Delilah nodded. “Makes sense.”
Antoinette had an outraged look at her face and opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Ketu placed his hand on her arm and gave it a squeeze, then said, “How are we going to play this?”
“If we could trust her, we could send Maria up to the door by herself,” Delilah said.
“That’s not happening,” Antoinette replied.
“See what I mean?” Maria said.
“What about Maria and I?” Sofia suggested.
“No,” Griffin said immediately, while the rest of the team seemed to think it was a good idea.
“We’ll be right out here,” Antoinette said soothingly. “With the connection you two share, you’ll know if she’d in danger, and we can all rush in to save her.”
Griffin shook his head. “We don’t have a connection.”
Delilah snorted. Griffin glanced at Sofia, who dropped her gaze because she did not want to admit it either, even though she knew it was there. Her dragon believed he was her fated mate, and they’d had sex, which was part of the mating ritual. The only thing they had to do in order to seal the bond was fly together.
Which, since he couldn’t have a relationship with her, was obviously not going to happen. Still, there was definitely a connection between them, even if it wasn’t fully intact.
Sofia straightened. “Let’s go, Maria.” Griffin started to stand, and Sofia shook her head. “This is the only way. I’m going to try to get as close to Penelope as possible, as quickly as possible. You guys all have supernatural hearing, so listen for sounds of a scuffle. If you hear anything remotely bad, rush in.”
Delilah stabbed her finger at Griffin’s chest. “And you pay attention to that connection you keep denying you have with her.”
Trennon abruptly stood. “I’m going too.”
Sofia shook her head. “No, bad idea. This will—”
“Hey, that’s my granddaughter in there.”
Sofia’s eyes widened as she stared at him.
He scratched his head. “It’s about time I did something useful anyway. The reason I’m not reeve is because I was lousy at the job. I’m feeling the need to redeem myself.”
“I’m not sure this is going to work,” Antoinette said.
“Actually, I think it will,” Sofia said. “It will throw Darius off-kilter. He has this compulsive need to control everything, and this is definitely going to be outside his control.”
Trennon patted her shoulder. “Looks like my sperm isn’t useless after all.”
Sofia shook her head and tried not to smile. As far as compliments from one’s father went, that was definitely an odd one.
Griffin grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, but she shook him off. She was finally in charge of her own life, and frankly, that included her love life. Which meant it was time to start moving on.
With Trennon on one side and Maria on the other, Sofia said, “Let’s go,” and together they walked down the alley until Maria pointed to their destination.
There weren’t any guards posted outside, which Maria whispered wasn’t surprising. They wouldn’t want to take the chance of battling in a place where humans could see them.
Sofia threw back her shoulders and marched toward the nondescript door Maria said led into the storeroom in the back of the antiques shop. She listened for a moment but heard no sounds. “Are you sure he brought her here?” she whispered to Maria, who nodded.
“You better not be leading us into a trap,” Trennon said, his voice taking on a menacing tone.
“Trust me, I would have kept the heels on if that were the case. Darius has some sort of fetish around them.”
Sofia raised her hand. “Didn’t need to know that about my asshole brother.” She sucked in a breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”
They stepped into an empty storeroom. Steel shelving units were overturned and empty boxes lay on their sides, multicolored packing material strewn across the plywood floor. A card table was flattened in the middle of the room, the legs sticking out at odd angles, as if someone had sat on it and broken it. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Except where it was disturbed by shoe imprints.
A lot of imprints.
The eerie silence was abruptly broken by a series of popping noises, like a popcorn machine had suddenly turned on. And then one after another, men appeared out of nowhere, standing in the storeroom. Each one wore leather pants, leather vests with no shirts underneath, and leather hats on their heads.
These guys were definitely not dragons.
Trennon grabbed Sofia and Maria’s arms and dragged them both behind him as he said, “Shit just got real. These are warlocks.”
Sofia gasped. “Griffin!”
Chapter Seventeen
Griffin shot to his feet. “They’re in trouble!”
“Damn,” Delilah said, standing much more slowly. “That was quick.”
He didn’t wait to ensure the rest of them followed. He sprinted down the alley to the door where only a few moments ago, Sofia, Maria, and Trennon had stepped through. He rushed inside and skidded to a halt.
Sofia, Maria, and Trennon were huddled together a few steps inside the room, staring at a cluster of men who looked as if they’d just returned from partying at the Blue Oyster Bar.
“Ah,” one of them said, stepping forward and addressing Griffin. “Someone we can talk to. Hello there, gargoyle.”
Griffin stared the warlock down and did not reply.
The leather-clad man clapped his hands. “Now, where’s the Daughter of Light?”
Griffin quickly surveyed the scene. If Darius was here with Penelope, he was doing a damn good job of hiding. “What makes you think we have a Daughter of Light here?”
The warlock pulled a phone out of his breast pocket and waved it at Griffin. “This notice I got on Twitter. It says, ‘Attention hashtag warlocks: I have a Daughter of Light, if you’re interested. Come
