Marita smacked her palm on the seat next to her, which put me very close to a person armed with hugs. Asa, who must not have read my panic, sat on my right, leaving the chair between them my only option.
Once everyone was seated, I cast a privacy spell to allow us to speak freely amongst ourselves.
“First, Marita, I want to thank you for coming.” I sank onto my chair, one cheek hanging over the edge closest to Asa. “I appreciate your willingness to take time away from your mate and pack to help us.”
“Derry is a loser.” She rocked her chair onto its back legs. “And he can suck it.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Clay announced to the table. “The famed warg mate bond in action.”
“All’s fair in love and riding sea monsters.” Her smile was all teeth. “That’s how we keep it spicy.”
Before I heard a detailed accounting of the aforementioned spice, I plunged back into my briefing.
“There’s been no word from Aedan or movement from Calixta.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. “We don’t know where they’re holed up, with whom, or when they plan to strike. Meanwhile, as of this morning, Stavros is alive and well in Hael.” I sprouted claws from my fingertips, pricking neat holes in my slacks. “That means Asa remains a prime target.”
A heavy silence blanketed the table, and Clay honed his gaze on me.
There was a very good reason Asa hadn’t come to work with me as the other half of my security detail.
Blay was MIA, and he had been since Asa wrested control to allow the farm’s doctor to save their lives.
There was lingering tenderness in his gut that worried me too, and exhaustion dogged his footsteps.
Days ago, I reminded myself. He almost died days ago.
Time, and daily healing sessions with Colby, aka Mystical Med Mage, would cure the rest.
Colby, who had absorbed the news of Aedan’s sacrifice the same way she adapted to her new life with me. She ignored everything that came before. Not a healthy coping mechanism by far, but I hoped to get him back before she did any real damage to herself. I didn’t know what else to do. For either of us.
“That’s why Marita is here.” I forced myself to breathe. “I couldn’t think of a fiercer guard for Asa.”
“Aww.” She made a heart with her fingers and pounded it against her chest. “You do love me.”
A flicker of annoyance pinched Clay’s features before he smoothed them, but I could have told him no one would ever take his place in my heart. Could have but didn’t. Because payback ought to be savored.
“Might I ask,” Asa inquired, linking our fingers, “why the centuria wasn’t tapped for this job?”
“You may.” I allowed his touch to ground me. “I want a guard who doesn’t think like a daemon.”
“Isn’t that counterintuitive,” Clay cut in, “when we expect daemon retaliation?”
“Asa can provide Marita with the daemon perspective,” I explained my reasoning. “Based on his suggestions, and her prior experience in this field, she will tailor her precautions to give him the widest coverage possible.”
“That frees Moran up to stay at the farm,” Asa observed, “to watch over Mother and Peleg.”
“Oh, does it?” I pushed my eyebrows up my forehead. “That’s a happy coincidence.”
Asa made a soft noise in the back of his throat that telegraphed his disbelief.
Until Callula recovered enough for portal travel, in another day or two, she was a guest in our infirmary. The hope was, when we returned her to the temple, that Asa’s grandmother might have learned how to sever my link with the Hunk. That had been our bargain, but we had no guarantees of her success.
Peleg, on the other hand, would be on bedrest for a couple of weeks. He was awake and talking, but the Hunk had walloped him good while protecting Colby from his rough handling. He required more time to heal from his injuries before Moran settled him in his own room and read him the Colby riot act.
If I had my way, Callula and Peleg would have Asa for company. I would leave him behind the wards with the entire centuria to guard him. But he nixed that idea. Obviously. Or he wouldn’t be sitting next to me.
The worst part was I couldn’t kick up a fuss since I would pitch a fit if he tried to bubble-wrap me too.
“All right.” He accepted my plan without complaint. “In that case, thank you for your service, Marita.”
“Thank me when it’s over,” she countered, “and you’re not dead.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I pretended not to have heard my worst fear blabbed without a filter.
“Protecting Asa is priority one,” I plowed ahead. “Locating and detaining Luca is priority two.”
As the woman responsible for freeing Dad from his cell beneath the mansion, and the pot-stirrer behind the recent black witch rebellion within Black Hat, I had decided to kill two birds with one stone. Gift Luca to the director, and it got her out of our hair. Plus, I hoped it restored me to the director’s good graces.
Easy access would make it much simpler to kidnap him and trade him to Calixta in exchange for Aedan.
“Incoming,” Clay said under his breath then louder, “Thanks for closing the restaurant for us, Krish.”
A quick twist of magic unraveled the spell, and if the smell bothered anyone, no one mentioned it.
“Anything for you, sugar.” A slender man with dark eyes braced a hip against the table. “What’ll it be?”
“Chili pakora and keema samosa to start, with enough garlic onion naan to build a fort, please.”
Studying Clay over his order pad, Krish chewed on the inside of his cheek. “That for you or everyone?”
“Ha.” Marita tapped her menu where it rested on the table. “That’s just for the lightweight.”
While Clay spluttered incoherent noises, she ordered half the appetizers and a wide selection of flatbreads.
If a peckish golem could eat a side of beef in one sitting, a hungry warg could put a dent in the herd.
“The rest of us—” as in Asa and me, “—will have tandoori keema kulcha.”
Now that Asa and I had progressed in our fascination beyond requiring each other’s saliva to make food palatable, I was on a mission to discover Asa’s tastes, which was proving to be a delicious journey.
Once the waiter was out of hearing range, I zeroed in on Clay. “You know each other?”
The restaurant was his suggestion, but he was a fan of Indian food, so I hadn’t given it another thought.
“Krish and I go way back. He’s a good kid. You don’t see many gandaberunda out this way.”
Gandaberunda were two-headed birds of immense power, but they rarely ventured outside of Jaipur.
While being friendly with Clay counted for something, I recast the spell to give us a bubble of privacy.
“How do you intend to lure out Luca?” Asa rolled his thumb over my knuckles. “Use Saint as bait?”
Luca and Dad’s relationship was rocky. Mostly because he shirked her terms to spend time with his dead wife’s vengeful spirit. (Yes, my life is a lot right now.) He had every intention of fulfilling their bargain, by bringing down the director and Black Hat, just not on her timetable.