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Sabrine mused, “Blue aura magic. Do you think it’s similar to how they classify magic in schools?” Everyone’s attention fell on her, black fading out of hellseher eyes. She explained, “At AA, all the students are divided into houses: Mercury, Salt, and Brimstone. But it’s typically used to evaluate types of magic in witches and warlocks, not hellsehers.”

Witches and warlocks had always had the magic in their blood sorted by category from the second they were born. They could have one of only three types of magic: water, earth, or fire.

Tanner clicked on the screen until he had the golden-haired girl displayed again. “M: Yellow,” he read. He looked up at Max, screen reflecting in his glasses. “What’s yellow?”

No one had an answer to that.

Dallas swore.

“What?” Max asked.

She waved a hand at the clock on the upper-righthand corner of the screen. “Look at the time! I have to go. If I miss my surgery, my dad will freaking kill me.” She made a beeline for the office door.

“Wait up, Red,” Max called. “I’m driving you.”

But she was stopped by an Angel suddenly blocking the doorway.

“Knock-knock, fuckers,” Conrad boomed as he edged around Dallas and walked into the cramped room.

Jack grinned. “How was your drinking and flying?”

“Hit a few pigeons and got shit on by a seagull, but aside from that, all went well.” His eyes found Logan, whose back was still turned to him as he leaned on the desk, reading over Atlas’s shoulder. “Darien called. He’s looking for Logan.”

Logan straightened and turned, pushing the long, dark hair out of his face. “What’s going on?”

Conrad blinked. “Have you not checked your phone?”

Logan stared at him blankly, and he wasn’t the only one who was doing it.

Conrad lifted his brows. “Have you guys been in a bubble for the past twelve hours or something?”

Dominic said, “Spit it out, instead of making us guess.”

“A dead vampire was found in Werewolf Territory last night.”

The blood drained from Logan’s face. Max smelled the threat of the shift as the wolf’s arms began to vibrate, a few of his facial muscles ticking. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

33

Max sat in the waiting room of Angelthene General Hospital. He tapped his fingers against his knees, staring up at the clock that hung on the wall near the desk. The clacking of keys, the dull ringing of phones, and the hum of printers spitting out sheets of paper filled the silence.

He didn’t know why he was so nervous. The surgery to give a Fleet soldier their wings was simple and quick, and it came with very few risks attached. But he couldn’t stop wanting to sprint into the room where they were keeping Dallas and check on her. He’d held her hand for as long as possible, and when they’d wheeled her through a set of doors, she’d watched him the whole time, right up until those doors had swung shut, separating her from him.

After their night together at Death’s Landing, and after they’d opened up to each other at the Fleet event, he couldn’t help but hope their relationship might finally be taking a turn toward being more than just physical. He wanted more from Dallas—he’d always wanted more—but he’d respected her reluctance to let down her wall, allowing their relationship to move at her pace instead of his. But truth be told, he was going nuts. Every moment with her made his feelings double in intensity, but he was scared as hell that she didn’t feel as strongly about him.

The buzzing of his phone in the pocket of his jeans had one of the receptionists giving him the stink eye. He mouthed an apology and got to his feet, making his way through the waiting room that was empty, save a witch and a warlock seated by the vending machine.

Checking the caller identification before he answered, he stepped through the sliding glass doors that squealed open on the track and swiped right to answer the Angel’s call.

“Find anything else?” Max said by way of greeting. It was sunny for a change. Golden rays of sunshine streamed from a bright blue sky, warming his hair and jacket. The heat gave the city its signature oaky, desert-ish smell, a weirdly addicting fragrance Max always found himself sucking down as if it were liquor.

Dominic’s husky voice drifted through the speaker. “Two more of the missing Fleet soldiers—both disappeared about a week ago. There appears to be four who have been taken so far in total.”

“Anything that stands out?”

“A female hellseher with white hair, no pigment in her irises. Says her magic is white.”

“And the other one?”