Page 25

Njáll

O ne hand is clasped in Maurice’s, but my other is free, and when I slide it up and over his thigh, he makes the most delightful sound against my mouth, the muscle leaping under my touch.

“Njáll,” he murmurs, our lips parting for only a second, and any reservations I might harbour about this—that he does not truly want me, but merely the closeness I offer; that this is just a result of the high-stakes situations we’ve found ourselves in—vanish.

Maurice’s other hand tangles in my hair, tugging lightly, and I kiss him harder, my tongue sliding alongside his. My fingers curl around his thigh, digging into the muscle. I want him to push me back on the sofa and climb over me. I don’t want him to ever stop.

We’re still holding hands. Even as he pulls my hair again, this time forcing my head back, our lips parting.

I look at him through half-lidded eyes, admiring the flush on his cheeks and the rosy colour of his lips.

I have no ability to sense magic, but for a second, I think I see it spark over him as he looks the length of me and growls.

He kisses me again. Harder. I move my hand from his thigh to his hip, where, frustratingly, I cannot get to his skin because his shirt is still tucked into his trousers. Maurice laughs against my mouth when I start to tug his shirt free but kisses me again instead of helping.

We should leave my office. This sofa is too cramped, my bed far larger. But getting up means distance, means our hands won’t be on each other, and the thought of that is much, much worse.

Maurice kisses the corner of my mouth and manoeuvres us so he’s half on top of me, one foot still planted on the floor.

It’s uncomfortable, but I don’t care. I give up on his shirt—I’ve hardly made any progress as I seem to forget what I’m doing every time Maurice’s mouth is on mine—and grab his arse instead, hauling him closer against me.

“Here?” Maurice says breathlessly. He loosens the hand he has in my hair and traces the shell of my ear in a way that makes me shiver. “You’ll never concentrate again.”

“Do you want to get up?” I ask, my tone a little prissier than I mean it to be.

Maurice laughs all the same. It’s a quiet sound, just for the two of us. “Not at all,” he says and kisses me again.

He pins the hand he’s still holding next to my head, and I know he’s allowing me to touch him otherwise, the extent of his power so heady that I want to melt and bare my throat and have him take me apart. I haven’t felt this way about anyone in years. Decades, maybe.

Just as Maurice’s lips skim my throat, someone knocks on the door.

We both freeze, just for a second, and then Maurice sits up straight, his eyes wide. “Afsaneh,” he hisses, and I stare back at him with mounting horror.

I forgot… I shake my head. Maurice is still between my legs, now frantically trying to right his shirt, though I think it will matter little; he doesn’t look as put together as many of the vampires I’m used to, but even he is not usually so creased as this.

He gives up on himself quickly, hands moving over me as Afsaneh knocks again.

“Njáll?” she calls through the door as Maurice straightens up my tie. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes!” There’ll be no hiding what we’ve done. Fuck. “Sorry, one second.”

I swing my gaze back to Maurice again. He’s smoothing down the shoulders of my jacket, but when our eyes meet, he pauses.

I don’t know which one of us starts laughing first. It’s absurd, really, how panicked we are, because the worst Afsaneh will do is tell me to be more careful, and I think she would believe even that to be an overstep.

Maurice gets to his feet, offering a hand to help me up. I sway into him, dizzy from the way he touched me, from the way I know this attraction is returned.

“Do you want me to stay for this?”

“I… No,” I say. There’s no sign of offence in his expression. “We’ll be fine alone.”

“All right.” He runs his hands through my hair, fingers untangling the knots.

“Will I see you later?”

Maurice purses his lips. “See how you feel,” he says. “You might find yourself with a lot of work to do afterwards.”

It’s not a brush-off, but it is a way out, and though right now I have no intention of taking it, I know things can change. “Okay. What can I tell her about the fae?”

“Just to look out for them,” Maurice says, no hesitation, and I know that trust is hard-won. “Not what we’ve been out there doing.”

I nod again and Maurice kisses my cheek before he crosses to the door. Afsaneh smiles at him as he ushers her inside, but the smile fades when she realises he has left.

“I hope he was not leaving on my account.”

“No, I thought it might be better for just the two of us to meet.”

“Hmm.” Afsaneh looks me over with a critical eye. “You might want to tuck your shirt in a little more neatly, crai.”

I flush and attend to that as she takes a seat on the sofa. I sigh and sit back down at the other end. Afsaneh asks nothing more about Maurice, and I explain all that happened with Augustine, as well as the conversation I had with Maurice about how Quinn was manipulated.

“We do not technically owe Augustine anything,” Afsaneh says when I’m finished.

“Quinn has joined a pack since the murder occurred, and his original alpha is dead, so there’s really no question that responsibility for him lies with Kieran.

If Augustine is that desperate, he can take his concerns to Deacon himself. ”

“He knows Deacon won’t even entertain the idea of Quinn entering into a challenge.”

“No,” Afsaneh replies, “but you said already that Kieran offered himself up in Quinn’s place.

If this happened to one of us, I would not expect anything different.

I mean, if it were a one-off, I would hope that the perpetrator would face some justice within their pack too, but we all know that this was an unusual situation. ”

“Unusual.” That’s one word for it, I suppose, and from Afsaneh’s grimace, she does too.

She was here the night Tamesis attacked the clan. That came before the final fight; it was when he took me, Elle, and Adam. As much as it was terrifying to be with him and those who’d followed him here—whether they’d made the choice to or not—at least there was something that made sense about it.

I did not have to clean up the broken bodies here. I did not have to look upon the destruction of our home.

“What is truly going on, Njáll?” Afsaneh asks. “You and Maurice… You have been spending a lot of time together.”

And there’s that. She has noticed the meetings I’ve missed, and I don’t feel the annoyance I expect to.

“I can’t talk much about it,” I reply. She frowns, but I shake my head. “It’s to do with his… work. But he told me to tell you to look out for the fae.”

To her credit, Afsaneh does nothing more than frown. Has she already noticed something? “Very well,” she says. “I will inform one of you if I notice anything.”

“Thank you.”

She inclines her head gracefully and I let out another heavy sigh. There is a matter I need her help with, when I think of it, and it is something I will take to all the chieftains in time.

“We need another chieftain,” I say, and Afsaneh’s lips twitch.

“I was wondering when you would come back to that.”

“No matter how much you all help her, it is too much to ask Elle to handle two districts on her own. Especially with…” I don’t know that the fae are a threat to us all.

I don’t think the situation is as dire as that with Tamesis.

But I still want to be prepared. “Everything,” I say finally, waving a hand.

“Elle is handling two districts—which she shouldn’t, being as how new she is to her role—and I know you are handling three.

” And there’s the potential threat of the fae, of course, so we need to be prepared.

I don’t say that aloud. “That’s too much.

Especially with how much you are bothering me to give you more work. ”

“I’ll have you know that Kayode and I are working together when it comes to Savia’s and your districts,” Afsaneh says with a smile. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and types something on the screen. A few seconds later, my own buzzes over on the desk.

I give her a questioning look, which she answers with a smile.

“We said, didn’t we, that we had some candidates in mind? Kayode and I put a list together a month ago, and Briar just added some of her own suggestions. I’ve sent it to you.”

I laugh and get to my feet, swiping my phone from the desk. I lean there as I scroll through the list. A few of the names stand out—there are at least two vampires from my own former district, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is all the same.

Afsaneh arches an eyebrow at me when I look at her. I smile. “All right. Where should we begin?”