Page 87 of Contested Crown

It didn’t quite match with what Rick had told me, so I wondered what happened in the past few days that lost JD not only his position but his access to Declan.

From JD’s complaints over three expensive shots of tequila, he hadn’t actually seen Declan in two weeks.

Which left a big question: where was Declan?

The weeks we’d spent after we left House Bartlett should have been spent doing this, tracking down Declan, figuring out where he was, demanding answers. But I couldn’t be angry because Cade had been impossibly low on magic, and I hadn’t had my wolf. If we hadn’t taken time to lick our wounds, we wouldn’t be in as strong a position as we now were.

The guard yawned, flipping his wrist to check his watch. No, not watch, smartwatch.

He looked over his shoulder, opening the door in advance. Three tall men came out, and a sleek, dark car pulled up in front. I recognized them on sight, their names slightly foggy, but I knew who they were. They were three members of Declan’s personal guard. They didn’t touch his day-to-day operations and stayed with him at all times.

I’d always seen them as accessories, Declan choosing which one came with him depending on his mood or outfit. They pretended not to hear and didn’t speak, to the point that I had been concerned for a while Declan had actually cut their tongues out.

I waited, leaning forward in anticipation. Declan had to be here. He was going to walk out.

Instead, the three men got in the car, and the guard turned, taking something out of his pocket, his hands moving, although I couldn’t see what he was doing with his back turned, and he tossed it on the ground.

After carefully pulling the door to the Tangerine closed, he got in the car, and it drove off.

What had they been doing in there? I knew I should follow them, but something about what the guard had been doing at the last minute, the way he had been so quick to shut the door behind him, made me curious.

“Cade, I’m going to go check something out.” I hesitated before my hand contacted Cade’s shoulder, closing around the warmth that I could feel through layers of clothes. I shook Cade, and he roused, cracking one eye unhappily.

“What?” he demanded.

I jerked my chin toward the club. “Declan wasn’t there, but they did something before they left.”

“Before who left?” Cade scrubbed his eyes, glaring at me.

“Declan’s personal bodyguards. They don’t answer to anyone but him. I wonder…”

It crashed into me with the certainty of an avalanche coming down the mountain. I had been Declan’s second, the man he trusted with everything: his operations, his business, all the details that he never wanted anyone else to know.

Then I had betrayed him. And there was no way he could trust someone else, not JD, not anyone else in the organization. So instead, he turned to the people who didn’t care about the drugs and the clubs and the money. The people he’d spent years training to have one purpose: protect him.

I swore. I should have followed the car.

Well, what was done was done. “I’m going to go check out the club.”

I reached for the door handle, but Cade’s hand clasped around my wrist, pulling me up short. It was so tight that I could feel the emotion, even though his words were flat.

“Wait. I need to put a glamour on you.”

The car was dirty enough from the outside that no one could see in, so Cade had taken back the glamour he’d put on at the restaurant. I turned toward him.

When he reached up, his hands hesitated a moment, and I could feel the heat from his palms warm on my cheeks. It was the echo of a touch, and I shivered in anticipation. I wanted his hands on me, more than I wanted anything in the world.

I wanted to be his consort, and I could feel his magic pulsing on my skin, the magic he had given me free and clear, not demanding a collar for it.

I wanted him. I wanted to lean into his touch, let him own me, let him make all of my decisions.

He pressed his fingertips on my cheeks, delicate, so soft I wasn’t sure I actually felt it or if I was just imagining.

“Done,” he said softly.

I blinked, coming back to myself. Tilting the rearview mirror so I could see my face, I looked like someone else.

Lighter skin, pale hair that was nearly blond, and eyes that were the wrong color.