The inner turmoil was still brewing when she pulled her eyes away from him and headed for the door. He didn’t say anything, and she took that as a good sign because she fully expected him to tell her to go to hell. Once she was downstairs and the night air hit her directly in the face, a tear sprang free, but she brushed it away with the back of her hand and kept walking, unwilling to admit that whatever he had become had been able to get to her.
Though she understood she needed to visit Cass so her sister could go to sleep, she decided to swing by and check on Meagan first. She knew the Hunter had gone in to see Jamie, and she wanted to make sure her friend was okay. Since she had to walk right past his office to get to her sister’s apartment anyway, she went ahead and made the detour.
“Looks good,” Jamie was saying to Meagan who had a gown on over her black leather pants. The bandage was gone so that the place where she’d been shot was e
All Cadence could do was stare at a spot on the wall behind Jamie’s head, trying to let all of it soak in. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Her voice was a whisper. “If he’s in there, why can’t he force his way out all of the time?”“I don’t know. I don’t understand it at all. Has this happened before?”“Yeah, Elliott said that it happened for a few seconds, a lot shorter than what you just described. He was in the lobby talking to Juan Diego. I feel like he was closer to being himself during my procedure. He stayed there the whole time, right? He even held my hand.”“He did stay there the whole time, but he wasn’t himself. Every time I went in to check on you, I’d try talking to him, and he was rude, said he was too busy to chitchat.”Her mind fuzzy with exhaustion, Cadence ran her hands down her face. “I don’t know, Jamie. I guess it&rsquo
“Yeah. Is Aaron still in his office?” Jamie asked.Cadence nodded. “Probably. Let me talk to Cass real quick, and then we can head over and see if we can get him back long enough to explain the situation to him.”“Can’t you do that while we walk?”She could tell by the smirk on his face that he was teasing her. Everyone knew she wasn’t so great at multitasking, and for something this important, she didn’t want to try to explain to her sister while she was moving. Cadence didn’t answer him, though, only gave him the stink eye. “Cass, I’m sorry I haven’t made it over there yet, but something important has come up, and I need your help.”“I’ll say. Did you know Aaron had all of Elliott and Brandon’s stuff packed up? What the hell?”“Yeah, I know. It’s awful. But that’ll have to wait. Look, Jamie and I thin
Cadence could hardly believe her ears. It made sense that Holland would try something like that if she had enough control over him, but to think he’d been sitting at his desk writing that horrible phrase over and over again. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, thankful they’d figured it out when they had.“I’m sorry, Cadey.”“It’s okay,” she whispered back, knowing it wasn’t his fault.“Guess the joke’s on her,” Jamie said, his voice completely serious. “You can’t kill yourself.”Cadence snickered, knowing deadpan Jamie when she heard him. She looked up at the Healer over Aaron’s shoulder. “True, but thanks to the titanium bullets, he could’ve done the first part.”“Maybe you should let me move those to a secret location for a while?” Jamie suggested.“No, it’s okay,” Cadence said before Aa
Lush green foliage, thick with brambles and tangled branches, dotted the mountainside, the ground, muddied from recent rain, uneven and densely populated with rocks that made walking unappealing, and in her present mood, the last thing on earth Asteria wanted to do was trek around the forest looking for help from someone who should’ve been seeking her out. She was the Vampire Queen, after all. So why in the world would she need to suffer the degradation of climbing up and down mountain trails looking for one who should feel blessed to be considered a potential use to someone of her stature?“Please try not to worry, Your Majesty,” the stooped man called Nelo said over his shoulder as they wound their way up a nearly undetectable trail. “I am certain we will find him today.”“That is what you said yesterday,” Asteria reminded him. After two days of searching for Daunator, they had come up empty handed. Asteria had announced earl
Cadence switched off the treadmill and wiped sweat from her dripping forehead on a towel. She’d missed a few days, but now that Aaron was back to his normal self, she was determined not to let another day go by without finding herself in the gym, leaving her frustration on the black, looping track. Since she had put in her thirty-five miles now, she would be able to concentrate better, which was a good thing because there was a lot to be done. And to think, today she’d gone that far in half her usual time.She headed for the locker room , noticing the complex was eerily quiet. She knew Aurora had taken her new recruits outside, but it was odd that no one else was there, and she wondered if she’d missed a memo or something. There was a lot to be done, but Aaron had assured her that morning, when she’d woken up in bed still in his arms, that she should go run and not worry about anything else until she was finished.Grabbing her stuff out of her l
“Ellie looked a lot like you,” Cadence said to Ashley. “Jamie is one of the best people I’ve ever met, and I wasn’t trying to imply that anyone should question why you are dating him. I think the two of you are great together; you make a good couple. I was just trying to say that it isn’t really anyone’s business, that’s all. Everyone has an opinion about what two people are doing together, but it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, so long as you’re happy. Same with Roar and Elliott. Not my business. No one’s business but theirs.”“Sorry, Cadence.” She zipped her gym back and pulled her long hair out of her shirt. “I was trying to make conversation, that’s all. You’re not exactly the easiest person for me to talk to. Maybe I shouldn’t try.”Cadence opened her mouth, thinking she should disagree, but she couldn’t, so she just said, “S
Walking away from the gym gave her an opportunity to get her head back in the game. They had some impossibly difficult tasks ahead of them, and she needed to make sure that she and Aaron were on the same page. They were scheduled to meet with the larger team in about an hour, but she hoped she had a few minutes to go over a few things with him before the rest of them arrived. There were about to be a lot of balls up in the air, and she didn’t want to drop any of them.Noises from the kitchen greeted her as she opened the apartment door. She dropped her gym bag by the door, reminding herself to come back for it later so she didn’t poke the bear, as Elliott would’ve put it, and followed the noise.“Oh, hey,” Aaron said, standing over the stove. “How was the gym?”Cadence stood in the doorway a moment longer, both eyebrows arched. “Fine. What are you doing? Have you been abducted again?”He snickered. &ld
While it should’ve startled Cadence that no one had explained this trend to her, it didn’t. There were just too many surprises anymore to be surprised about anything. “Well, I would really like to find a couple of good male Hunters, but Aurora says she doesn’t have any right now. And recruiting has slowed since we’ve been concentrating on the Guardians coming in from Roatan.”“Maybe after everything settles down, we can see what we can find—if it’s even necessary. In the meantime, speaking of Roatan, I invited Alex to join us at the meeting. I’m hoping he can offer some insight into why Holland might be in Linz.”Cadence’s forehead crinkled. She knew Alex was old and wise, but as far as she knew, his information about Eastern Europe was limited. “Why do you think he might be able to help with that?”Aaron stood and took her plate over to the sink to rinse it off. “Because h