Chapter Thirty-two

No One Turned Up with Scales

MILA

Mila didn’t know if it was the freefall that made her stomach soar or the fact that Riley had his arms wrapped around her as they fell.

But she didn’t care because the moment they touched the ground, she started struggling against him. She tried to kick and punch and claw, but Riley was a hard wall of muscles who didn’t give an inch. He kept her pressed against his chest with his strong arms, smothering her with his solid presence until the fight died out of Mila.

After she’d been limp in his arms for a few heartbeats, he started stroking her hair like he had earlier that morning on her porch. It had only been a few hours, and yet the world had changed, tilted on its axis, and toppled everything Mila believed in with it.

“Are you going to be good if I let you go?” Riley asked through their mental bond.

“Yes,” Mila replied in the same way. Honestly, she was too drained and exhausted to keep struggling.

Still, he kept her in his arms, kept stroking her hair in gentle caresses.

“You’re not letting me go.” She tentatively shot through the mental bond.

“I know,” he replied.

Mila sighed and finally gave in to the instinct of snuggling even more into him. She buried her face into his neck and wrapped her arms around him.

He sighed. “As first fights go, I think ours went pretty well.”

“How do you figure?”

“We’re still standing. No one turned up green or with scales.”

“There’s still time for that.”

The rumble of a low chuckle rolled up his chest.

“This isn’t funny,” Mila shot back.

“Sorry, I know.”

She sniffled and looked up at him and spoke out loud for the first time since they’d re-entered the house. “You still haven’t told me why? Why don’t you want me?”

“Oh, Mila.” The look of devastation on his face was heartbreaking. “You think that’s why I didn’t tell you? Because I don’t want you?”

A wave of want so strong it shook her very core, invaded her mind, her body, her very soul… but it wasn’t hers. It was Riley’s. This was how Riley felt about her.

Mila stared up at his beautiful, dark eyes. “If this is how you feel… why?”

Riley made a tortured face. “Nothing I’ll ever say will make you understand.”

“Then don’t talk.” She switched to using the mental bond again. “Everything you feel, I can feel. Everything you remember, I can remember. Please, Riley, make me understand.”

Riley stared at her in utter stillness for so long she thought he was going to deny her. Then he cupped her cheek with one hand while keeping the other on the small of her back. He gave her a tiny nod and closed his eyes, dropping his forehead to hers.

And just like that, Mila wasn’t in his living room anymore. She was outdoors on a dark night, her black boots plodding the frozen grass as she and her fellow magical special forces agents crossed carefully through the metal fence surrounding their target. On the other side of the fence, they swiftly crossed the wet pavement toward the back entrance of a warehouse.

Mila was seeing the world from about a head taller than what she was used to, and with every step, tension rose in her body until it was almost a palpable living thing. The low, squat building they had to breach was just up ahead and there was no room for mistakes; they had one chance at success and only seconds to complete the mission or fail trying.

The squad fanned out as soon as they reached their coordinates with stealthy precision, forming a defensive perimeter around the building while Mila and the team leader took the vanguard. Once everyone was in position, the squadron leader gave Mila the go-ahead to breach the door and, weirdly, she felt a surge of love and worry for him rise in her chest.

The enemy base camp, at first sight, seemed unguarded and deserted. Maybe their target had already left, or maybe he was such a powerful dark wizard that he didn’t need any extra protection.

In a moment of quiet shame, Mila found herself hoping for the first option, but as soon as her hand touched the door handle, a heavy wave of magic hit her so hard she almost fell back. Then all hell broke loose.

The double entrance doors of the warehouse flew open, and all kinds of infernal creatures broke free. At once, all the wizards taking up the rearguard were engaged in battle with the demons, sparks of green and purple magic flying in all directions. Mila was about to join the fray when the agent she loved, the team leader, gave her a curt head-shake and directed her forward.

And then it was just the two of them inside the dark warehouse. They separated, circling the perimeter in opposite directions.

Mila had just passed a tall tower of crate boxes stacked one on top of the other when she heard a creaking noise behind her and, in a moment of blinding clarity, she understood she was no longer the hunter but had become the prey.

Mila spun around just as a bright purple blaze of light came at her. She dodged, rolling to the side. But the purple blasts kept on coming, and Mila was soon cornered, with nowhere left to escape. Just as fear seeped its way into Mila’s heart, a figure completely clad in darkness flew out from one corner and aimed straight for her.

An unfamiliar feeling of terror raced through Mila’s veins as she took in the dark wizard with his long cloak flapping behind him as he gathered magic in his hands and then shot it right at her chest. The last part of the memory had played in slow motion, but in reality, the attack mustn’t have taken longer than a few seconds.

Mila closed her eyes, the fear of dying replaced by the knowledge she’d perish while carrying out her duty. She braced for an impact to the chest that never came. She only felt a searing pain in her left hip and then everything went dark.

The image swirled into a vortex of fog, and suddenly Mila was no longer in the warehouse and it wasn’t night anymore. Pale orange strokes of pre-dawn were coloring the waking sky as Mila limped toward a black manor. The house was too tall and with too many turrets—one with a white eight-point star painted on it—hanging at weird angles to be standing. But there the house was, defying gravity and every law of nature. Mila found it familiar instead of odd.

She limped up the driveway, with a pain so dark and ugly swirling inside her it was burning a hole in her chest.

She made it to the door, the effort almost costing every last ounce of energy she’d left in her injured body. Still, she hesitated.

Mila knew what she had to do, but that didn’t make it any easier. Taking ragged, agonizing breaths that left her throat raw, she knocked.

A woman perhaps in her fifties came to open the door. Mila loved her just as much as she’d loved the squadron leader— loved , past tense.

The woman took one look at Mila’s face, their eyes met, and then the woman collapsed on the floor, howling. Harsh sounds of pain and rage, of despair and agony that left Mila’s very soul shredded to pieces.

Slowly, the scene faded away, as did the cold. Warmth gradually seeped back into her bones as she returned to Riley’s living room.

His eyes were wide open now, and he was staring at her. “That,” he said, and even if he was speaking mind to mind, the words still felt rough with anguish. “That is how the wife of a chief inquisitor ends up, with her heart torn out of her chest and her soul shattered into a million pieces.” He gently stroked the side of her face, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s the last thing I would want for you.”