Page 47 of Forged Bonds

“I liked you better when you were pretending to be a gods damned Beta,” Shan muttered.

Stepping up to him, I went on my toes to whisper in his ear. “Are you sure? You really liked me taking your knot yesterday, and I wouldn’t have done that if I was still pretending to be a Beta.”

His hands grabbed my ass, hoisting me up so I had no choice but to wrap my legs around him. He kissed me until we were both breathless and his erection was rubbing me. Paper and ink and those light and airy floral notes made me dizzy with lust, compounded by the other scents in the air.

Sex and pine.

Ocean breeze and mango.

Clothes fresh out of the dryer.

Cinnamon and pastries.

All laden down with desire.

Altair cleared his throat, breaking the moment. It was for the best. “If you two are done practically fucking in the armoury, I think we’re all ready to go.”

I hopped down from Shan, turning to face the rest of the room with a satisfied smirk. “Right then. Let’s go find some information.”

THIRTEEN

Emmett

Our groups had been chosen by Nolan, but Shan had surprisingly agreed to them without complaint. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was slowly coming to accept Nolan’s leadership, or if he was only agreeing because he would have done the same thing. They were smart groupings.

The only problem was, we weren’t with Freya.

Freya, Caspian, and Oswald were on the other side of the building, watching their surroundings to see what kind of security Kylan had present at his properties when he wasn’t around.

Shan and I were doing the same thing on this side, from high ground. Freya had portalled me to the top of this building, while Shan had flown up.

Nolan, Sky, and Altair were doing the heavy lifting this time around. They were going to break into Kylan’s penthouse floor condo unit and snoop around, trying to find any hints of where he was going next.

“I don’t like this,” I muttered under my breath, taking a deep inhale.

There weren’t many scents up here, which made it easier to pick out the ones from people who might be patrolling. A couple different vampires had been in the area and one fallen angel. The angel scent was older. He’d probably been around at the same time as Kylan, acting as part of his personal guard. Having someone with wings was always helpful, as we’d learned over the years.

“Are you scenting something suspicious?” Shan asked.

His attention was focused down and around us. The timing of our operation was perfect despite our rush to begin, because we’d caught the tail end of daytime. Shan had enough light to hide us with ease and Altair would have access to his shadows.

“No.”

“Why don’t you like it, then? Gut feeling?”

It was nothing like that. I was hesitant to admit all my nerves came from having Freya so far from me. It didn’t matter she was capable of protecting herself and had Caspian and Oswald with her. The bond between us shuddered with every breath I took, my need to be close to her nearly overwhelming. Would it always be this strong? Or was this only because we hadn’t consummated it yet?

“You’d prefer to be close to her,” Shan guessed. “Wouldn’t we all?”

“The bond is making me nervous. I know there’s no need to be, but it feels like it’s my job to protect her.”

“It is. We’re protecting her by being over here and paying attention to how many guards Kylan might have when he was here last night. Have you got a count?”

It didn’t feel much like protecting her. I knew he was right, so I didn’t argue. “He has a fallen angel on his personal security.”

“I fucking hate fallen angels,” Shan said darkly.

Our gazes caught on a flash of movement on the fire escape outside the penthouse. This building was an older one, and the penthouse level was only six floors up. The fire escape was black metal and led to a door right beside one of the windows into Kylan’s residence. Currently, Nolan, Altair, and Sky were standing on it. They were invisible, but I could tell by scent, though it was faint from the distance. Plus, the flash of magic we’d spotted had to have come from someone.

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