Obsession

Help Mel? No, probably not. Would it even help Serena? I wasn’t sure. “It might.”

“We need to get to that PO box.”

I didn’t say anything to that. Getting to the PO box wouldn’t be hard for me or the officers to do, but Serena? Practically impossible, but she had said we. As in she and I. Why I had to clarify that to myself was beyond me.

It didn’t take any real amount of time for sleep to claim Serena after that. Lips parted slightly, the soft puff of air warmed my chest.

I scooted down so that my head lined with hers. Atop the sheet, I moved my legs up until my knees pressed into her sheet-covered ones.

It would only be a matter of time before the senator realized the assassin he had sent was now dead. And I thought about what it meant for Serena. If someone within the DOD had told the senator where she was, that meant the senator would send another to silence her. The only way to stop this was to take out the senator, and I doubted the DOD would support that idea. And this letter? Even if it contained a shit ton of information, would it set Serena free of all of this? I didn’t think so. So what did that mean?

Things weren’t looking good for her.

A strange unacquainted pressure settled in my chest like a large stone. I wasn’t sure what to think about all of this, but as I lay there, I didn’t close my eyes. I did what I always did.

I watched her.

Chapter 17

I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until something stirred me awake. I opened my eyes, my senses quickly spiraling to full alert. When I inhaled, it was Serena’s scent that invaded me. Peaches. It made me crave sweets…and her.

At some point in the night, Serena had flipped onto her other side and her body was curved against mine. Namely that lovely, curvy ass of hers was pressed against my groin.

I was hard.

No surprise there, but what was shocking was the arm that was draped over Serena’s waist, holding her securely against me. That was my arm and unless she grabbed it in the middle of the night and forced it around her that was all my doing.

Well, shit.

Even more outrageous was the fact that I actually liked this—whatever this was.

Cuddling? Oh hell, this was cuddling. Spooning to be exact.

I was fucking cuddling.

Slowly removing my arm, I sat up, running a hand through my hair. My gaze crawled over the dark bedroom as I leaned forward, rubbing at the skin under my anklet. Then I heard it—the ring of my cell phone, all the way downstairs.

Cursing under my breath, I eased off the bed. Careful not to wake Serena, I bent and slipped on my jeans. Doubting it was Dex, unless something crazy had gone down, it only left two options.

DOD officers or my brother—the one I claimed.

There was no way that Sin could’ve figured out where Lore was, but concern rapidly grew within me. Picking the cell off the desk, I cursed when I saw the number.

“Do I even want to know why you’re calling me at…” I turned, finding the wall clock, “After two in the morning?”

There was a pause and then Zombro’s gravelly voice rolled through the cell. “We’re pulling up outside.”

I became very, very still. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Zombro said nothing and then the call was disconnected. A second or two passed as I stared at the phone. A cold, hard understanding evolved.

There could only be one reason why the officers would show at this hour.

Calmly placing the phone on the desk, I looked around my study. It was sparse—

like most of my house. A couch. A smaller TV. Bookshelves filled with historical text that bored the shit out of most. A pile of carved wooden animals. How long had I lived here? Since I was twenty-five—for the last six years this had been home.

Leaving the study, I closed the door behind me and went to the entrance. I didn’t give the officers time to knock and wake Serena. This would be better for her if she just slept through it.

The coldness I’d felt in the study unfurled, spreading like sheets of ice. Part of me had expected this from the moment the officers had dropped Serena off, had known this was coming.

I held the door open for the officers. “This couldn’t have waited until the morning?”

Richards, the younger of the two, passed Zombro a look that I immediately did not like. I never had a problem with Richards. Between the two officers, I preferred him, but the man was nervous, especially nervous tonight. The air around him practically bled anxiety.

“Have there been any issues?” Richards asked.

“There’ve been a few, but nothing major.” I watched Zombro out of the corner of my eye as they walked into the kitchen. The pockmarked bastard was a problem.

“Why right now when neither of you have been in contact with me since I got here?”

Zombro glanced at the stairwell. “We’d figured if you gained any useful information, you would’ve contacted us.” He looked at me, eyes sharp. “Have you?”

I folded my arms. “About what that girl overheard?”

The officer nodded.

Thinking back to the mailbox and what Serena had remembered, I shook my head.

“Nothing that would be considered useful at this moment.”

“That’s what we figured,” Zombro replied. “We’ve come to the conclusion that whatever Miss Cross learned from her friend, it isn’t enough to be useful.”

Oh, it was useful. I just didn’t trust these two douches. Time to cut through the crap.

“I’m assuming the DOD has decided what they’re going to do with Serena?”

“Yes.” Zombro frowned as his gaze settled on the two wineglasses in the sink from the previous night. “She is to be taken care of.”

I took up the space in front of the entrance to the living room, which inevitably led to the stairs…and to Serena. “And how is that going to play out?”

Richards shifted his weight as his gaze darted around the kitchen nervously, reminding me of a scared squirrel. “Officials have met with the senator, and even though the DOD does not agree with the senator’s actions, there has been an agreement reached.”

“Is that so?”

Zombro smiled tightly. The gray at the man’s temple had spread , it seemed, since I saw him last. “It’s an unfortunate situation with Miss Cross, and although she hasn’t been a true security risk yet, we cannot chance any knowledge leaking out into the public.”

“Huh,” I murmured, and that iciness was in every limb now, seeping into the room.

“So you’ve decided to let the Luxen silence her? Seems like a waste of time to even hide her if the government was just going to bow to them anyway. You should have let me know that before I killed the Luxen they sent yesterday.”

Richards visibly swallowed. “I thought there weren’t any major problems?”

“It wasn’t major,” I replied evenly, sliding each man a cool, calculated look. “Luxen came. Luxen died.”

“We are not bowing to them,” Zombro said, cheeks darkening. “They had a good point. It was the method in which they sought to carry it out that was wrong.”

“Yeah, in other words, the DOD is losing control of the Luxen every day. Before you know it, Earth will be their bitch.”

Zombro’s eyes narrowed. “That is not the case.”