“I don’t like this,” Midas said at last, staring across the street, flames reflecting in his eyes.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I rested my head on his chest. “Neither do I.”
“Four people, including Chef Daaé, knew I was bringing you here tonight.”
“You heard Bishop.” I rubbed small circles at his spine with my thumbs. “He had assistants.”
A high-end outfit like Choco-Loco would have kept schedules out the wazoo, particularly for their star chef and the handpicked assistants who orbited him like chocoholic moons. The chef and his assistants might have had the only copies, or they might have been available to management, or they might have been on an app or even an old-school bulletin board. There were endless possibilities, and none of them were helpful in narrowing down how this happened, tonight of all nights.
About three hours after we arrived, the fire was quenched or had simply run its course, the building’s remains were smoldering, and a soot-smeared Captain Gray jogged across the road to greet us.
“I understand you had a date night planned.” His grimace cut white lines through the grime on his cheeks. “That’s bad luck.”
“It’s definitely something,” I agreed. “The paramedic told us the building was clear?”
“No victims as far as we can tell.”
A hit of relief spiked through me. “Does that include old-as-dirt vampires?”
“Sadly not.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “The cleaners are en route. They’re calling in a specialist to take samples and test them. It will be weeks before we have conclusive evidence either way.”
As treasured as Last Seeds were by their clans, we would have an inkling if Chef Daaé had survived before dawn by way of frantic calls made to the Office of the Potentate of Atlanta, the OPA, if he didn’t come home once they realized who he was set to meet for a private lesson.
Midas found his voice. “Arson?”
“Looks that way.” Gray leaned in, mouth stretched thin. “Aubrey says it tastes a bit like the fire magic he consumed in the clearing.”
So, the coven had reared its ugly head yet again, uncaring of the collateral damage. Why was I not surprised?
“Thanks.” I stuck out my hand. “I appreciate the work you do.”
“You too.” He shook it. “Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”
“I’ll do that.”
With our plans for the night blown, I returned my attention to Midas, whose brow remained crinkled.
Leaning back against him, I tipped my head onto his shoulder. “Do you think the coven is to blame?”
The question jerked him to attention, and he focused on me. “We declared war on them.”
We hadn’t made it official, the way the Society formally declared a blood feud, but yeah. We had carved out the hearts of six of their members and killed more than twice that. We had thrown down the gauntlet, picked it back up, and then smacked the taste out of their mouths with it.
The coven had declared war on innocents first, and that I couldn’t ignore or forgive.
With a screech of tires, four white vans pulled up to the curb in a neat row. Men and women dressed in outfits that greatly resembled flame-retardant footy pajamas poured out onto the sidewalk. A red-faced man, who I hadn’t seen since Bonnie Diaz had attempted to swallow him for barking orders at me, trundled across the street. Sweat dotted his balding pate, and dislike curled his lip.
“We have the area secure.” He yanked on padded gloves. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”
“This is my city,” I told him. “That’s reason enough.”
“Preliminary results will be uploaded into our database at our earliest convenience.” His jaw might be grinding, but he was being civil. Bonnie really left an impression on him. A giant white gwyllgi with equally huge white teeth had that effect on people. “Until such time as we have completed our investigation, I ask you to leave so that my team has the freedom to perform their duties to the best of their abilities.”
The Daaé clan must have thrown their considerable political weight around to get the cleaners out here so fast and in such numbers.
As much as this guy’s attitude annoyed me, he was playing nice, so I would return the favor.
Pivoting on my heel, I started walking away from the chaotic scene, certain Midas would follow.
“We’re banned from the crime scene, and Bishop has HQ in hand. Looks like the rest of our night is wide open.” I linked my arm through his when he caught up to me. “What do you want to do?”
“Go home,” he said, defeated. “We can order in, watch a movie.”
We had nothing to do and nowhere to be, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to spend time with Midas. We had put our lives on hold to cleanse Atlanta of the coven, and I refused to let shame eat him from the inside out for daring to take one night for himself. For us.
“This isn’t your fault.” I jiggled his arm. “You know that, right?”
His curt nod paid lip service to my reassurance, but I didn’t press. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.
“You’re not getting out of taking me on a date.” I withdrew from him. “I hope you have a Plan B.”
“Hadley…”
“Come on.” I grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him after me. “I have an idea.”
The late hour meant getting creative, but there were plenty of para-owned businesses in town who kept Society hours to accommodate their nocturnal clientele.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“No, I don’t.” I yanked harder. “But I want to have you to myself for a minute.”
Preferably one when the world wasn’t burning down around our ears, but I would take what I could get.
“We’re going to have guests soon,” I kept going, filling the quiet. “We’ll be stuck doing the tourist thing.”
“We’ll make it work.” He exerted less pull against me. “Where are they staying?”
“They still can’t decide,” I admitted. “Oh, the joys of traveling with family.”
While I was excited to see Addie and Boaz, I had a case of nerves about my faux father visiting, and I was doing my best to ignore that my biological mother would be sharing the same zip code with me.
“Let’s forget about them.” I skipped my gaze over the restaurant signs. “Let’s focus on us.”
The reminder Midas didn’t know my whole truth was stamped on his face whenever I mentioned my family, but I had never told another soul about my mother. I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t know how, and I was afraid he would treat me differently once all the pieces clicked into place.
Grier and Linus had witnessed her ambivalence toward me in my past life, but they didn’t have a concrete reason to dislike her.
I could give them a metric ton of them, but not without that knowledge crushing me too.
“Okay.” Sensing my mood, he leaned over and kissed my temple. “Us it is.”
“I have an idea.” I stopped in front of him. “It’s not as great as yours, but it might do in a pinch.”
Tilting his head, he glanced around us. “Do I get a hint?”