Page 16

“Ella, can I speak to you, please?”

She looked up to see Feehan at her elbow. “What’s up?”

He nodded in the direction of the door. “Out here?”

She rose from her seat beside Ms. Phelps’s bed, nodded at Vadim and headed out into the hallway. It was now dark outside, and the SBLE team had secured the private room where Ms. Phelps lay. She was still in a magical trance and had betrayed no trace of awareness of what had been done to her.

The smell of coffee lured Ella farther down the hallway to the nurse’s station, where Jose obligingly handed her a cup.

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. “I needed that.”

“You’re welcome. Where’s lover boy?”

“Who?”

“You know, tall, dark and dangerous, who looks as if he wants to devour me whole every time I talk to you.”

“Oh, him.” Ella shrugged, then sipped at her coffee. “He’s standing guard.”

Jose leaned against the desk. “What’s going on with Ms. Phelps?”

“She seems to have had some kind of fit.”

“What kind of ‘fit’?”

“They’re not sure. That’s why she’s being kept in isolation.”

“I saw her this morning at the staff meeting, and she looked fine.” Jose shook his head. “Whatever happened, it sure seemed to come out of nowhere.”

“I know.”

“Ella?”

She turned back to Feehan, who was waiting patiently behind her.

“Sorry, boss. Emergency caffeine refueling.” She nodded at Jose. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Feehan walked her over to a seating area by the elevators and sat down beside her.

“I wanted to ask you something in private.” He looked around and then settled his gaze back on her. “I talked to a couple of the staff on this floor earlier, and they told me the strangest thing.”

“What?”

“That the last person they saw going into Ms. Phelps’s office was Vadim.”

“So?”

“Could it have been him?”

“Boss, you were with us most of the day. We only parted when we went down to the ER with Brad’s parents. I was there the whole time with Morosov. He certainly didn’t sneak away and do this to Ms. Phelps.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Sure I am. Do you think he bespelled me? He needed to be one hundred percent present in the ER to do the magic required to convince the Dailey family that Brad’s face looked the same as it ever had.”

Feehan scratched his thinning hair. “It does sound a little farfetched, doesn’t it?”

“Look, whoever this Adam dude is, he wants Vadim to take the blame for his actions. This is the second time he’s pretended to be him.”

“But why? Liz thinks?—”

Ella sat up straighter. “What’s Liz got to do with it? Is all this coming from her?”

“She’s seeing a lot of connections between Vadim and Adam in her Fae-Web. Serious connections.”

“So? He said they shared some of the same bloodlines. Doesn’t that account for it?” Feehan studied her carefully and she felt herself blushing. “What?”

“She also insists that you and Vadim are, um, closer than you admit to being.” He held up his hand. “I have to say I found that part a bit difficult to swallow, until I noticed how vigorously you’ve been defending him over the past couple of days.”

“Do you think he’s controlling me with his magic?”

“God forbid, just that you might be—” Feehan was beet-red now and struggling to meet her gaze,“— physically intimate, and as you are close to your twenty-seventh birthday, you might not be reacting in an emotionally secure way.”

“You think I’m like a sex-crazed teen who will do anything to protect her man?”

“Um, yes.”

“Wow.” She stared at Feehan for a long moment. “Well, that was ballsy.”

“I know, I can’t believe I said it. But Ella, I’m your boss. I don’t want this team imploding during an important investigation.”

He’d impressed her. Who’d have thought it? Now she had to decide how to respond. There was only one answer.

“I suppose I should tell you something important.”

“What’s that?”

“Morosov is my Otherworld-approved mate.”

“What?”

“I have the paperwork somewhere, if you want to check it out. I’m not infatuated with him, I’m mated to him. That means my empath gifts are working just fine, and I’m in no danger of going nuts next week. It also means I can connect with Morosov’s mind, and he isn’t the killer.”

Feehan kept gawping at her.

She waved her hand in front of his face. “Boss? Are you okay? I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence, because I don’t want you imagining all this other stuff is a problem. You know me, I wouldn’t lie to you and compromise a case.”

She supposed at this point she should vouch for Vadim’s integrity too, but she didn’t want to inhibit him. He definitely was hiding stuff. Hopefully she’d said enough to keep Feehan happy at least for a while.

He reached for her hand and awkwardly patted it. “Well, I’m very pleased for you—I think. Vadim is…”

“Well equipped to deal with me. I think that’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”

His smile was wary. “Something like that.”

“Seriously, boss, Morosov and I want to solve this case. If I thought he was the murderer, I sure as hell would tell you.”

“Then what do you think is going on?”

“I think this Adam guy is trying to draw attention away from himself and onto Vadim to confuse us. And it’s working. But at least this time we’re better prepared for when Adam comes back.”

“He’ll be back?”

“You have to assume he’ll want to complete his task and force Ms. Phelps to kill herself.”

“Hopefully we’ll be able to stop that this time.”

“Ms. Walsh, what the fuck are you doing?”

She slammed down her shields. “I’m sure we will. Shall we go back now?”

Feehan left her at the door to Ms. Phelps’s room, and she braced herself for what lay within.

Vadim was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed.

His expression wasn’t encouraging and his eyes were narrowed to icy blue chips.

The temperature in the room dropped below freezing, and a couple of black feathers swirled in the air.

Oh, crap.

“Ms. Walsh.”

“Morosov.” She gestured at the bed. “No change here, then?”

“No.”

She sighed. “For God’s sake, stop sulking. I had to tell Feehan something. Between him and Liz, you were starting to figure as a shoo-in for the killer.”

“So you told him we were mated? ”

“It was better than telling him about your connections with Adam and the Otherworld sect, wasn’t it? I had to choose the lesser of two evils.”

“Our mating is an ‘evil’ now?”

“Don’t split hairs, you know what I mean.” She glared at him. “I thought you’d be pleased. You’re the one who’s always complaining that I don’t take it seriously or want to tell anyone.”

“You didn’t share the news because you were happy about it. You shared it to get yourself out of an awkward confrontation.”

She shot to her feet and advanced toward him, batting a few feathers out of her way. “I shared it to get you out of an awkward situation, you dumbass.”

He stared down at her and she shook her head and turned away. “You’re such an idiot sometimes, Morosov.”

“Ella.”

He reached for her, but she shook him off and marched right out of the room. She should have agreed with everything Feehan suggested and let Vadim sort it out from his Otherworld prison cell. She halted in the hallway. Where the hell was she going? She’d agreed to share the night shift with him.

She started walking again. He’d be fine while she got herself something nice and sugary to eat at the cafeteria. When she calmed down, she’d go back, and maybe, if he had any sense, he’d be the one to leave for a while…

The door to the janitor’s office to her right opened and she instinctively went for her weapon.

“It’s all right, Ella, it’s only me.” Rossa’s head appeared around the door and he beckoned to her. “Come in here!”

She glanced around and then followed him into the small, crowded space, which smelled of disinfectant, damp rags and skin-stripping chemicals.

“What do you want?”

He blinked at her. “I got the impression you wanted to talk to me.”

“From where?”

“You used my name.”

“So?”

His smile was blinding. “You’re family now, and I heard you. Now, what did you want?”

Ella studied his beautiful face. Up close he was even more stunning.

His eyes were honeyed silver and his mouth begged to be kissed.

She wanted to stroke the pure white feathers that covered parts of his skin.

Mentally, she gave herself a slap. Number one, she knew better than to be taken in by Fae glamour.

Number two, Vadim would probably kill them both if she laid a single finger on his relative.

But Rossa was here with her, all nice and tight and up close in the janitor’s closet, so she might as well make use of him.

“Do you know anything about an ancient Otherworld sect that competes to collect things?”

Rossa shifted his stance and his wings rustled, almost dislodging some of the bottles on the shelves. “What sort of things?”

“I think you know. They tend to collect groups of three.”

His face paled. “I…don’t know anything about that.”

“If Morosov knows of them, I’m sure you do too. My question is, why are they collecting stuff in my world, and what does it have to do with my partner?”

“I have no idea.”

She stared into his eyes for as long as she could. “If you’re lying to me, all I have to do is take a peek in your mind and I’ll know.”

He flinched away. “Don’t touch me, Soul Sucker.”

“Then tell me what’s going on. Does this have something to do with Morosov’s family wanting him back in Otherworld?”

“Not all of them want him back.”

“But those that do.”

“It’s highly likely his family are involved somewhere, but the sect plays by its own rules and doesn’t listen to anyone.”

“So the two things could be totally separate.” Ella sighed. “You’re not much help, are you?”

“I’m too afraid of your mate to be much help.” He studied her face. “It’s a shame he got to you first. I should imagine you are very creative in bed for a human.”

“Well I certainly like sex.”

Rossa grinned. “Cygnet is a lucky male, then. When he is executed, perhaps you will allow me to console you.”

“Why do you assume he’ll be executed?”