Page 51 of Night Sector

Okay, maybe not really. Fritz had a good foot on each of us, and he was a weapon’s expert. He was also ancient.

But Quinn would have anger on her side. As she should. Because wow.Wow.

Fritz tried to say something else, but I shadowed back to my nest and locked my door.This is insane. What the hell was he thinking?

To let that ruse play on for over a century? Hell, to create it to begin with?

It wasn’t Fritz.

It… it was like someone else had taken control of Fritz and given him this ridiculous idea. One that made absolutely no sense.

This can’t be right. It’s too simple and too out of character. Besides, Fritz can’t enchant objects. Although, maybe he can. Maybe I just don’t know him at all. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t spent the last century together or anything.

Myon said Fritz told him to create the enchantment, so Myon was the one with the ability, not Fritz,Lorcan murmured.

I hadn’t really been talking to him so much as myself, but I didn’t mind his interjection. Maybe he could make this make sense.

That still doesn’t make this any more believable for me. Fritz is the last person I can think of that would take an Omega’s right to choose away from her. Yet that’s exactly what he did.

Lorcan didn’t reply this time, but I heard him puzzling through everything Myon had just revealed to Kieran, as well as everything he’d picked up from my mind during my brief conversation with Fritz.

It’s too easy,I said after a beat.Too… contrived?

Such as Fritz’s immediate admission.

He didn’t even try to explain himself. Not really, anyway. He’d just admitted to what he’d done, had given some half-hearted excuse about having to protect Quinn from the power-hungry Alpha Princes, and seemed mostly unapologetic.

Actually, that wasn’t true. There had been a hint of guilt in his flinches and features, yet his words… those hadn’t matched his actions.

I ran my fingers through my hair and frowned at my reflection in the mirror.

I really need a shower. My blue-black strands were all knotted from my shifting and hustling to talk to Fritz.No. A bath,I decided, spying the large fixture in my bathroom.With jets.

I wandered over to turn it on and waited for the hot water to flow. Magic enabled a lot of things on the island, constant heat being one of them. Using enchantments allowed it to be environmentally friendly, too. Win-win.

I grabbed some evergreen-scented salt—a recent item I’d acquired through a trade with one of the Omegas. My wolf approved even while I acknowledged it’d been a sign of weakness to pick this specific fragrance.

Whatever.

I was allowed to like this particular aroma. It didn’t matter that it also happened to match Lorcan’s natural cologne.

Steam started to billow around me as the tub began to fill. I dumped a conservative amount of salt in, not wanting to use up my stash too quickly. These types of indulgences were hard to find now that the human world had gone to shit.

There’s one thing I don’t understand.Lorcan’s voice in my head caused me to freeze.

About…?I asked, worried that he was going to ask me to justify my bathtub salt preferences or something else related to my current task.

Or perhaps even comment on my moping wolf and how much she seemed to miss him despite it only being hours since he’d left.

Myon is saying the location enchantment must have malfunctioned, that it was attacking Quinnlynn because it wasn’t actually made for her. He thinks that’s why it exploded. But if he added that message charm to it, then wouldn’t he have also reconfigured the enchantment to accept Quinnlynn…?

I frowned, my gaze on the pooling water.I agree. Why add one spell without fixing the other? Unless he didn’t notice?

That seems too careless.

Just like all this seems too contrived?I countered.

Yes. As you said, it’s too easy.