
I sighed. Those were pretty good reasons. I shot Kyla an apologetic look, and she shrugged, clearly hearing our discussion over the conversations continuing around us.
“Okay,” Danica said. I’d asked her to run this meeting. “Everyone knows why we’re here, so I won’t rehash it. But let’s go over what we know so far.”
She nodded at Bael, who dimmed the lights. Everyone went quiet as a picture of the map we’d created appeared on the wall in front of us.
“These are the labs. There could be more, but we need to move soon. Evie’s uncle has been taken by HFE. That means our timeline has sped up.”
“How are we going to get in?” Mere asked.
“Good question.” Danica nodded to me.
I took a deep breath. HFE had taken Eachann. He could be suffering through torture at this very moment. Nathaniel reached for my hand, and I sent him a grateful look.
“Eachann had been working on the guards at each lab,” I said. “We know where their families are, including the children’s schools, spouses’ workplaces, et cetera.”
Mere dropped her gaze, clearly uncomfortable with our line of reasoning. I couldn’t blame her. Samael just smiled, but no one was expecting the demon king to have second thoughts about threatening humans with their loved ones.
“It’s our only choice,” I said. “We have to hit all the labs at the same time, or we risk them disappearing. No humans will be harmed, but the guards don’t need to know that.”
Did threatening their loved ones mean we were dipping our toes into bad-guy territory? Maybe. Would I do it anyway? Without a moment’s hesitation.
