“Now?” the succubus asked breathlessly.
“Yep. This is amazing, Sandra.” As good as the magic my mom used to make her lilies grow within minutes, right before our eyes.
And it did take a while for the fact that I knew what Dominic’s fingernails looked like to hit me. Square in the face. Like a freight train.
Why in the world did I know what his fingernails looked like or the exact shape of his ears? When had I even analyzed specific body parts of him?
Oh, God. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have kept my mouth shut because now he knew that I knew. Ugh.
“It isn’t real, mind you,” Sandra said with a giggle. If she—or anyone in the room—noticed how much I knew about what Dominic looked like, they didn’t say a word. “Just an illusion. He’s still him to every other sense except sight.” She took my hand in hers and brought it up, close to Dominic’s face. “Look.” And she pressed my hand onto his cheek.
My heart skipped a beat when my fingers grazed Dominic’s short beard.
“Wow,” I breathed. She kept going, and he let her. She guided my hand toward his nostrils, then his lips. My eyes said the cupid’s bow shouldn’t have been where I was touching it, but my fingertips felt the arch, the smoothness of his lips underneath the illusion. Warm. Soft.
I pulled my hand back and looked away from him.
“Good, huh?” Sandra said with a knowing grin.
“Perfect, actually.” I clasped my hands together, begging my fingers to stop burning where I’d touched his lips.
Sandra winked. “Thank you. I did do my best,” she said and finally let me step away. “I have no need for this, apparently.” She showed us a small glass bottle full of white powder. “It was supposed to make the other guy smell like a werewolf, but I guess it’s useless now. The ODP paid for it anyway.” And she left it on the table next to the laptops.
I was reminded by the agents again not to raise my voice when talking, but to act and sound like I normally would because the tiny device glued to my dress would pick up even the smallest sounds. I was also reminded that nobody was expecting anything to go down today. We were going to have lunch at the hotel restaurant first and then drive straight to the auto show. After that, we’d come back to the hotel to rest. The crew was going to stay here and monitor everything with their computers and fancy devices.
By the time we made it out the door of the room, I was feeling sick. The sandals were comfortable, but I was used to walking in sneakers all day, so the bite of the straps on my feet wasn’t much, but I still noticed.
Two men were waiting in front of the elevators—the guards who used to work for Michael Bennett that the ODP had hired to help us out. They’d been seen with the Bennetts plenty of times, had their pictures taken by the paparazzi, too, so it definitely was a nice touch.
“Hello, fellas. Wait for us downstairs, will you?” Dominic said without bothering to introduce us, and the two men, who were big enough to make me think they were werewolves, nodded their heads and started walking down the hallway to the exit stairs.
When the doors of the elevator slid closed and we were alone again, it got really hard to breathe.
Dominic didn’t say anything. He didn’t look like Dominic at all, and apparently, my eyes didn’t like that. I wasn’t even tempted to sneak looks his way like I usually did, and he didn’t look my way, either.
“What exactly are we looking for here, anyway? Big guys with guns? Or undercover spies, like these agents? Or maybe different creatures? I heard the high fae sometimes use wendigos to do their dirty work,” I blurted. Just the thought of a wendigo had my stomach twisting with fear. They were no kraken, but they were scary monsters with a healthy appetite for blood and human meat, not to mention they were almost as strong as loups.
Loups were monsters on their own, too—werewolves, technically, except where werewolves only shifted into a half beast, loups shifted all the way into an animal and lost complete control of their minds in the process.
“Nothing. Your job is to—”
“Stop,” I said and turned to him. “Don’t even start with me, Dominic. Tell me what we’re looking for.”
He closed those eyes that weren’t his at all, and for a moment I had the urge to reach out and touch his lids, just to convince myself that this really was Dominic. Lucky for the both of us, he spoke the next second.
“The high fae will not be there themselves,” he started, and I was relieved to see that his voice, at least, remained exactly the same. My body liked that very much, unfortunately for me. “Most likely they have low fae working for them, any kind. They work with wraiths, too. They could be anyone, and it’s best to assume that they’ll be dressed as civilians. So far, they’ve left no tracks behind, so we know they’re professionals. But there are people watching our every move—”
“Yes, three snipers on the east, ten agents at the show, and another seven in the street around the building. I was in the room, too,” I reminded him. And I’d seen the pictures of the agents on the screen of the laptop. I knew how all of them looked, even if I didn’t remember their names. “Are we going to say something? Mention names or drop hints?”
“No, that’s not safe,” he said, shaking his head, making me lean away for a bit. My eyes were telling me that this guy was a complete stranger, and it was hard to ignore the feeling. It seemed it was going to take a while to get used to the new look of him.
“Of course, it is safe. It’s what’s expected of me. I’m supposed to be the naive girlfriend, aren’t I? The ODP spread rumors, and if they’re the professionals you say they are, they’re going to want to make sure that the rumors are true before they make a move,” I said in a rush. “I need to convince them that this is really what they’re looking for.” I showed him the diamond around my neck.
He raised his brow for a second. “That might actually work.”
“Something small, not too obvious, something that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who didn’t know about the flash drive.” I’d thought about it last night. Those people would be listening, and what better way to encourage them into action than to show them that I did have the information they were looking for, and I was easier prey than a bird locked in a cage?
“Okay,” Dominic said, just as the elevator doors slid open. The two bodyguards were already there, waiting for us, and they led the way. Dominic’s warm hand wrapped around mine, making my heart jump in my chest. I looked down, and even though I felt Dominic’s large hand there, to my eyes, it looked like that hand was Noah Bennett’s, half in size.
Instinct took over and a switch turned on in my mind somewhere.
It had already started. I was on my first mission. And I was going to kill it.
So, I put on a huge smile, bobbed my head to the sides as I walked, and I wrapped my other hand around Dominic’s arm, pressing my body against his. His muscles tensed immediately, but he didn’t say anything. And like that, we made our way to the restaurant.