Page 1049 of One More Kiss

“Oh, my god!” I crouched down beside him, uncertain what to do. “Are you okay?”

Jett cursed under his breath. He moved past me to scoop up his arrow, re-sheathing it with swift movements. The next thing I knew it was his hand on my upper arm instead of Fins, and he was dragging me away.

“We can’t leave him. You might have killed him.”

“The arrow didn’t penetrate. He won’t stay down for long.” Jett kept pulling me along. “We have to go. Unless you want him to drag you back to Faerie land?”

As we rounded the corner onto the main road I glanced back at Fin. His eyes met mine and he blinked, once. Then he nodded to me and sat up. ‘We’ll meet again’, his expression seemed to say. He looked almost amused.

Jett’s hand slipped down my arm until he grasped my hand in his. We ran down the road headed back towards HQ, looking, I imagined, like two lovesick teenagers. We were anything but.

As soon as I realized where we were headed I stopped running. I still needed to check on my mother, which was where I’d been headed when Fin intercepted me.

“Do you want me to carry you?” Jett had stopped with me, barely out of breath. I was puffing like a banshee, so I could see why he thought I’d need a lift. I tried not to get offended. I was fit. But I’d spent my last half an hour trying to fight a slippery Fae and I didn’t need any more cardio.

I shook my head. “I’m not going back with you.”

His grip on my hand tightened and his shoulders went rigid. He was furious. “It’s not safe out here. You need to get back behind the walls of HQ. The thresholds are lined with iron so the Fae can’t cross.”

“Oh, I know.” I tried to shake my arm free but he wasn’t letting go. I’d traded one captor for another. “I’ve got something to do, and I can’t do it from behind the walls of HQ.”

“Then let me come with you. I can protect you.” He tugged me closer to him, then drew a knife. I gasped.

“Relax. It’s yours.” He slipped it into its sheath on my thigh, his hand caressing my leg in a way that gave me goosebumps. “I found it on the ground back there and picked it up. Didn’t want you to lose your favorite blade. ”

That he recognized it was mine spoke volumes. That he knew it was my favorite? Wowsers. He was either super observant or an A class stalker. I was going with stalker. “My favorite?”

“It’s in the prime spot, easy to draw, and it’s sharp. You take care of it. Ergo, it’s your favorite.”

Oh. Not a stalker. His observations skills were scary good though.

“So, where are we going?” His shoulders were still tight. “I could toss you over my shoulder and take you back to HQ, but I know you’d just sneak out again. And I don’t want to be up all night tracking you.”

I went to protest, to tell him that nobody tracked me if I didn’t want to be seen. But I’d been followed by two guys tonight and both of them had seen straight through my shadow magic, as if it was nothing. I’d been using all my stealth moves and they’d still found me. Not only that, but I hadn’t noticed either of them.

And if Jett hadn’t been one of the two then I’d most likely be in Faerie Land right now, in the Midnight Princes dungeon. Closer to my goal, perhaps. But I had no idea how to escape from a Fae dungeon, and I couldn’t save my sister from inside of one.

“I need to check on my mother.” There. I’d told him.

He frowned. “Your mother?”

I pulled out my phone to call an uber. I’d been planning on taking the train, but hang the expense. If I didn’t get home soon it would be too late. I didn’t want to wake Mom up.

Jett leaned over my shoulder to see what I was doing, then took my phone. “Let me.”

He texted someone. “Shark’s in your contacts now. You can call him any time you need a ride. Or backup, if I’m not around.”

“Since when am I part of your team?” I held out my hand for my phone.

He handed it over. “Since we got shot at together.” He grinned. “Let’s call it your initiation.”

Moments later Shark pulled up in the big black car. “Where to?”

I slid into the back seat, Jett right behind me. I wasn’t super excited about Jett knowing where I lived but at this point there was no reason to keep it secret. He probably already knew.

Maybe it was time to start trusting Jett. The fact that I was letting him chauffeur me to check on my Mom said that I already did.

“Liandra’s place,” Jett said to Shark.

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