Men dressed in black combat clothes came streaming into the clearing at the front of the mill, weapons at the ready. For long seconds, there was nothing but gunfire, smoke, and the screech of metallic joints. Blue fire flew through the air, but the metal monsters were too fast; they turned and ran.

“Fuck!” The woman turned away, hand on hip, gun hanging at her side. “Dammit.”

“It’s okay, Hon, we’ll get them next time,” a guy dressed in similar clothes to her said. He’d been in the alley too.

“Hey!” I hobbled toward her, ignoring the guys in black combat gear who were staring at the bodies of the Lost in horror and confusion. “You. Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are those things?”

The woman turned to face me with a grimace. “They’re called Genisi, and they seem to have a hard-on for you.”

Tay’s raised voice drew my attention. He was facing down one of the black-clothed dudes, eyes flashing dangerously. The set of his shoulders, the fists at his sides, and the way his thighs had bunched beneath his jeans screamed that he was close to lashing out. In normal circumstances, he’d have been the epitome of control, but he’d just semi trolled out and the adrenaline was still pumping.

Mack had a hold of one of Tay’s arms, a weak insurance, but it was something. Hound was nowhere to be seen and Azren was watching the scene, arms crossed, lips pressed together in silent survey.

“Hey.” I made my way back over to Tay, biting back a wince at the ache in my ankle. “Back off, unless you want him to go all smash and crash on your arse.”

The dark-haired guy turned to me. “Can you explain all these dead bodies?”

“Yeah, I can.” But I made no move to do so. Instead, I crossed my arms under my breasts and glared at him.

“Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

“For you to pull the stick outta your arse and show some manners. How about an introduction and a fucking please?”

His jaw flexed and he ducked his head, composing himself. “I’m Rowan Adams, Collective Elite. Now explain yourself. Please.”

Better. “Wilomena Bastion of Bastion Investigations, and you can kiss my ass for saving you some trouble in taking out these Lost.”

His brow furrowed and then realization dawned. “There are no Lost.”

I gave him a flat look. “I beg to bloody differ.”

He pressed his lips together. “You’re going to have to come with me.”

Oh, his tone was beginning to rankle. “I don’t have to go anywhere.”

The click of numerous safeties being removed filled the air as several weapons trained themselves on me.

“Seriously? You’re going to shoot me if I don’t come with you?” Okay, so my ankle hurt and I was tired, and ever since I’d mentioned it earlier, I really, really wanted ice cream. But now that it looked like I wasn’t going to get any delicious frozen goodness, not anytime soon, hot anger pooled in my belly. “My friends and I just risked our arses to take down fuck knows how many Lost, and you want to shoot me?” My voice was an incredulous screech.

“Put the weapons down,” Hon said. She strolled over to us. “I don’t know what the fuck these creatures are.” She nudged one of the dead Lost with a steel-capped toe. “But I’m assuming there are more?”

I met her gaze levelly. “You’d assume right.”

“Yeah? Well, in that case maybe we can help each other.”

“I’m listening.”

She smiled thinly, her gray eyes eerily calm in her heart-shaped face. “I could do with some help catching the Genisi. Come with us and maybe we can help each other.”

Who was this woman? Not Collective, that was for sure. She didn’t have the insert-rolling-pin-here look. She was something else, something new, but she seemed to be in charge. There weren’t many people I clicked with instantly. Most just pissed me off, or were tolerated, but once in a while, I’d come across a kindred spirit, and when I looked into Hon’s eyes, I saw myself looking back. On top of that, giving The Collective the finger so brazenly really wasn’t an option.

I shrugged. “As you asked so nicely, sure. But my friends get to leave. This is my case. You don’t need them.”

Rowan sucked in an exasperated breath. “I hardly think—”

“Deal,” Hon said, cutting him off.

Yeah, I liked this chick.

“I’m coming with you,” Azren said.

I shot him a meaningful look, the heck-no-you’re-a-Shedim-and-need-to-stay-off-their-radar look, but he returned it with a blank stare.

Hon looked to me, and I shrugged. If I protested too much, it would look suspicious. “Fine, let’s get this done.”

We were hustled straight from a black, unmarked van, through an underground parking lot, into a lift, and onto a claustrophobic floor with no windows and several tiny interview rooms.

Rowan Adams was silent the whole way, but Hon and her companion, Leo, kept up an easy banter that spoke of years of familiarity. Rowan ushered us into a small room containing a table and four chairs.

“Sit.”

Oh, man. That dude seriously needed an enema or something. Azren pulled out a chair and waited.

“I think he’s being chivalrous,” Hon said with amusement.

Azren’s eyes twinkled. He was so taking the piss right now, but it alleviated the tension bubbling inside me. I parked my butt with a smirk and Azren took the seat beside me. Hon and Leo leaned up against the wall and Rowan stationed himself by the door. I guess we were waiting for the big guns, and sure enough, with a neat clip of court shoes, Loraine Vincent entered the room a moment later. Head of Collective Operations, the woman was a stone-cold machine. She also had a thing about recruiting me, which was so not going to happen. She inclined her head in Rowan’s direction, and he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

Loraine pulled out the seat opposite us and slipped into it. She fixed her pale gray eyes on us, and her lips tightened a fraction.

“How many have you killed?” she asked.

O-okay. We were diving straight in, it seemed. “Not sure. A lot. We lost count tonight.”

She pursed her lips. “And how did you ... come across them?”

This was the tricky bit. She couldn’t know about the Shedim case, and that Noir and I had gone into the Underground to look for them. In fact, Noir had to stay out of this completely. I shrugged. “Chasing a lead on another case led me to the Underground, and there was a breach in Southside.”

The slight twitch in her left eye was the only indication that this information bothered her.

“I sealed it back up best I could, but I think that’s how they got out.”

“What case were you working on that would lead you to the Underground?”

I smirked. “Come now, you know I can’t divulge that. Client confidentiality.”

The left side of her mouth quirked. “Okay, Miss Bastion. I’ll buy that you stumbled across the Lost in the Underground. What I don’t understand is why you never reported it to the proper authorities?”

Oh, I was so ready for this question. “Proper authorities? You mean the people who locked up a bunch of Lost in the Underground in the first place? The ones that lied to the city about it?”

She pursed her lips, looking like she’d bitten into a lemon.

I gave a little derisive snort. “If you can cover up something like that, imagine what you could do to someone who found out about your little secret.” I sat back and crossed my arms. “I kept my mouth shut and helped to clean up your mess, and honestly, I thought you guys were on it too, but obviously not.” I glanced at Hon. “You seem busy with your metal monster problem. So, yeah, I’ll accept a hearty thank you in the form of cash or check.”

Leo chuckled, not bothering to hide his mirth.

Loraine, however, was not so amused. She studied me with her impregnable stare for a long beat and then dropped her gaze to reach into her bag and pull out a sheaf of papers. She dropped them on the table and then slid them across to me with an index finger. Her nails were cut short and blunt, just like the woman.

The papers got a cursory glance. “What’s this?”

“Confidentiality agreement.”

Like fuck I was signing something else. “No.”

“It’s either that or prison, Miss Bastion.”

Like hell did she have anything on me. “On what charge? Cleaning up the city? ’Cause I’d like to see that fly in court.”

“Oh, there’ll be no court, Miss Bastion. Just a one-way ticket to a cell. You’ve been running an unauthorized investigation business, after all. It’s a cut-and-dry case.”

I clenched my teeth, because that was bullshit, but alarm bells were ringing nonetheless. “I have a valid license.”

She smiled, but it was a perfunctory gesture that didn’t reach her eyes. “Not anymore. It expired two weeks ago.”

Fuck that. I’d renewed it two months ago for an eighteen-month period, but of course, they’d tampered with the database. They had the power to do that, and if they pressed charges, then I was fucked. Dammit. At least that was all she was threatening. They could do much worse. My bravado slipped a fraction.

I pulled the papers toward me and scanned the clauses. It was basic enough, stating that I couldn’t divulge the existence of the Lost or the underground hive. But, whoa, wait a second, what the fuck was the final clause typed in small print so I needed to squint. Agree to work with The Collective, on behalf of The Collective, as and when called upon.

“Ha!” I pushed the paper away. “Take out clause 34 and I’ll sign.”

She smirked. “Well, it was worth a try. Your friends will need to sign also.” Her gaze cut to Hon. “They should have been brought in with you as per protocol.”

Hon rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think we have more important things to worry about, Loraine?”

Loraine’s jaw tightened, and she turned her head stiffly toward Hon. “It may come as a surprise to you, Miss Chance, but we do have our own issues that need to be dealt with.”

“Yeah, well, your issues won’t mean shit if the Genisi aren’t eliminated.”

Loraine took a deep breath and then turned her attention back to me. “Get your friends to sign the contract, Miss Bastion. You have forty-eight hours to do so. I will have a courier sent to your place of business to collect them. Believe me, noncompliance will not go favorably for the Stephenson twins or their business.”

She knew who Tay and Mack were. “I see you’ve done your homework.”

Her gaze flicked to Azren. “Yes. But unfortunately we couldn’t find anything on you.”

Azren remained stoic, giving nothing away.

Loraine arched a brow. “Name?”

“None of your business.”

His eyes narrowed to slits, and he bared his teeth menacingly. Oh, shit. His teeth.

Loraine sat back, stunned. “What are you?”

Pulse pounding in my throat, I fixed a nonchalant look on my face and patted Azren’s thigh. “Azren is a man of few words. He’s part kelpie.”

“Oh, really?” Loraine said something in a low, guttural tone, her attention fixed on Azren.

He glared at her.

Loraine leaned forward, her palms flat on the table, her eyes alight in triumph. “You have no idea what I said, do you? If you were really kelpie blood, then you’d know exactly what I was saying because I was speaking the ancient tongue passed down in hereditary memory to every kelpie blood.”

Fuck, Loraine was part kelpie? She didn’t have the teeth, but shit, that didn’t mean she didn’t have the blood. A weight settled in my stomach, because we were on the way to being so screwed. Think, Bastion. Think.

This time the smile that painted the Head of Operations’ face was genuine. A predatory smile. A shark smile. It screamed gotcha.

“What I want to know, Miss Bastion, is why you have a Shedim living with you?”

Azren’s body rippled with tension. Yeah, big guy, this was why I’d tried to leave you behind. But no, you had to be the protector and come with, and now Loraine was staring at me like I was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Oh, fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. Rock, meet hard place. There was no way out of this except the tailored truth.

I sat back in my seat and locked gazes with her. “Well, it all started when The Collective failed to do their job.”

She canted her head. “Go on, I’d like to hear you talk your way out of this one.”

It was my turn to smirk. “You see, it went down a little like this ...” I filled her in on the missing kids, using my connection to The Gables to explain my involvement. I filled her in on the rescue, leaving out Barnaby’s help with the luck potion, and then my capture and subsequent release on signing the contract with Elora. “And that’s how I ended up living with a Shedim. Elora wants me to find one of her Shedim who’s gone missing on this side of the border, a runaway, and Azren is kinda her equivalent of law enforcement.”

“And the contract makes him your employee so circumvents the Treaty,” she clarified.

“Yep.” I held up my hand. “Don’t worry, I checked and it’s just one Shedim, just Azren.” Thank God I wasn’t Pinocchio.

“And you have a copy of this contract?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure. I insisted on a copy while Elora breathed on me with her fiery I-want-to-eat-you breath.” I gave her an incredulous look. “No, I don’t have a copy. You’re just going to have to take my word for it, and while you have us locked up in here interrogating us, more Lost could be roaming the city. Not to mention those metal things. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get out there and do my fucking job.”

Okay, so I was rambling; indignation was my shield, but it was working. Loraine’s tight expression eased somewhat. “The dragon liege had a duty to inform us of this rogue Shedim in our territory.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to take that up with her.” And hopefully she’d cover her own ass and not give away the whole truth. “I’m just doing what I need to keep my skin, and I’d like to get back out there.”

“The Lost and the Genisi aren’t your problem any longer, Miss Bastion. We have it under control.”

Well, that was fine by me. “In that case, we’re done here.”

“No,” Hon said. “No, we’re not.” She pushed off the wall. “The Genisi have attacked her twice now.”

Three times, if you included the attic, but heck, she didn’t need to know that.

“So?” Loraine asked.

Hon made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Keep up, Vincent. It means there’s something in her DNA they’re attracted to, which means they’ll come for her again, which means ...” She left the sentence hanging.

“That we can use her as bait,” Loraine finished. Was she clenching her teeth? Yeah, there was obviously no love lost between these two.

“Bait?” Azren spoke up, his voice rough. “No.”

“Aw, sweet,” Hon said. “But you don’t get a say.”

Azren raised his glowing jade eyes to meet hers. “The contract with my liege clearly states that she is my responsibility while I am in her employ. So, yes, I get a say.”

Hon opened her mouth to argue, but I held up my hand. “Enough.” I looked at Azren. “Those things are dangerous. If we can stop them, then I’m doing this.” I looked to Hon. “But first, I need to know what the fuck we’re up against.”

“No,” Loraine snapped. “She doesn’t have clearance.”

Hon took a deep breath, her jaw ticking dangerously. “Then get her clearance. Now.”