If that threat prevented Jak from chasing leads without first informing me, then I couldn't be sorry about it—even if I wasn't exactly intending to obey it myself.
"I'll ring you tomorrow if I don't hear anything before then."
He nodded, gave me a sketchy wave good-bye with his good hand, then headed off down the street, dripping blood as he went. Obviously he had no intention of shifting shape to heal himself just yet. But then, he'd always been somewhat reluctant to shift shape in public—mainly, I think, because he never liked to remind people he was a werewolf. Humans might have accepted non-humans as a whole, but that didn't mean there weren't pockets who feared all things supernatural—especially at the very low levels of society, where suspicion of anything bigger and stronger tended to be entrenched. Jak might have the skill to relax people and make them talk, but that skill couldn't always override a base-level apprehension of non-humans.
I watched him walk away for several seconds, then turned to face Azriel. "I need to sleep."
He snorted softly. "I believe I suggested that some time ago."
"Well, I'm finally giving in to the inevitable—if you'll zap me back home, that is."
"You're abandoning the hotel?"
I nodded. "I want to sleep in my own bed, seeing as the Raziq aren't such an immediate threat."
"And the things you left at the hotel?"
"I can get them later." When I was rested and able to think logically again.
"Then home we shall go."
He stepped close and wrapped his arms around me once more. I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation of his physical presence as his heat and energy tore through me like a storm, sweeping me from that place to mine in a heartbeat.
As my feet touched the wooden floors of our building, I sighed in pleasure. The huge industrial fans hanging from the vaulted ceilings whirled, gently moving air that was cool and still smelled faintly of roses and lilac—the scents lingering from potions Ilianna had been making earlier in the week. But there was dust on the dining table and over all the other bits and pieces scattered about, and there was an odd sense of abandonment in the way everything lay where it had last fallen. But I guess that was to be expected, since Tao was still unconscious and Ilianna was piding her time between the Brindle and Mirri's.
"Are you okay?" Azriel asked softly.
His breath tickled the top of my head and stirred a sense of well-being deep inside. Or maybe well-being wasn't the right word—it was more a sense of safety. Of being right.