catch him.”
Thirty years of hunting him. Thirty years away from Rei. There was no other place he could be except Scorchwood. It was in a frozen wasteland area of Hell where no one lived.
He had to be there. And I was coming for him.
Chapter 36
Rei
A
s much as I hated my time in Faust’s office before, it was kind of nice now that he was talking to me. He told me the Aether Circle paid Venus to kill me and bribed a few people to make sure we both ended up in Silverhold together. That wasn’t super shocking, given what I knew about that coven, but Venus was even dumber than I thought if all she had tried to do so far was jump me in the shower without a weapon and get herself beaten up by the foxes.
If the Aether Circle paid you to do something, they expected results because if it was a job they didn’t do themselves, they paid a lot of money, and there were perks offered. Venus should have been focused on just me instead of worrying about taking over the witch gang and mailroom. The Aether Circle would pay whoever took the job to kill me a little extra to take her out for failing. No witnesses, no one to spill their secrets.
“I got you something, but keep it a secret,” Faust said.
I cocked an eyebrow at him. Why was he buying me things? Faust opened his desk drawer and handed me a pink box. I just stared at it. What game was Faust playing? He let out a little grunt and opened the box. This absolutely gorgeous strawberry cupcake was sitting in the box. I fucking adored cupcakes, and strawberry cake was my favorite, but why?
Faust reached into his pocket and produced a candle. He stuck it in the cupcake and lit it.
“Happy birthday, Rei. I know it’s shitty celebrating it in prison. I got you this, and my gift to you is to let you make an unrecorded call from my cell to Hauser.”
What the shit? I’d been so wrapped up in prison drama, and I’d forgotten my own birthday. My parents always made this big deal about it, but I didn’t really celebrate that much after our fight. Hauser and I could never find out if the day we always celebrated was the day I was actually born or the day they adopted me. They really tried to make that day memorable for me, and it felt strange to do anything without them.
Hauser knew this and kept things low key. He’d make my favorite meal and give me a loaded gift card to my favorite bookstore. I could always be bribed with food and books. And, apparently, cupcakes and illegal prison phone calls, because there was this weird fucking feeling in my gut that Faust would do this for me.
“Hauser ratted you out strawberry was your favorite. I got it from this shifter bakery that makes my favorite cookies.”
I eyed Faust. He was solid, cut, and didn’t have a single ounce of fat on him. Even I could admit he was fucking hot as shit.
“You don’t look like you partake of cookies, Faust. You look like someone who doesn’t eat carbs, drinks kale, and gets up at some ungodly hour to run ten miles and lift weights.”
Faust broke into this huge grin, and I realized I liked it when he smiled at me.
“I’m a wolf, Rei. I can eat all the carbs I want, and I love sweets. I wouldn’t be caught dead drinking kale, though I like it as a side dish with steak. The only time I run ten miles is late at night when I shift and run as my wolf. It’s my time to think and be me. I don’t have a gym membership or a home gym. I look like this from being in the woods as my wolf.”
Should I say it? Would it make things weird? Shit was already odd if he brought me cupcakes, and I never had a problem shooting my mouth off and making things super awkward.
“You should keep doing that because you look amazing.”
I immediately blushed and shoved the cupcake in my mouth so I didn’t have to say anything else. Since when did I get embarrassed sexually objectifying someone to their face? Faust just threw back his head and laughed. I embarrassed myself even more because I finally got a taste of that cupcake. He said shifters made it and there