per se, just of what it might be hiding.
“The breaker?” Thomas asked, ever the voice of reason.
It was too coincidental that it would trip when she wasn’t home. She didn’t believe in coincidences. “Anything’s possible, but the streetlight’s not attached to my power supply and it’s out, too.”
Thomas glanced at the light in question. Tension tightened his shoulders. He turned back and gave her a small nod.
She rolled her shoulder and flexed her arm, testing her injuries. Not healed but good enough.
“I will be accompanying you to the door, Juliana. I will brook no argument on the matter.” His voice was hard. She had no doubt he would have ordered her to stay in the car if he thought it would do any good.
She shook her head. “You’re not accompanying me anywhere. You’re going around and coming in the back.”
He rested a hand on her spine and placed a chaste kiss on the back of her neck. “Be careful,” he said in her ear and then he was gone.
She fired up her gift but saw nothing other than the signatures of a couple of small animals. Most likely rats knowing the neighborhood. She crouched down, moving low to the ground. When she reached the door, she stood to one side and tried the knob. Locked. A twitch of her fingers and it gave way. She threw open the door.
Peeking around the doorframe she saw nothing except one bright lavender-blue signature down the hall by the back door that hung crookedly from one hinge. Thomas. He tilted his head in question.
“Door to your left. The box is on the back wall,” she told him.
He moved so fast his signature was a blur of color. Seconds later the nightlights flared to life and she shut down her gift. She didn’t need it to see the disaster that used to be her home. She flipped the switch on the wall next to her.
Thomas appeared back in the hallway, the lines at the corners of his eyes drawn tight with worry as he looked around at the destruction. “Were they looking for something?”
She grunted. “Yeah. Me.” Her house hadn’t been searched, it had been demolished. Claws shredded her couch, tore into the walls. Large claws. She was going to be hard pressed to find anything salvageable. She walked through the living room, stepping over things in her way and doing a mental inventory of everything that would need to be replaced. The tally made her head spin and she wondered how much she could get the Agency to pick up. Surely this would count as work-related destruction.
She laid a hand against the burning pit of her stomach. The sanctity of her home had been violated. This was her space, her life. It wasn’t much but it was hers. No, not someone, a demon. A demon powerful enough to tear through the wards that protected her home as if they were paper. She was so screwed.
A well-placed kick sent a speaker bouncing off the wall. It wasn’t as if anything would be in worse shape from her abuse. She might as well take the opportunity to vent some frustration.
Digging her fingers into her hair, she pressed them into her scalp as she ran them back and down to her neck. She huffed out a breath and dropped her hands then headed across the hall to her office. Her sword still hung above the front door and appeared to be the only thing untouched. She ran a finger along the length of it as she passed.
The office looked no better than the living room. In fact, it might have been worse. Every article of clothing she owned was destroyed, shredded. She didn’t look too closely at the clothes by the dresser, content in her ignorance of what had been done to her undergarments.
She went down the hall to the bathroom. Her mirror had been struck, leaving a spider web of cracks behind. Carved into the wall beside it was one word,
“Pup?” Thomas asked, appearing in the door behind her.
“Nathaniel.” She choked on the word. “They call us hounds, right? The first time they assigned me to work with Nathaniel, he was mad. Said I was more puppy than hound. Granted I was young and untried. I wouldn’t have been happy either in his shoes. When I proved myself to him, showed I wasn’t going to be a liability, he turned Pup into a nickname instead of an insult.”
“Nathaniel?”
“My demon-ridden werewolf.” Her heart froze for a beat and panic scrambled inside of her as she remembered the one thing Nathaniel knew that no one else did. She pushed Thomas aside. Running down the basement steps, she jumped the rail at the bottom. A bloodstained block was set in the wall behind the stairs. She laid her hand against it and closed her eyes. “Let me pass.”
The wall shifted, making a hole big enough for her to walk through. She held her breath and stepped into her sanctuary. She released it only when she saw that, at least here, nothing had been disturbed. Thomas walked up behind her but she didn’t look at him. She ran her eyes over everything, making sure all was in place. The wall to her left served as the armory. In front of her, there was a portable closet, her workbench and supplies. To her right stood the only bed in the house.
If Nathaniel was still strong enough to hide this place from the demon, there was hope she could get him through this. She started pulling things from the shelves to her left and piling them on the workbench.
Thomas watched her move around the room. He arched a brow at the impressive arsenal. Perhaps that was why she lived in this hovel—she spent all of her money on weaponry. “Not that I can fault you for making sure you are well protected, but if you accessed my accounts you could have had a nice home, as well. In a better neighborhood. Where people don’t break in and destroy your house.”
She flicked her hair out of her face and glared at him. “I live here because I choose to. If I wanted to live somewhere else, I could. Without any help from you.” She picked up a knife and looked it over before tossing it on the bed. “And my house is heavily warded. Nothing should have been able to get in here without my permission.”
“I felt no warding.” He’d have to make sure his personal wardsmiths came over to set new ones once her house was put to rights. Obviously the ones she could afford weren’t up to the task.
“Because it stripped them all.”
Which it wouldn’t have been able to do if the wards were set properly. There was no point in discussing it further with her. He didn’t need her permission to see she was taken care of. He eyed the bed where she was laying out her belongings. “This is where you sleep?”
“Not unless I have to. That’s what the couch is for.”
He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. Anything to deny him. Her bed in his home was dressed in silks and satin and she would rather sleep on a couch. “And your werewolf? He knows about this room? How to get in?”
She nodded.
Never once did she stop gathering her things. “You can’t stay here.” It was obvious she was planning on going somewhere but he had to say it. Had to be sure she wasn’t that stubborn.
She grabbed a small silver flask from a drawer and proceeded to fill it with a bottle of Irish whiskey sitting along the back edge of the table.
“What are you doing?”
“Blessed flask.”
He blinked at her. “Aren’t those intended for water?”
“Yep.” She grabbed two more flasks from a different drawer, pocketing one and handing him the other.
She snatched a duffel out of the bottom of the closet and loaded the weapons into it. When she finished she tossed fresh clothes from the closet onto the bed. “I need to change.”
He studied her for moment, thought about telling her it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before and wouldn’t see again. But his bride deserved better of him. He faced the wall. “You aren’t going after him tonight. You need rest.”
She stepped past him and out of the room. Black adorned her from head to foot. In one hand she carried her bag and in the other a leather trench coat. It was warm for the duster, but one never knew when a weather mage might conjure up a cold snap.
The wall shut behind them. She dropped her things at the top of the stairs and retrieved a sword from above the door. It was a beautiful piece of weaponry. Thomas couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen its equal.
