Chapter Fifty-Five
Angel saw the extra cars in the lot of the Vega safe house when they pulled up to it a few minutes later. But the lot was soon filled with motorcycles, which overshadowed everything else.
Three men were standing at the front of the safe house waiting for the convoy: Gabriel, Caliban the Unseelie King, and Roman D’Angelo the Vampire King.
She felt instantly intimidated. But Jake could obviously see her discomfort because he laughed softly and shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he told her gently. “They’re far more concerned with your wellbeing right now. That’s why they’re here. Just try to relax.” He squeezed her hand. His touch was warm and comforting.
Jake parked the car and helped her out, and they joined the three at the door of the building. Gabriel met her gaze, but there was no anger in his amber eyes. There was no disappointment. There was only relief.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard. He felt good. She hugged him back.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, releasing her to look down at her. “Cal and Roman have some questions for you if it’s okay. Do you feel up to it?”
She nodded. She knew how the politics of the Thirteen Realms worked. What Lord Malek had done to her, a high ranking warden, constituted breaking the laws of the Unseelie Realm, and the situation had already been tense as it was.
No one wanted another fae war, and Angel imagined it was that concern that was going through everyone’s mind right now. If there was anything she could tell them that would help allay that, she was game.
“There’s pizza, just delivered,” Gabe told her, nodding at the kitchen table. “And fresh drinks in the fridge. Just have a seat at the table and make yourself comfortable.”
“You had me at pizza,” she told him. She could smell it when she stepped inside, and her stomach made an unattractive sound. Gabriel smiled. Then he turned to Jake, and for a moment, the space between them felt charged.
Angel’s heart rate increased, and she was sure her blood pressure probably shot up a few points. But a moment later, the two seemed to come to some kind of unspoken agreement. Gabe nodded at him, then faced the kings. “I’m going to have a word with Cain. I’ll meet you all inside in a minute.” He stepped off the front step of the building and approached one of the motorcycles.
Out on the lot, the Monsters members revved their engines and tore out, all but for Cain, who kicked down his stand, dismounted, and began speaking with Gabriel. Angel watched them for a few seconds before she entered the kitchen.
She got several plates, napkins, and drinks just in case anyone else wanted any, then she put a slice of pizza on her plate and moved to the table. Three beautiful, powerful men sat at the table watching her.
She stopped in her tracks. Roman D’Angelo immediately started laughing. “We won’t eat you, we promise,” he told her, sharing a secret look with Caliban. Jake’s green eyes twinkled as he tried to hide a smile and failed.
Angel shook her head, took a deep breath, and decided to just fucking go with it. How many girls got to eat pizza at the same table as two members of royalty and two vampires at the same time? Not many, that’s for sure.
But Gabriel had been right. Caliban and Roman seemed far more concerned with what had happened to her and how she felt now than they were with any kind of royal decorum. They were down to earth and friendly, and they listened intently as she told them everything she knew.
She told them in detail about her encounter with Malek Taal. But she only went as far back as the moment she woke up to find herself being handcuffed by Malek and transported away. Everything that happened up to that point, she kept to herself. She didn’t want to get Jake in trouble. Especially with Gabriel.
Then Jake filled them in on what transpired from the moment the Monsters clan transported into Malek’s chamber. But when he shared Malek’s final, parting words, Gabriel latched on to them. So did Angel, actually.
Gabe leaned forward. “He said someone meant Angel harm and it wasn’t who we thought? Did he mean it’s not Dmitri?”
But no one at the table had an answer for that.
Eventually there was really nothing more to say. Roman and Caliban had come because of a major breach in fae law involving the leader of a very old and powerful unseelie race and a high ranking warden, a healer no less. But in retrospect, Angel had to admit that Malek hadn’t actually hurt her. In fact, she felt better now than she had before he’d taken her away. “He seems lost,” she added suddenly as the group fell into a lull of contemplative silence.
They looked up at her. She didn’t try to meet any of their gazes. Instead, she stared at the table and shrugged. “He’s facing something he’s never had to face before and he’s the leader of his people. He’s scared and he’s desperate. And even then – he didn’t hurt me. I could have come out of the encounter a lot worse off than sleeping.” Most people did, when dealing with the Taal.
A half hour later, the sovereigns had gone, and Gabriel was called in almost at once on a job for the Phantom King, Thanatos. He exchanged another meaningful look with Jake, and Jake told him he would remain behind to watch over Angel. Malek’s warning echoed in everyone’s mind, no doubt. It certainly echoed in hers.
Despite everything – Gabriel seemed genuinely okay with that. Grateful, even. Something had changed when Jake and the Monsters clan rescued Angel from Malek’s grasp. Gabe seemed to come to grips with something, as if Jake’s actions had won him a good amount of respect in Gabriel’s eyes.
Whatever the reason, she was relieved that Gabe was grateful rather than resentful Jake was staying with her. For her part, Angel was especially grateful for Jake’s company. After all… she hadn’t forgotten that in a few hours, she was going to have to give her answer to Dmitri. She wanted to be with Jake until then.
She thanked her lucky stars a second time that she’d put up the strongest warding around her mind earlier that night. It would have been devastating if Jake learned what she was thinking about.
She knew that when the time came, Dmitri would find her no matter where she was. She knew there was no getting away from this. She’d already made up her mind, and what happened tonight hadn’t changed it. If anything, it had made her all the more determined.
Angel had done everything she knew how to do against someone and she’d failed against him anyway because she was all too human. Maybe it was time to up the game. Maybe it was time to make a change. Become stronger. She relished the thought of never becoming light-headed or nauseated again. Dmitri could give her that. And at least with him, she would remain who she was. She would have her own mind. Her body would just receive one hell of an enhancement.
And Dmitri would never kill anyone again.
It was a twisted medicine for what ailed her and it came with some hellish side effects – namely, having to be with Dmitri himself – but it was effective.
Angel stood up from the Vega kitchen table as she finished off her soda, and Jake followed suit. She led him down a few halls to a metal door, where he watched as she popped the latch and stepped into the inner-most guest room of the safe house. This was where she’d told Gabe she would be staying for the remainder of the night, her choice.
Even if it wasn’t a twenty-thousand dollar bed covered in five-thousand dollars’ worth of bedding like the one at the Fairmont, she had to admit that for once it would be nice to surround herself with familiarity. Especially when it felt as intrinsically safe as the Vega clan.
Angel had been in this room before, and a lot of clan safe houses had rooms just like this one. This particular guest room doubled as a storm shelter – and a bomb shelter. There were no windows, the walls were metal, and the space had been warded against everything known to man. But it had been updated to boast a closet, a desk, a comfortable chair, and of course the bed. Rugs covered the floor for comfort. On the wall opposite the entrance, a door had been cut into the metal, and an adjoining en suite full bathroom had been built.
A chest against one wall was kept stocked with food, water, and first aid kits. At one point or another, almost every member of a warden clan wound up staying in one of their safe house’s guest rooms. Houses burned down sometimes. Wardens got drunk. And every now and again… apartments were sometimes covered in blood.