Hamid held up the knife. “Nothing except an archangel’s sword.”

  “A whole sword, wielded by an angel,” I argued. “Alaron will be too powerful for anyone to get close enough to use that little thing.”

  Eldeorin’s smile was almost apologetic. “I did not say it would be easy.”

  Hamid’s arm slipped around my waist and squeezed it reassuringly. “We will figure out a way.”

  I leaned into him. We’re warriors. It’s what we do.

  Chapter 18

  I tossed my coat on the foot of the bed and kicked off my boots. “Well, that was fun,” I said without enthusiasm.

  Hamid didn’t answer as he walked across the hotel room and stared out the window at the Miami skyline. He’d been distracted and moody lately, and today hadn’t helped. Chasing down our second false lead in three days hadn’t put anyone on the team in better spirits.

  It had been over a week since our run-in with Alaron at the wrakk, and the longer we went without a sign of him, the higher tensions ran through everyone involved. Foremost on our minds was what he was up to and where he would strike next.

  Some people speculated that Kai’s body might have finally deteriorated too much to host the demon and he’d gone back to his dimension. I wanted so much to believe that, but Hamid didn’t think we’d seen the last of the archdemon yet, and I trusted his instincts. So did the Council. They had so much faith in Hamid they had decided he would keep the angel blade with him. He carried the weapon on his person at all times, except for when we were in our room.

  At the moment, however, Alaron wasn’t my main concern. The only thing I cared about was easing the stress of my mate, who bore the weight of this investigation on his shoulders. They were very strong shoulders to be sure, but I was determined to relieve them of their burden, if only for a few hours.

  Pulling off my shirt, I let it fall to the floor. Next came my jeans, leaving me in the matching Victoria Secret set I’d put on this morning with this moment in mind.

  “I’m going to grab a shower. Want to join me?”

  Hamid’s head turned in my direction. Lust blazed in his eyes as he took in the blue lace bra and panties that left little to the imagination. He abandoned the window and prowled toward me, the intensity of his stare sending my pulse racing.

  His hands framed my face, and he gazed down into my eyes with so much love and desire it stole my breath away. “You are a temptress, my mate.”

  Only for you, I said as his mouth covered mine in a dizzying kiss, his hands roving over my body until my legs were too weak to support me.

  Backing me up until I lay on the bed, he bent to press scorching kisses to my stomach that made me nearly mindless with need.

  “Shower,” I gasped.

  His fingers slipped beneath the low waistband of my panties. “Later.”

  * * *

  Much, much later, I lay in the bed and drowsily listened to Hamid ordering room service. I could have taken this little break from our lovemaking to get that shower, but my body had all the strength of a limp noodle. I was content to just lie there and let him feed me. Maybe if I asked nicely, he’d wash me, too. I smiled lazily because he wouldn’t need a lot of coaxing.

  As soon as he hung up, his cell phone rang. I was used to people calling him, so I didn’t pay attention until I heard him say, “We’ll be there by morning.”

  I sat up. “Where are we going?”

  “Los Angeles. Raoul said they’ve had unusual activity at Fisher Middle School.”

  “What kind of activity?” Tossing the covers off me, I got out of bed.

  Hamid’s gaze slid over my naked form as he hit the call button on his phone. “Have the plane ready to take off within the hour.” Pause. “Los Angeles.” He hung up and met my eyes. “Grab a quick shower while I let the others know we’re leaving.”

  I rooted in my bag for a change of clothes. “What kind of activity are they seeing?”

  “The janitor saw a strange light in one of the classrooms. He was spooked and called the command center. Raoul checked it out, and they found nothing out of the ordinary, but he wants the team to go over it.”

  “I don’t blame him after what happened there last time.” I headed to the bathroom. “I’ll be out in five.”

  I was drying off when Hamid came into the bathroom and entered the shower. I forgot what I was doing and watched him standing beneath the spray of water as I thought for the thousandth time what a lucky girl I was.

  He turned to face me, wearing a knowing smirk, and made a show of washing his front.

  Keep it up, big guy, and we’re going to be late for that flight. I left the bathroom to the sound of his deep laughter.

  We joined the rest of the team in the lobby ten minutes later. Some of them looked bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, but a familiar current of excitement ran through the whole group as we drove to the airport.

  On the plane, I grabbed my usual seat in the last row. Hamid spent the first hour talking to the others, but then he made his way down to sit with me.

  “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” he said.

  I yawned and rested my head against his shoulder. “I tried, but I can’t stop thinking about what we’ll find in L.A.”

  “You won’t be finding anything but a bed if you don’t get some rest,” he admonished lightly. He reclined our seats until we were almost lying down and tugged me over so I was on his chest. I tried to lift my head, but he held me in place. “Sleep.”

  “Don’t think you’re going to make a habit of bossing me around,” I said grumpily as I shifted to get more comfortable.

  He stroked my arm laying across his stomach. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “I don’t want to be coddled either.” I yawned again and let my eyes close.

  “What if I just need to hold my mate?”

  I smiled sleepily. “I’ll make exceptions for that.”

  The sun was rising when Hamid gently shook me awake to let me know we were about to land at LAX. We taxied into the hangar, and I was delighted to see Raoul standing beside one of the waiting vehicles when I stepped off the plane.

  “Welcome back,” he said warmly as he gave me a quick hug. He shook hands with Hamid. “Thanks for coming so soon.”

  “Have there been any new developments?” Hamid asked him.

  Raoul opened the back door of the SUV for me. “No, but we have people posted at the school. Thankfully, it’s the weekend, so we didn’t have to worry about closing it down.”

  We drove directly to the school, and Raoul showed us the classroom where the janitor had seen the light. The warlocks went to work, doing whatever it was they did to check for the presence of other magic. It didn’t take them long to confirm traces of Alaron’s magic in the room. What had he been doing there if he hadn’t been trying to reopen the barrier?

  We trailed after Orias, Ciro, and Bastien as they went from room to room, testing for magic. When we entered the gym, I stopped and took in the place where two life-changing events had happened in one night. Life-changing for me, anyway. It was here that I’d witnessed the barrier being opened for the first time. And here that Hamid and I had bonded.

  How differently would our lives have played out had he not tackled me that night? We might have gone our separate ways without ever knowing what could have been. I would have lived a happy and exciting life, because I didn’t believe in living any other way. But deep inside, would I have known a part of me was missing?

  I watched Hamid talking to Raoul, and as if he felt my eyes on him, he looked at me. A few months ago, all I’d wanted was to be free of this man. Now, I couldn’t imagine life without him.

  Everything okay? he asked.

  I smiled. You know how much I love all this magic business.

  The warlocks finished their tests in the gym and informed us there was no sign of the spell used to open the barrier.

  “We’d like to stay a bit longer to see if we can discern what other reason Alaron would have to be here,” Orias said.

  “Call me when you’re done,” Hamid told him. “We’ll head to the command center.”

  Raoul drove Hamid and me to the house I used to live in. It was weird being back, and the house felt different somehow. It took a few minutes for me to realize what had changed was me. I wasn’t the same person I’d been when I left here.

  We entered the control room as Mason walked out of the weapons room with a big smile on his face. “Look who finally decided to come home. And just in time, too.”

  “In time for what?” I asked.

  He pointed at the large computer screen on the wall that displayed an interactive map of Los Angeles. Colored dots represented our people out in the field, and there seemed to be more active warriors than usual for the middle of the day.

  “Already today we’ve had Lamprey demons infesting a nursing home, an incubus attack at a mall, and two separate vampire attacks in the subway. I don’t know what’s going on, but something has the demons riled up.”

  Hamid and I exchanged a look. Alaron had been at the school last night, and he could still be in Los Angeles. Having an archdemon in the vicinity was bound to cause problems in a city with such a large demon population.

  “We need to reach out to all our demon contacts in the area,” Hamid said to Raoul.

  Raoul nodded. “I’ll call Kelvan and Adele. If anyone has heard something, it will be them.”

  “What will we do?” I asked Hamid because I knew he wouldn’t stand around and wait to hear something.

  He hesitated, and for a few seconds, I thought he was going to tell me to stay at the house. I was preparing myself for an argument when he took out his phone and said, “We’ll visit the local wrakks. I’ll ask Orias to accompany us.”

  There were three wrakks in the greater Los Angeles area, and it took the better part of the afternoon for us to visit all of them. We found a lot of frightened demons whispering about the archdemon that was supposedly in the city. Peaceful demons such as Vrell, Mox, and Quellar demons were afraid for their families, and some were planning to leave the city.

  The city quieted down by early evening, leaving us to wonder if Alaron had left already. I had mixed feelings about that. As much as I did not want to see him again, I wanted all of this to be over with, and that was going to happen in one of two ways: either we killed him, or he ran out of time and went back to the other side of the barrier.

  Hamid and I had dinner at the command center with Raoul, Brock, and Mason, while Orias went out to eat with the team. It was great catching up with my friends, even though I endured a lot of ribbing from Mason and Brock when they found out Hamid and I had mated. They had fun reminding me how much he and I had butted heads in the beginning.

  “I think we actually feared for your life after you suggested putting her on day patrols,” Brock told Hamid. “You are a braver man than I am.”

  Hamid nodded gravely. “I have a healthier respect for her temper since she threatened to castrate me.”

  Everyone laughed, and I winked at him. I’m glad I didn’t. That’s one of my favorite parts.

  Our dinner was interrupted a few minutes later by Caleb, who was manning the control room. “The LAPD is getting calls from all over the city about strange sightings and vampire attacks,” Caleb told Raoul, who was already standing. “Our teams are responding, but there are too many incidents for us to deal with them all.”

  “What kind of sightings?” Hamid asked as we all stood.

  “Based on the calls we’ve monitored, at least one Drex demon, some Ranc demons, and a Sheroc demon,” Caleb said. “Nothing we haven’t seen before, just not this many at once.”

  “Call in anyone who isn’t working,” Raoul ordered Caleb as the five of us hurried to the control room.

  Hamid called in the Council team that had decided to check into a hotel instead of staying at the command center with us. He hung up with them and called the Council to let them know what was going on. I left him to that business and went to Raoul to ask what I could do to help.

  “Help Caleb monitor the calls,” he said in a rush. I frowned, and he smiled. “Just until we get organized. Don’t worry. We’ll all see some action tonight if this keeps up.”

  Hamid found me a short while later. He sat on his haunches beside my chair, his mouth set in a grim line. “If I asked you to stay here, would you do it?”

  “Are you asking as a senior warrior in the field or as my mate?” I could sense the worry and agitation coming off him, and I knew he was feeling protective, but he couldn’t keep me from doing my job because of that. We’d discussed this very thing in great detail since our mating, and he’d promised he would never hold me back.

  “Both,” he answered honestly. “This house is protected by Fae wards, which makes it the safest place in the city.”

  I spun my chair to face him fully. “Did you ask Mason and the other junior warriors to stay here?”

  Hamid didn’t answer immediately, and that told me what I wanted to know. I scooted my chair closer to him and placed my hand over his heart. “It’s my duty to protect humans, and they need me now. Please, don’t ask me to ignore that and to hide while you and everyone else put yourselves at risk. I don’t think I could stand it.”

  He sighed heavily, and I saw the internal struggle in his eyes. One of his hands came up to cover mine. “Promise me you will follow my orders. And if it gets too bad out there, you’ll come back to the house if I tell you to.”

  “I promise.”

  Raoul walked over to us. “We have twenty-eight warriors in the city, plus you two and the Council team. Having Orias and the other two warlocks will be a big help, but I’ve asked for backup from San Diego, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. It’ll be hours before most of them can get here, so we might be in for a rough night.”

  Hamid stood. “It’s better for you and me to lead separate teams. I will take Jordan, Charlotte, and Marie, and ask Orias to join us.”

  “I’ll take Caleb and Brock with me,” Raoul said. “Mason is staying here to man the control room.”

  I looked for Mason and found him near Brock, looking none too happy.

  Raoul followed my gaze. “Someone has to stay here to monitor everything, and he’s the youngest.”

  I looked away, not wanting to meet Mason’s gaze and see his disappointment. I knew what he was feeling because I’d feel the exact same way if I’d been ordered to stay behind. We were warriors, and this was what we lived for. Being left out of the action was like an athlete going to the Olympics and being forced to stay on the sidelines and watch everyone else compete.

  Hamid and I armed ourselves to the teeth while we waited for the others to arrive. I was strapping on the sword he gave me when Orias and the others walked in. Hamid brought them up to speed, and then we headed out in one of the SUVs.

  We’d barely been on the road for five minutes when Mason asked if anyone was near the Santa Monica Pier. Something was attacking people on the beach. Everyone else was engaged, so Hamid told him we were on the way.

  The pier was crowded with onlookers trying to see what was going on down below, while uniformed police officers attempted to keep anyone from getting too close to the beach. We parked behind one of the police vehicles, and Hamid went to speak to the nearest officer. They appeared to be arguing until Hamid handed the man his phone. The officer spoke to the person on the other end and quickly nodded.

  I didn’t have to ask Hamid what that had been about. Government officials, including the police commissioner’s office knew about us and what we did. But police officers weren’t privy to this information. Hamid had likely called someone on the commissioner’s staff to let the officer know we were authorized to be there.

  Hamid came back to us. “Witnesses said something came out of the water and grabbed a teenage girl. A boy tried to help her, and whatever it was took the two of them under the pier. The first police officer to respond went in and never came back.”

  “Description?” Charlotte asked as she adjusted her knife harness.

  “Too dark for anyone to see clearly, but people said they smelled ammonia and heard clicking sounds.”

  Marie frowned. “A Gargan? Impossible.”

  A Gargan was a water demon that lived near the equator. Resembling a giant black lobster, they fed mostly off fish and other sea creatures. When hunting, they excreted a dark, oily venom that paralyzed their prey and smelled strongly of ammonia, and they made a distinct clicking sound when they fed. There had been some recorded attacks on humans, usually fishermen, but Gargans rarely came ashore. And they preferred much warmer waters than the North Pacific.

  “As impossible as an archdemon trying to open the barrier?” Orias asked dryly. I didn’t agree with him on much, but he had a point. We’d seen enough in the last two months to know anything was possible.

  Hamid studied the inky blackness beneath the pier before he looked at Orias. “We will handle this. Can you create a glamour to conceal us? We need to contain this as much as possible.”

  Orias nodded. “I can do better than that. I have a spell that will make the humans forget what they see here. It won’t fix anything that’s already been recorded and uploaded on their phones, but from what you said, it’s dark and they didn’t see much.”

  “Thank you.” Hamid turned to the rest of us. “I’ll go first to see what we’re dealing with. If it’s a Gargan, I can take care of it. If I need backup, Charlotte and Marie will assist me.”

  “What about me?” I asked, feeling a pang of disappointment.

  “You will stand this one out,” Hamid answered decisively. “You are not strong enough yet to take on a Gargan.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of his assessment of my abilities.

  He spoke before I could. “You promised to follow my orders out here.”

  “Fine.” I took in a frustrated breath and let it out. Why the hell had I made that promise?

  He smiled and turned away, his voice filling my mind. There will be other fights.