“No.” She was shaking her head this time. “I’m not afraid to be alone. I just don’t want to be left out. If you’re going to be discussing Cree and how we’re going to get him back then I want to be there.”
Steele took a deep breath and turned into the garage. He circled around three levels until he reached the top and found his reserved spot near the back wall of the building. When he switched off the engine, he lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the back of her fingers.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you safe, Ravyn. I need you to trust and believe that.”
The interior of the truck was dark, but he could see her face clearly. Her high cheekbones lifted as she smiled and leaned in to kiss him lightly on the lips.
“I trust you, Steele. It’s the rest of your crew I’m not so sure about.”
“They’re a good crew.”
“They just don’t like me, I get it. I’m not everybody’s cup of tea,” she said in a tone that he didn’t like.
He was certain it was supposed to be a confident, nonchalant tone, but instead he’d heard the undertones of sadness.
“Let’s go,” he said and kissed her one more time before climbing out of the truck.
They rode the elevator to the sixty-first floor where Theo’s office and the conference rooms were located. He walked down the familiar hallway knowing he was definitely in unchartered territory as he held Ravyn’s hand. He was about to say something meant to keep them both calm and collected for what was about to come, but the sound of voices stopped him.
“What did you tell them?” Steele knew that voice. It was Ziva and it was coming from one of the smaller conference rooms that were along one side of the wall, while the two larger ones were on the other side.
The door just in front of where he and Ravyn had stopped was ajar but there were no lights on inside.
“I told them what they needed to know about Temptra.” The other voice was vaguely familiar to him, only because he’d just recently heard it.
“Enes, I’m not playing games here. This is my job. It’s my life. I don’t have time for you playing some immature game to try and get back at me.”
“Why would I want to get back at you, Ziva. You were pretty clear when you gave me your terms, and when I couldn’t meet them, you bounced. I would’ve done the same if I were in your position.”
Ziva huffed. “You were in my position. We were together and then we weren’t because you got scared.”
“Not scared. Ignored. Your job is everything. I was second.”
“You were...you were...”
Steele and Ravyn looked at each other, both wondering what they should do next.
“You told them I knew about Temptra,” Ziva picked up where she’d left off. Or rather she changed the subject, which Steele had to admit he was glad about. The last thing he needed tonight was to witness scenes from Ziva’s love life.
“You did know. I told you when you found me at the apartment last month. I told you something big was coming and that you and your band of dragonfolk wouldn’t be ready for it.”
“That was cryptic as hell, how was I supposed to take that information back to the others?”
“You should have because now they’re pissed that you didn’t. So, you’d better just march me in there right now so I can get the rest of this story out before they decide to hang your ass right beside me.”
“Let’s go,” Steele whispered and hurried Ravyn past that door.
“I know that voice,” she said as they were speed walking the rest of the way down the hall.
“Yeah, it was Ziva. You met her at the Office.”
“No,” Ravyn said. “I meant the other voice.”
He stopped when they were in front of the door to the large conference room. “You know Enes? How?”
She shook her head. “I never got her name, but she’s the one who introduced me to Vertis at Twilight.”
Chapter Fifteen
Could this possibly get more daunting?
She’d just seen a real live dragon in the woods and felt the very real and very hard dick of the human whose body that dragon inhabited, her best friend had been kidnapped by who knew what and now, she was walking into a room with eight people staring at her as if she were buck-naked and about to dance on the table.
Ravyn tilted her chin and squared her shoulders. She walked a couple steps in front of Steele only because once he’d allowed her to enter the room ahead of him, he’d released her hand. Not totally sure where she was supposed to go, she just kept walking until Shola stepped from around the guy standing at the head of the table and came to stand in front of her.
“I knew we’d see each other again,” she said as she reached out to take Ravyn’s hands.
Her palms were warm and the quick smile that spread across her face was genuine, just as it had been the first night she’d met her. “Hi, Shola.”
“Come sit here beside me.”
Ravyn didn’t bother to look back at Steele, but followed Shola because that air of authority she’d noticed the first time they met was magnified tonight. Perhaps because of the tall, brooding guy standing at the head of the table glaring at her with the purest bluest eyes imaginable.
When she was on the other side of the table accepting the chair offered to her, she looked across to see that Steele had taken a seat next to yet another awesomely built guy—the one who’d grabbed her as she’d tried to run after Cree. He had locks similar to Steele’s but from what she could
