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I looked at Travis and he looked back at me. He gave in first. “I have to admit, I was just freaked out. I woke up on the couch and you weren’t there.”

I closed my eyes, remembering how Gabe and I saw them on the couch together, all cuddled into one another’s arms. I couldn’t imagine waking up and having her not be there.

“So, I searched your room, then the house, then the garage, then the yard. You weren’t anywhere.”

She bit her lip. “I took the Jeep.”

“That’s when I realized the Jeep was gone and called you.”

“I’m not going to apologize,” she said, sticking her cute nose up in the air. She was so fucking stubborn. I loved that part of her. Loved that she just saw things and went for them. She knew her own mind, and that was damn hot.

“I’m not asking you to,” Travis said, answering a question she didn’t even ask, but we knew she wanted to.

She peeked at me. “Are you?”

“If I said yes, would I be the dick now?”

She nodded. “Yes, actually.”

I moved forward and grabbed her hands. “Can you just leave a fucking note next time? Or better yet, don’t get caught. Ren calling me in the middle of the night is not my fucking idea of a good time. You know what I mean?”

She chuckled. “I didn’t plan on getting caught. Owen, the guard, said the family was out of town at some rich people party. He was the only guard on duty and he catcalled me. I had an in. If I didn’t think it was safe, I wouldn’t have done it. I found the door to his secret stash of magic shit, but it was locked. Not human locked either, magically locked. I did everything I could think of, but still couldn’t get the damn thing open.”

Her face pinched, and she looked at her feet. Liam being gone was affecting her just as much as it was us. It was like a piece of me was missing.

“Those kinds of locks are tricky,” Travis said. “It won’t just open with regular magic. It depends on how well he wanted it concealed whether you can get it open or not. He might have only limited it to himself, or people with his DNA. Who knows? Think of it kind of like the magic that runs through us as Enforcers. No other magical person can just come across the Order headquarters in the woods. They might be able to tell there’s something magical about it, but they won’t be shown the way in unless they were called to it. And, in order to be called to it, they need to be one of us.”

Norah blew out a breath. “I don’t know what we’re going to do then. Granny told me the familiar is taking over Liam and she can’t find him either.”

“Wait,” I said, letting what she’d just said sink in. “Granny came to you?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the p. “She couldn’t find him. Has no idea where he could be. She can’t get a grip of his ‘essence’ because the familiar is on him and that thing is trying to take over.”

Well, that made sense why she woke up and decided she needed to try to find the book in the middle of the night. She was worried about Liam.

There were three big problems on our hands. Finding Liam was my major concern, but there was also the Order business and getting a lockdown on who was draining these witches. The other was trying to find the damn book so we could help Liam when we did get him back.

I didn’t even bother telling her I thought Liam was going to be fine. The heaviness that draped around all our shoulders was enough to handle. I didn’t need to throw out promises I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep. The only thing I wished right now was that he wasn’t the one draining the other witches. Even if we did get him back and kicked the damn familiar off him, the chances of him recovering were slim if he’d allowed the familiar to control his body into taking those witches’ magic. He’d never be able to forgive himself for hurting another witch, whether he was under the influence of black magic or not.

I craned my neck toward the stairs. “Let’s get up there and get some sleep. We’ll tackle this all again in the morning.”

“Seconded,” Travis said, stretching his hands high above his head.

“Thirded,” she mused, already turning toward the stairs with her head hanging low.

She moped up the steps, and I pushed Travis forward. Not that I also didn’t want the time alone with her, but I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt when he woke up and couldn’t find her anywhere. He probably needed this moment a hell of a lot more than I did.

Chapter Eighteen

I woke up in Travis’s arms in my bed. I thought—briefly—about waking him the way I had last night, but my mind immediately flooded with everything we had to do today. I peeked down at him, still loving the fact that his face was so serene while he slept, and that at least while he slept, there was no way for me to get pissed off at anything coming out of his mouth.

An almost silent knock came on the door, and it immediately pushed open, revealing my blond British hunk. I waved him forward. His face looked pensive, thoughtful. I turned in Travis’s grip and waited as Gabe came around the side of the bed and knelt in front of me.

He frowned. “I hear you went out for a joyride last night.”

Oh. I’d almost forgotten he didn’t know about that. I propped myself up on my elbow. “Randy’s got a big mouth.”

Gabe stifled a laugh and looked over my shoulder at sleeping Travis. “He was just bringing me up-to-date with everything. I don’t like the idea of this guard person he told me about catcalling you.”