Page 6 of Wicked Deeds

Boyd drove back out through the gates and they closed again, leaving Damon and me alone outside the house.

“There,” I said brightly. “All taken care of. Let’s go back in.”

Damon was staring at the gates as though expecting them to open again and more trouble to saunter through.

I nudged him with my shoulder. “Inside. Sleep.”

He shook his head. “Mitch will be here soon.”

Well, crap. I thought I’d avoided Damon’s security getting involved.

“Can’t he wait until morning?”

Damon shook his head. “That thing got in here without setting off any warnings, despite every way this house is protected. He’s going to want to do a full sweep.”

He would. And no doubt he’d be asking me some questions. Mitch Angelico, Damon’s head of security, was a man who left no stone unturned. Ever. He was annoyingly efficient at his job and annoyingly thorough. I could probably kiss any thought of getting to bed in the next few hours goodbye.

“In that case, inside and coffee.” I suppressed a sigh. “I’ll send Cassandra a message, let her know what happened, too.”

Which would no doubt result in a lecture from Cassandra as well, even though none of this was my fault. I hadn’t let the damned nixling in. I hadn’t even been near the realm recently, so it couldn’t have followed me out. Or, if it had, it had taken its damned time following me home.

Damon nodded and held out his hand. I took it gratefully, recognizing the gesture for what it was. Him letting me know he wasn’t mad with me. Falling for me had brought a lot of complications to his life. Just as falling for him had complicated mine. Dating a billionaire had shoved me into a world I knew nothing about, at the same time I was learning I had magic. It had been an adjustment for both of us, one that had torn us apart at one point.

But we’d made our way back to each other and mostly by agreeing to take the good with the bad. If we wanted eachother, then that came with security teams and restrictions and paparazzi, as well as magic and Fae and other weirdness.

Still, it was hard sometimes, in my weaker moments—like when I was sleep-deprived and stressed—not to worry Damon might one day decide it was all too much.

Chapter Three

While Damon made coffee,I did a lap of the house, running my hands along the walls and inspecting the wards for weak spots. Nothing. The wards were intact. After all, the nixling hadn’t managed to get inside the house. Not that it had tried.

Gráinne had said something about some nixlings being able to get around wards. Did other lesser Fae share that talent?

Damn. I hoped not. Even without the photo of Jack and my mom, some of the creatures we’d encountered in Usuriel’s territory were enough to give me nightmares.

Nope. If I thought about that, I’d never sleep again. And if it was a common ability, surely Cerridwen or Callum would have mentioned it by now.

So I was going to be all Pollyanna and assume the house was secure.

One less thing to worry about, unless Mitch’s team came to a different conclusion. Knowing Mitch, there’d be at least one extra guard taking a shift in the garden for the rest of the night.

Normally Damon’s team monitored the house from a neighboring property he also owned. They did patrols, but there were no permanent gate guards as such. Damon always said hedidn’t want to feel like he was living in a prison, but having more of his team on hand was one of the conditions Mitch had set after Jack had taken Damon. Along with more bodyguards for Damon. I had one when I went anywhere by myself as well. Which was still weird, but one of those things I’d had to accept was part of life with my favorite billionaire.

I didn’t try checking the wards along the boundary fences. I wasn’t keen on going into the garden alone. Better to wait for Mitch and Maia Lin, my bodyguard, who no doubt would accompany him. She was the strongest witch in the security team.

I slurped coffee—willing the caffeine to push some clarity back into my brain—pondering my next move. It should be to call Cassandra and let her know what had happened.

I didn’t want to disturb her but, as head of the Cestis, she needed to know there’d been a rogue Fae creature in the city.

The last time that had happened, it had been abruadhsiu—a nightwalker—and people had died. The nixling was not the same level of threat but, still, another breach of the door—if that was what it turned out to be—was Cestis business. So, as much as it was tempting to ask Madge to route me through to her message service rather than calling her directly, I put on my big-girl pants and went to make the call.

I carried my coffee out to my office, but nearly spilled it when the call notification on my datapad chimed before I could even pick it up.

Cassandra’s name flashed on the screen. Great, she’d heard the news. Which saved me a call, but I wondered if it had been Mitch or Gráinne who’d spilled the beans. Possibly both.

“Cassandra, hi,” I said. “You heard?”

“Yes,” she said dryly. The image of her on my screen shifted as she covered her yawn with a hand and settled back into her chair, her large golden brown eyes alert. Her silvery hair waspulled back in a bun that was messier than usual, but that was the only sign she’d just been woken. She had on a crisp cotton shirt in a vivid shade of red. No taking vidcalls in her pajamas for Cassandra. At least my gym clothes weren’t sweaty.

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