full minute.”
“The ward,” I mumbled. “Kicked my butt.”
“Help me sit her upright.” Lisbeth tugged once before Midas shrugged her off and lifted me into his arms. “Um, that’s not what I had in mind.” The edge of his mouth twitched at her in the promise of a snarl. “But I like your idea better.”
Ford positioned himself between Lisbeth and Midas, but he let the threat pass. He understood the murky area where courtesy and instinct collided in gwyllgi and that it wasn’t always a line consciously crossed.
Basically, he saved us a lot of time by opting not to posture, and I was grateful for it.
“Help me stand.” I wiggled in Midas’s grasp. “We can’t fight if you’re carrying me everywhere.”
Reflex curled me tighter against him before he forced himself to relax his grip and ease me down.
Certain I was about to have egg on my face from collapsing at Midas’s feet, Ambrose stroked my hair, and lightning struck in its wake, jolting me awake and alert, flooding my system with adrenaline…and every last drop of the power he had borrowed from me.
“Thank you.” I patted Midas’s chest. “And they say men can’t be trained to follow simple instructions.”
A low growl was my reward, but it got his mind off Lisbeth and Ford. It was a win in my book.
“Death hasn’t improved your sense of humor,” he grumbled. “You’re still not funny.”
Smoothing my thumb over the beat of his frantic heart, I begged him with my gaze for patience.
“I’ll explain later,” I promised him in a low voice. “It’s not exactly what you think.”
Expression tight, he exhaled. “Then it’s probably worse.”
“You are a little ray of sunshine.” I frowned at him. “I’ve always considered you a Grumpy Bear on the Care Bear scale, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re a Funshine.”
“Hadley.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I—”
“—love you too,” I finished for him. “Now let’s go adventuring.”
“You are—”
“—wonderful and amazing and have great taste in side dishes?”
“You’re doing it again.” He clamped his hands on my shoulders to hold me still. “You’re deflecting.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I will get frustrated, I will get angry, I will get worried, but I will never hurt you.”
The impact of what he’d caught me doing staggered my wobbly legs, and I hated how deep the hooks of insecurity had sunk into me until I couldn’t let the man finish a sentence out of fear what he might say next.
Mostly, that he would say goodbye.
That I wasn’t worth the headache.
That I wasn’t worth the hassle.
That I wasn’t worth…anything.
“I don’t always realize I’m doing it,” I confessed. “I hear people start to criticize, and I just want to slap my hand over their mouth before they say something they can’t take back.” I tugged on his arm. “I’m sorry. I trust you with my life. That ought to prove I can trust you with my heart too.”
“We’ve got time for you to get there.” He kissed my forehead. “All the time in the world.”
Poor guy had no idea how literal his words were, if Ambrose was to be believed.
That was definitely a conversation for later.
“We’re presenting a tempting target out here, folks.” Ford glanced around us. “We need to move.”
“I’ll go in first.” I checked with the shadow beside me, who nodded. “There could be more wards.”
Muscles worked in Midas’s jaw as he chewed over all the things he wanted to tell me, but he swallowed them down with visible effort and trusted me to lead them.
Turning my back on my friends, I stalked toward the front door, shadow in tow.
“They spent a lot of time on these wards.” I checked the knob, and it turned in my hand. “Too easy?”
Then again, if no one could reach the door, did it really matter if you bothered locking it behind you?
Once inside the cavernous building, I slumped with disappointment. A wide-open space with nowhere to hide that I could see, I doubted this was where Liz had gone to ground. There were no supplies, food or otherwise. Nothing about the space explained what warranted the heavy security measures set outside.
As that doubt surfaced, an ounce of certainty trickled in that there must be something here worth protecting if they had it locked up so tight.
With a flick of my wrist, I sent Ambrose to scout the interior while I stood there, careful not to trip any traps I might not sense. We had to wipe this place clean before the others joined us.