it is not needed.” He sniffs, still standing in the doorway.
“No? Well, I will stay for a few days just to ensure that, if you don’t mind. Unless you have something to hide?”
I see his cheeks bulge as he grinds his teeth. “The council hides nothing and to speculate that we are is treason.”
“No speculation, just ensuring,” I clarify, and then rise so quickly he jerks back. “Do not worry, I remember my way around. I don’t need an escort.”
“Do not think because you are a mystic,” he spits, “that it means you get special favour. We are in charge, not you, false god.”
Stepping closer, I peer down at him, letting him feel my power. “Then lead, your people are waiting for answers. I suggest you give it to them before there is unrest. It wouldn’t be good for your life expectancy, I assume.”
Sweeping past him, I start to whistle as I explore the house. I can feel his rage thundering through the walls. He does not like having me here, which means he does have something to hide other than my mate—the question is, what?
I spend the next few hours mapping the house before finding a spare guest room, already made up for when people such as myself stop by. It is on the third floor—I picked the chamber farthest from the council members in the west wing to conceal what I am truly doing. Slinking into the white fur rug before the golden mantle, I cross my legs and place my hands on my knees as I close my eyes.
Letting my mind clear, ignoring the tug in my lower belly urging me to find our mate, I spread out my senses, searching for disturbances or any magic to find what they are hiding.
The dungeons are blocked, as I expected, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to contain the monsters of our world down there. The first floor is empty, so I keep going, but every floor I find is vacant bar the magic of the supernaturals here. The council no doubt feels me, but how can they question what I am doing?
They can’t.
Tipping up my lips, I expand my senses across the grounds. I find more nephilim out back in what looks like a bunk house. Sweeping past that I keep going, searching, pushing my power until sweat breaks out on my brow.
Just when I am about to pull back, I feel something. The edge of something...power. Stretching out my tendrils, I poke them and they react, swirling with dangerous black magic. It is shielding something, something big at the edge of the property. A building. I glimpse a silver door built into the ground before I am blocked.
It’s strong...and ancient. So old that I can’t break through the shrouding. What is locked behind that door? And why is it protected with wards that I haven’t seen used in over a decade? Does it have something to do with my mate? Or the missing women?
The more I find, the more questions I have.
What is the council doing...and how are we entangled in this web?
I’m not led to the sitting room where we met last time, no, this time I’m dragged outside. I gulp in the fresh air, shivering under the midmorning sun as it heats my skin. I have missed this, missed being free. You don’t realise the toll of being locked in a dark, damp dungeon until you come up for air. There can be no darkness without light to shade it, and it seems even as I thrive in the dark...I still crave the light.
I’m dragged across the grass, past a pool which looks so inviting. I stifle the urge to push Veyo, the asshole, into the blue water, only just. We move around some bushes and past a training ground. I almost stumble there, because standing in the middle of a circle of what looks like other nephilim is Griffin.
His head is back, his eyes bright and angry. That face I crave is locked in a snarl, his body bulging with power as his wings flare out behind him. He looks like heaven and hell in one sexy package, and I almost say fuck the mission and instead fuck him there and then.
He must feel me because his head turns, those bright eyes locking on me with such intensity that I shiver. I see the questions—where am I going? What’s happening? —but I can’t answer him. Veyo tugs me again, his hand wrapped around my upper