JORDANA BLEW OUT A SIGH AS SHE CAME TO A STOP IN A LONG, empty corridor—one of many confusing arteries in the Chases’ sprawling estate.
Had Carys said to turn left-left-right-left once she was in the Order’s command center wing of the mansion, or left-right-left-left?
Shit.
A simple quest to fetch more packing tape for her friend had now delivered Jordana deep into the warriors’ domain. It wasn’t like she’d wanted to be there. Not when the odds of encountering Nathan in that part of the mansion seemed a bit too likely for her peace of mind.
But Carys had been insistent. She’d made it seem like no big thing at all: “Just run down to the central supply room and grab another roll of tape for me, will you? Take you not even ten minutes round trip, and I’ll have this box of shoes ready to go by the time you get back.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jordana was still wandering the corridors, becoming more turned around with each step she took.
She was sure she’d followed Carys’s directions correctly …
Whether she did or not, she was definitely in the wrong place now. Ahead of her at the far end of the passageway was a set of steel double doors with a security access panel mounted to the right of them on the wall. Above the doors, the dark, unblinking eye of a surveillance camera stared down at her.
“Dammit, Carys,” she whispered. “Next time you have a fool’s errand to run, you’re doing it yourself.”
Jordana edged backward a few steps, hoping she didn’t look as uncomfortable or idiotic as she felt to whoever might be monitoring the corridor. Then again, it was probably too late to worry about that. She just needed to get out of there, before she wandered any farther afield.
Spinning on her heel, she hurried back the way she came. She was jogging at a good clip by the time she reached the end of the hallway and rounded the corner—
Only to run full tilt into a wall of unmovable, warm flesh and bone.
Nathan.
Oh, God.
He caught her by her upper arms, muttering a curse that didn’t sound happy to see her either. “I might’ve guessed,” he growled, more to himself than her. “Never did have much faith in luck.”
Jordana struggled to find her voice for a second. “Excuse me?”
Caught in his grasp with only inches between them, she stood there immobile, her hands splayed on his broad chest. Though he was wearing a T-shirt, her palms burned with the heat rolling off the firm planes and bulges of his body beneath the soft black cotton that covered him.
His eyes bored into her, and she realized she never knew what color they were until now. Deep, greenish blue, they looked like the sky just before the arrival of a brutal storm.
That same dark, arresting stare had held her across the room of the museum last night.
Demanding.
Possessive.
Even now, she found it hard to tear herself away from Nathan’s unnerving gaze. “I, um … I was looking for packing tape for Carys,” she blurted. “She gave me directions for the supply room, but I must be lost.”
He grunted, one black brow lifting almost imperceptibly.
Jordana rushed on, hating how he unsettled her. “Usually when I’m here at the mansion, I keep to the residential areas.”
“As you should,” he said. “You don’t belong down here.”>To the left of Nathan at the table, Rafe smirked. “His private apartment had been vacated too, except for an interesting collection of restraints and spiked collars in the bedroom.”
Elijah and Jax chuckled along with Rafe, but Nathan remained serious, glad to put his mind back on the trail of their quarry. “Cass already knows he’s being pursued. His employees at the club said we’d just missed him, but it’s probable they were lying to us. My guess is he cleared out of there days ago.”
“I wonder if Cass realized he’d been outed the moment Kellan touched him.” This from Tavia, her first comment of the entire morning. “He might be fully aware that the Order suspects he’s not human and would come after him soon enough.”
Nathan nodded with the rest of the warriors around the table. Kellan Archer was recently reunited with the Order and since mated to Mira, one of the few female squad captains. The couple had been at La Notte on a mission of their own no more than a week ago, when Kellan and Cassian Gray became embroiled in a brief altercation. Kellan pushed the club owner, tactile contact that had roused the Breed male’s unique psychic gift to read human intention with a touch.
Cassian Gray had been a blank slate.
Cass wasn’t Breed; there was no mistaking that fact. But Kellan had realized at once the man wasn’t human either.