Page 15

Neith

“I t says that you have experience working at a private investigative firm, but that’s all the experience that you have when it comes to law enforcement,” someone replies, sounding unsure. “We need our human liaisons to be a bit more experienced I'm afraid.”

The desperation her voice notches up a level as she tries to convince them to hire her, I grab Reed’s arm and pull him further down the hallway, not that there is that far to go, and the guys finally realize that we have stopped walking and turn back to face us. Ransom opens his mouth, and I shake my head frantically, putting my finger to my lips just to emphasize the point that they need to keep really fucking quiet. I can’t risk one of them saying my name and alerting bitch tits to the fact that I am here or even just raising her suspicions.

That is the downside to having such a unique name. It’s very unlikely that it would be anyone but me. In fact, she would most likely be certain of that if it weren’t for the fact she had a hand in blowing me up.

As the others get to us, Evander glances at something over my shoulder and then moves past me and Reed and opens the door to the empty office, ushering us all inside.

“This office is spare, we won’t be interrupted in here,” Evander reassures me, and then adds when I still hesitate, “all offices are soundproofed. No one can hear us either.”

I nod with a grateful smile, and then get straight to it, “The woman being interviewed for a job next door is saying that she only has private investigation experience but she’s actually a member of HID.”

“Shit that’s not good,” Griff mutters.

“She was also with the group directly involved in killing me,” I add.

Murderous growls echo throughout the room from several of them and I am grateful that the place is soundproofed otherwise we most likely would have had people come running thinking that there was something nefarious going on. There is, but it's not in this room.

Also, I probably shouldn’t have found that sound so hot right? I mentally shrug. I’ll come back to that later. Right now, I need to try not to derail myself. Again.

“Are you sure?” Reed asks.

I level him with a look, “Yes, I’m sure. Having someone kill you sort of cements them in your mind.”

Reed nods, “Good point. I for one think that we should drag her from that room and pull her limb from limb.” He grins, “Slowly.”

“Seconded,” River agrees, and then adds in a shocking twist that I didn’t expect, “I have a couple of new torture techniques that I have been working on. I think she would be the perfect candidate to try them out on.”

Once I’ve gotten over the shock that the sweet, bouncy and bubbly man seems to be the one that dishes out the torture when its necessary, I grin.

“Torture, huh?” I smirk. River looks at me, slightly panicked, before he sees my expression and relaxes. “Just promise you won’t play without me. I’ve picked up a couple of things over the years.”

“Really?” Doc asks, curiosity sparking in his eyes.

I shrug, “Sometimes, I need information to complete a job, and sometimes that information doesn’t want to be given willingly.”

“You’re so fucking hot,” River mutters.

My eyes widen slightly but he just shrugs.

“She is, and I want to learn more but right now we need to deal with the HID spy currently trying to get employed by us,” Griff says.

I smirk, he admitted he thinks I’m hot too.

Totally not what I should be focusing on right now. Do I care? Nope. It’s giving me little butterflies and I like that feeling so I’m fucking savoring it.

“He’s right,” I reply, pulling myself together. “As much as I like the idea of you guys pulling the bitch apart. You can’t. How would you know I was dead and that she was involved in it? There is no proof apart from me, and I’m supposed to be dead. They can’t find out that I am alive, and I can guarantee that she is up to something here. We need to get her out of the building without raising any suspicions as soon as fucking possible.”

“I’ll message Ty and get him to meet us in here. He is probably the best person to deal with it,” Evander says, pulling out his phone and sending a quick text.

“That’s smart. I think every one of us would have a problem remaining polite or even nice to her,” Ransom replies.

“True,” Raiden replies, a flash of darkness in his eyes that makes me think that he’s thinking of ways that he could make her pay for what she did to me. He looks formidable, dangerous, and really fucking hot.

“Why are you all in Jerry’s old office and why couldn’t you walk five doors down to mine?” Ty asks as he enters the room, closing the door behind him.

“The woman being interviewed next door is one of the HID agents directly involved in my attempted murder,” I explain. I only remember at the last second that Ty doesn’t know about the whole dying thing and, so it's an attempted murder and not an actual murder.

That would be complicated to explain.

“Shit,” Ty replies. “Give me a second.”

He turns around and heads back out of the door that he just came through.

“Where’s he going?” I ask, slightly confused.

“To get rid of the woman next door,” Ransom replies.

I pull a face, “Really? He just believed me? He didn’t question if I was sure or say that it couldn’t be because this place is secured or anything.”

“Of course he believed you,” Evander says gently.

“Huh,” I reply, still somewhat confused by the whole situation.

The door opens again, and Ty walks back in a heavy frown on his face, “She has been dealt with and escorted from the building. I’m sorry Neith but there is very little that we can do at the moment.”

I nod, “I know. That’s what I said to them.” I feel the need to double check so I ask, “There’s no chance that she can see me and the room is empty?”

Ty nods, “She’s gone and yes the room is now empty, why?”

“Follow me. Just stay quiet and do not say my name,” I say as I head toward the door.

They all nod, although they look confused, and follow me from the room and to the room that she was next door. I know how HID works, and I’m willing to bet that she has stuck bugs in this room and everywhere else that she has been able to access as well. Keeping silent I walk into the room and start to search. In no time at all, I have pulled out seven that she has hidden around the room, and I place them on the desk, making the guys eyes widen with each one that I find.

Without saying anything at all, Ransom flicks his fingers toward them, and they all zap and buzz before they fry on the spot. He frowns, and I feel his magic expand. I have no idea what he’s doing, but his frown deepens the longer that he does it.

“She had placed thirty-six bugs, they were all through the building and in areas that she shouldn’t have been in. I’ve destroyed them all,” Ransom explains as soon as he’s done.

Ty’s eyebrows rise, “You were able to do that from here?”

“Yeah,” Ransom replies, although he’s frowning like something has just occurred to him.

Ty’s smile widens, I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows something that we don’t, in fact we know that he knows lots of things that we don’t. That was sort of an obvious thing to think.

I’m spiraling.

“I would hold off on the new hires for a while,” Raiden suggests, “there is a good chance that she isn’t the first one that they have tried to sneak in here.”

“She’s the first one that has brought bugs in. I didn’t find any more and I scanned the entire building and the grounds too,” Ransom says, “I’ll go around and make sure that they are all collected.”

“Good,” Ty said. “At least there’s that. Neith, I don’t suppose you would be able to cast your eye over the recent new hires and tell me whether or not you recognize any of them?”

I nod, “Yeah, of course I can.”

“Great, if you follow me, we can head there now. It should only take a couple of minutes; we don’t hire new people that often and humans even less. I think there might be two, in the last couple of years.”

“Oh, super easy then,” I say as I follow him back into the corridor and a few doors down—the guys following behind us.

We’re led into a big room with lots of computers and people that clearly know what they’re doing. Ty walks over to the closest empty one, leans over the desk and types something in and then steps back.

I shake my head before he even asks, “I don’t recognize either of them, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a part of HID, but they aren’t people that I recognize.”

Ty looks relieved, “Well, at least there is that.”

“Maeve said that you wanted to talk to us?” Griff asks when Ty falls silent for a moment.

Ty frowns for a second and then seems to remember what he wanted to see us for, “I just wanted to know what your plan was today, and if Neith had chosen what she wanted to teach,” he glances back at me and adds, “you don’t have to teach anything at all if you don’t want to.”

I shrug, “I honestly have no idea at the moment. The plan is to shadow the guys in their lessons for a while and then I can see where I fit and also learn some stuff as well. I need to make sure that I know everything about supes, so I know the most appropriate response on jobs and things.”

Ty nods, “That’s a really good idea. Alright, well you guys are probably late now. You should get going before your students cause a riot.”

The guys grin, and then we say goodbye and head back the way we came.

“How does the timetable work here?” I ask. “Will I get to see each one of you teach today?”

Van shakes his head, “No. It’s not like a typical high school timetable where you have lots of lessons crammed into a day. Here we have two or three. We thought you could see Griff’s flight class today,” I start bouncing excitedly and the guys chuckle, as Evander continues with a smile, “We also thought that you would probably like to watch the combat class. We all take turns teaching that one, and today, it’s Ransom’s turn with Reed as his shadow.”

I frown, “I thought that Raiden taught that?”

“I do,” Raiden grins and then clarifies, “but if you mean my main class, that’s weaponry.”

“Ohh,” I say. “That sounds great, actually. It will ease me into the way that things work here, and at least I know something about the combat class, so I won’t be entirely lost. That’s a bonus.”

“Exactly,” Van replies with a smile.

“We’ve got to split up now,” Doc says as we walk through the last security door and back into the central part of the school.

River pulls me into his arms and hugs me tightly, as he rests his head on top of mine, and then surprises me when he drops a kiss on top of my head too. One by one all of them do exactly the same thing and by the time I wave at them like a massive dork as they walk down the corridor, my smile is huge and even Griff is grinning.

“Come on, let’s get to class,” Griff says as he gestures for me to follow him.

Griff

I have to admit that I’m trying to figure out a way that I can pull Neith into my arms just like the others did, but since I can’t actually come up with a plausible reason that’s not going to make me seem like an absolute weirdo, I settle on just getting to the lesson and comfort myself with the fact that she isn’t going to be with me in the second half of the day so I will get to say goodbye to her then.

Rolling my eyes, I admit to myself that I have a problem. Fortunately, I’m not the only one, and the guys are apparently in just as much trouble when it comes to Neith as I am.

“Tell me what to expect then,” she asks and then looks up at me excitedly, “Oh am I going to get to see you in full gargoyle mode? That would be so cool, I’ve only caught glimpses before because we’ve been in life-or-death situations and I can’t exactly just stare at you in those situations,” she pauses and then carries on before I can reply, “well I suppose I could, but I’d end up dead.”

I tense. I really don’t fucking like that thought at all.

Pushing the thoughts of her dying away, I focus on what she asked me. I had absolutely no intention of doing a fully shifted flying lesson today, but there is no reason why I can’t. It’s an advanced class anyway so the students are very capable of doing a fully shifted lesson.

I smile, “Yeah, you’ll get to see me fully shifted. You will actually get to see a fair few supes fully shifted.”

“That’s awesome,” she replies, her eyes lighting up with excitement and curiosity.

“You know, if you had said at home that you wanted to see me fully shifted, I would have shown you,” I say, glancing down at her.

To be honest the guys and I have all been more in our more human forms around the house than we usually would be, and it has been completely unintentional, at least it has on my part. I feel like it’s probably because none of us wanted to shock her too much, which is ridiculous because she has been around supernaturals for her whole life and worked with Dimitri. I doubt that there is anything that we could do to scare her.

I pull out my phone and message the guys quickly, they all end up replying something similar to what I was thinking and say that they had no idea that they were actually doing it, apart from Raiden and Reed who never drop their glamors and I doubt that will change any time soon. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that if Neith asked them to, they probably would. I’m pretty sure that she could ask us to do almost anything, and we would probably do it.

I smile. I have no idea how she has become so important to us so fucking quickly, but she has.

Ransom doesn’t have a shifted form or a glamor although, his eyes do this freaky swirly shit when he’s using a lot of magic, and Evander doesn’t ever really shift unless it's in the water or he’s expending a lot of magic at once. His shifted form has gills and although he can switch pretty easily between them and breathing normally it would expend a lot of energy that’s not necessary to spend.

“It felt weird to ask like I was asking to see you naked,” she says, pulling me back into the conversation. Her eyes immediately widen when she realizes what she has said.

We’re at the door to the triple height, vast room that I call my classroom, and I pull the door open for her as she walks past me and into the room, I say, my voice low and coming out more of a rumble than anything else. “All you’ve got to do is ask Neith, for either thing.”

Her head snaps up, her heated gaze colliding with mine. I have to admit that I enjoy the shock on her features, and I give her a half smirk as I move past her and into the classroom greeting the students that are in the room and watching our exchange curiously.

“Everyone,” I say as I get to the front, watching Neith as she moves to the back of the room, her back to the wall and her eyes cataloguing everything that she sees around her, and most likely the exits too. My eyes move back to the class, and I continue what I was going to say, “We have an observer for this lesson, this is Neith, and she is the newest member of my team.”

All gazes move back to Neith, and she smiles confidently, giving them a wave. I call their attention back to me and get on with the lesson. For the first time, I think ever, I feel nervous to be teaching a class.

It’s definitely not because of the students or because I haven’t taught this lesson before, it’s for none of those reasons, it’s because Neith is watching and I really want to make a good impression.

I can quite honestly say that I have never put this much effort into impressing a woman before, but then again, I haven’t ever met a woman quite like Neith.