blind spots when you’re like that. Tell me, does Raphael have any intel you or Paden would have cared about when this started?”
“No,” I said sadly. “No, he doesn’t, but at least we’re saving him from being experimented on, right? That has to count for something.”
“If Sinclair wants a trade, Carter for Raphael, what do you think we should do? It’s the most likely scenario, and if we plan for it now, we won’t be surprised later in the evening. We don’t know what kind of deadline he’ll give us.”
“He’s playing this very…dangerously,” I said softly. “It’s not like him, is it? He’s normally done everything he can to stay out of real trouble, using others to do his bidding and keeping his hands clean. He tried to kill me last night. That’s not toeing the line like he usually does. That’s blowing right past it.”
“Yes, which means we need to take into account he’s not going with his regular MO,” Cassius agreed. “Do we fake a trade, then go in for the kill?”
“No,” I snapped quickly. “We can’t put Raphael at risk like that.”
“It’s an easy way of getting it done without raising suspicion.”
“No,” I repeated, my every instinct against the idea. A naga doesn’t send someone who might be a potential mate into the line of fire. It wasn’t done. I couldn’t allow Cassius to do it—not under any circumstance.
“He would know what’s going on. We wouldn’t be betraying him. Let’s hope he can act and—”
“Absolutely not,” I hissed across the office, closing the door before walking closer to the desk. “Find another option.”
“Since we don’t know the location yet or who he might have with him…”
“Find. Another. Way.” I couldn’t budge on this. Cassius would be handing Raphael to Sinclair over my dead body.
“Paden was attacked. Knowing them, he probably needed extensive and fast healing before he could warn you they were coming,” Cassius said, glaring at her. “Carter is probably already in their hands; we’re just waiting on Imani to confirm it. Hopefully, Sinclair will get word to us sooner rather than later. This is off the rails, as the humans say. The train has left the tracks. We don’t have many options. Raphael is powerful, and from your description of his powers, he’s damn near unkillable. He will be fine. We’ll move fast enough, they won’t be able to get him into a car.”
“No,” I repeated.
“Why were you willing to risk everyone else but not him?” Cassius asked softly. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“A lot,” I answered honestly. “Too much and none of it to do with you.”
“Kaliya…” he warned. I bit my tongue. Did I tell Cassius? Did I trust him to understand what was at stake?
He keeps a room here for me, so I can hide if things get too hot. He does it even though we both know his uncle hates me, even though he’s moved on from us and is getting married to someone else.
“He’s…I could mate with him,” I said softly, watching Cassius’s face change from the glare to surprise before landing on concern.
“Kaliya, are you…?”
“I don’t want to. I barely know him, but I can’t…I can’t take the risk of him dying, either. Cassius, he has to live, and he has to stay close because…”
“He might be the only person you ever meet,” he finished. “Oh, this is bad,” he mumbled, falling into his chair. “When did you know?”
“The moment I saw him. I was professionally curious, then I became personally invested, like that.” I snapped my fingers. “The connection he might have to anything that I’ve been looking into is so obscure, it’s…irrelevant. The moment I saw him, I knew.”
“One in several billion,” Cassius said. “And he somehow ended up in your city, running from a supernatural problem. Kaliya, you could stop all this right now. You can give him protection under supernatural Law.”
“I…I need time to think about that,” I replied, finding a seat. “You think I don’t know? I could go to the Tribunal right now and say, ‘Hey, this guy can have kids with me, so he’s off limits.’”
“Why haven’t you? Why didn’t you do it the first night and declare it to the world, so he had another layer of protection?”
“Because it gives him more enemies. He would no longer be a strange oddity one company wants for whatever reason. He would be…a naga mate. I’m lucky in my world, Cassius. I know how to kill. I made a name for myself and placed