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Whatever motives the vampire king might harbor, if Jem hadn’t killed Aura yet, there was a decent chance he didn’tintend to. That still didn’t answer the question of what Jem was doing here, in Paris, but it might buy us time.

None of which reassured me about Angel or Javi.

The staircase had been attached to the plane’s open door by then, and everyone started to file out. I followed Black closely as he made his way down the aisle. Like before, he carried the significantly heavier bags filled with guns and ammunition, while I pulled our roller bag along the carpet, filled mostly with clothes.

I’d just fit my headset around and into my left ear as we waited for the people in front of us to disembark, when a voice burst out excitedly over the channel.

“Angel and Javi are here!” a happy Mika shouted. “Angel called Lizbeth from a pay phone in the terminal… they’re waiting for us inside!”

My knees nearly buckled in relief.

Gods.

Angel was here.

Jem let her go.

She was all right.

When my brain finally cleared from that initial shock, I heard cheers and sighs of relief all around me. I saw Jax wrap his arm around Kiko’s shoulders and squeeze… right before a body started moving fast through the line, shoving people aside as it made its way to the door.

It was Cowboy, Angel’s husband.

All of us got out of his way.

“Why the fuck didn’t Lizbeth call earlier?” Black growled through the line. “Their plane landed over an hour ago––”

“She just got off the phone with Angel,” Ace said, answering for Mika. “Angel told Lizbeth that they’d been held in a kind of ‘stasis’ when Jem first left them in the terminal.”

Mika chimed in.

“Jem must’ve held onto their minds from a distance until he could get far enough away,” she explained. “Lizbeth said they sounded pretty dazed, but Angel was insistent they were both all right. The only thing they’re suffering from is exhaustion. Apparently, Jem kept them awake the entire time on both flights. Also,” the small seer added apologetically. “Their minds would’ve been fighting the mental pushes, consciously or not. It’s really taxing for humans to be manipulated like that for any amount of time, because their mind will instinctively try to free itself… and panic when it can’t, putting even more stress on them.”

I glanced at Black and he looked at me.

I was torn between relief, disbelief, and fury.

I wanted to believe Jem couldn’t have done this.

I really wanted to believe it.

The prospect of Brick being behind Jem’s behavior should’ve been evenmoredisturbing, at least from a purely strategic and tactical perspective. I couldn’t make myself feel that way, though. It wasn’t more disturbing.

Honestly, I would be relieved to find out the vampire king had been behind all of it.

28

THE CAPTIVES

Icrushed Angel in a hug, squeezing her tightly from where she stood next to Cowboy, holding her husband’s hand without letting go. I saw Cowboy wipe tears from his eyes, and my throat closed even more. He’d barely said two words since he woke up in that garage, and when I looked at him now, I still mostly saw exhaustion and shock in his eyes.

I wondered how long it would take before that turned into rage.

Not long, I was guessing.

“You should go to a hotel,” I told Angel as I let go of my death grip on her. I couldn’t make myself release her entirely and held her shoulder tightly with one hand. “You and Javi. Cowboy, too. You don’t have to come along for this part.”

She shook her head. I saw fear skate over her eyes.