Page 95 of Jay's Silence

The man slipped his arm around Caoimhe’s waist. His gold rings glinted before his hand disappeared from view, and his dark aura twisted with deep purple and greens. I’d worked out that darker colors were negative. All of us sparked with a bit of purple while using magic. But I’d never seen dark green.

They stood together, and she leaned into the man’s lanky frame.

I glanced at Og, who cocked his head at me. We hadn’t talked about Caoimhe leaving of her own free will. If she was obviously resisting, we knew to charge in. But she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. Feck, Jay told us not to let her out of our sight. As an instruction that had been clear. However, with Caoimhe on some dude’s arm not communicating with us, did it mean to the letter or to make sure we knew where she went?

“She didn’t give us any signals,” I said. The drink the man slid her sat untouched. “She’s leaving of her own free will, I think. Do we swoop in and take out the guy or follow them?”

“You tell me,” Ogden gestured to their backsides as they walked past the bar toward the exit.

I opened and closed my mouth like a fucking fish before I realized what he was asking. Caoimhe's aura blurred, almost as if it had two layers. The exact same colors as the stranger’s enveloped the fire nymph. “He’s done something to her. They’re connected or something. Feck, this isn’t a science, Og. I don’t know what to do.”

They were two steps from the door.

“Are we following or rescuing her?” Og’s dark green gaze didn’t rest on Caoimhe but on me.

He couldn’t see their auras, and he was trusting me to make a decision. This wasn’t like Lux’s tower, where necessity made him trust I wouldn’t kill him. Ogden, as much as I hated to admit it, the smartest of us trusted me to do the right thing.

A piece of my soul cracked, and molten emotion leaked out of it, branding Og, whether he knew it or not. I was one of Jay’s mates, and I fecking loved it, all of it. Confidence I hadn’t felt in days clicked into place. This stranger had connected himself to Caoimhe, and a gut feeling told me killing him wouldn’t fix it.

“Following.” The single word felt like it echoed. I rose from my seat, a new dragon, and calmly pushed toward the front door with Og at my back.

Tenzin’s scent covered the fire nymph. The distinct smell was like a guiding light, and I turned left to follow it. Behind me, Og started making phone calls. Although this wasn’t a proper hunt, my instincts boiled, and my dragon danced.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

JAIYANA

After hiding all of Tyson’s toys, I’d hidden myself.

You’re a fucking coward.

I am.

I wasn’t hiding from the nine orgasms.

Fuck me, I didn’t know the human body was even capable of that.

Mostly human.

Really semantics?

Would you rather admit what you’re really hiding from?

I swallowed.

Truths I didn’t want to face filled the space between those nine orgasms. I didn’t like who I’d become. Worse, I let lifetimes slip away, wallowing in my new reality instead of doing anything to change it. I wasn’t Marduk, but Lux had been right. I viewed myself with the same contempt I viewed an evil demon wizard.

You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch.

Great, now I’m going to have that stuck in my head all evening.

I took a deep breath as another realization made my face heat. I’d fallen asleep with Tyson’s dick literally inside me.It wasn’t just my exhaustion. My dragons made me feel safe. Joy and ease I’d forgotten existed had stilled my thoughts so thoroughly I just slipped away.

My little flip phone buzzed in my pocket. I exited the passage tomb I’d been wandering at Hagar Qim, one of the many megalithic stone age temples of Malta. It had grown dark, and I’d pissed the day away, poking around temples and avoiding my guys. What was I doing?

Answering your fucking phone, Jay.

“Caoimhe went with someone,” Lux's voice sounded hollow out of the phone’s cheap earpiece. “She’s inside a fortress.”

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