glass landing with a thump on the table. "I can feel your emotions, bro," he said slowly, rolling his shoulders a little. It was a signature move of Tyson's when he was casually preparing to beat the fuck out of someone. "You can't control yourself when it comes to her. I've never felt you so ... erratic."
I forced myself to relax, to slump back near the wall and not jump to the fight he was itching for. Bastard was deliberately trying to stir me because I was being so reticent about what was happening between Justice and me.
But fuck, I really didn’t know what to tell them.
"I care about her," I said with fake casualness. "She's Grace's jeweled sister, part of our pack, and we had to lean on each other a lot during the past month.” Memories of our time with the president crashed through my mind. “We talked a lot—" And that was the truth. Despite our bickering, we'd managed to have meaningful conversations, and I sensed that I knew more about Justice than almost any living being on this world.
"Just talked?" Maximus asked with a snort. "That doesn't sound like your usual fey charm. You’re telling me that you didn't end up in bed after spending a month in close quarters with her?"
When he put it like that…? What was wrong with me? Justice was gorgeous. Not to mention, and even more importantly, she was also funny, smart, powerful, and viper-tongued—basically the exact way I loved my women.
But I hadn't tried to seduce her. If anything, I'd spent the month slowly self-destructing and I had no goddamned idea why. "She fucks with my head," I admitted, standing straighter as the screen grew brighter on the computer, and Braxton waved me over.
There were dozens of emails waiting for our attention. Most of them would have been sent today, since we tried to go through them once a day. The life of running the supernatural council of America. It never ended, and even though we were all ready to hand this shit over to someone else, so far no one stood out that we trusted to do a good job.
Despite a ten-page list of possible candidates.
"File is here," Braxton rumbled, moving his chair a little closer. "It's fucking huge."
He side-eyed me, like I was going to make some sort of dick joke about that.
Unfortunately, this was no situation to joke about. A huge file could only mean one thing: President Caine had been recording a hell of a lot more than he’d said.
Sure enough, the first series of photos were from two days after we started with his secret service. It was the first night I'd drank with Bryce; that fucking Irishman had done his best to get me plastered, trying to pry my secrets out. I hadn't spilled any of course; it would take more than a barrel of rum to make that happen, but I'd gotten a little power happy, and there was a nice image of flames dancing across my fingers. I mean, it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be explained as photo manipulation, but when it came from the president, along with everything else … it was damning.
"Fuck!" I snarled, shaking my head. "We were trying to fit in, and the men were curious about my powers."
Braxton didn't say anything, and through our bond he didn’t seem upset or pissed with me. That dragon was hard to read, though. He moved on to the next file, which was video footage of the same incident. From the angle I could tell it was Marcus who had filmed me. There were files upon files—we’d been filmed almost consistently without pause. Ninety percent wouldn’t be a worry, because it was barely obvious what was happening, but there were a few big ones.
Especially once we hit the Syrian footage. This was taken by a drone, from very high above, and the quality was grainy, but there was no missing the absolute destructive terror of my power.
"He set us up," I admitted, ashamed and furious with myself for falling for it. "Justice was in danger and I just reacted. Like I said before, she messes with my head, and when she puts herself in danger, I lose all reasoning. But it's no excuse for my actions."
Braxton turned and clamped his heavy hand on my shoulder. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, brother. The president orchestrated much of this to ensure he got what he wanted. So now we will