Page 83 of Shiny Things

I cringed under his scrutiny.

“She’d been asleep when Andrew and I stopped by to check on her last night, and she wasn’t home when we stopped by first thing this morning.”

“Sorry. She woke up in the middle of the night and stayed up for a while. We both agreed there was no way we could sleep there. Too much happened yesterday. She said she didn’t feel safe there, so we stayed at my place instead. I guess you should know, she’s officially moving in this afternoon.”

His jaw locked, and he glared at me as I would imagine any father would do.

“Can we call this meeting to order already?” Castor said. “Or would we like to waste the entire morning discussing Elias’s love life?”

I glared back at him, but when the door opened and Silas Granger walked in with nearly a dozen others, they had my full attention.

“We called Westin Force in?”

“Given the attack yesterday, we all took a late-night vote and called Patrick O’Connell to get things moving,” Castor explained.

“To be clear, we’re only here to assess security and train those you appoint to protect the Congress,” Silas said. “Let me take a moment and introduce the teams. I head up Bravo and in order around the room this is Painter, Jake, Taylor, Grant, Ben, Tarron, and Baine. Next, we have Michael who heads up Delta team.”

“Hello. My unit is in charge of Pack security. We’ll be testing your perimeters and identifying all areas of weakness. These are my men: Lachlan, Walker, Linc, Colin, and Tucker.”

“You asked for the best and we’re here to deliver just that. I understand you lost only one raven to the Collector.”

“He was working with the Collector and left driving him and an unknown powerful female witch out of town. So we really don’t know if he was captured or voluntarily left.”

“Of course he was captured. Joe is an upstanding young man,” Castor protested. “He’s the victim here.”

“Perhaps if it had been your mate he’d sent the Collector for, then you’d have a different opinion.”

“Elias, calm down. You’ll have to excuse my son. Emotions are running high all over town.”

“It’s okay, and to be expected,” Lachlan said. “It wasn’t that long ago that our own territory was breeched by a Collector. We understand what you’re going through.”

It was nice to hear, but no one could possibly understand what I had gone through—what I was still going through. I’d barely managed an hour of sleep all night as I laid awake watching Kim to assure myself she was truly okay.

“Tell me more about this powerful witch. You’re all witches, so what made her stand out?” Silas asked.

The others all looked to me for answers since none of them had actually been there to see her for themselves.

“Well, first she forced me to shift with a single command. I was in midflight, too, and suddenly I was crashing to the ground in my skin.”

There were murmurs throughout the room.

“Go on, please,” Michael instructed.

“That was bad enough, but then she commanded us to use our powers. I witnessed her do it twice with Kim and then she turned on me.”

“What happened?” Tarron asked.

“It was unreal really. I could feel the surge building the second she said the word. My powers aren’t as quick to display as my mate’s. That caused enough of a distraction for me to formulate a plan. Using my energy to strike my mate’s water, we were able to direct it into one massive explosion that killed the Collector’s driver. I thought that would leave him stranded, but then Joe jumped in his car and drove them away.”

“Where is the Collector’s car now?” Michael asked.

“Still parked in front of Kim’s house as far as I know.”

“Linc, take Colin and go check it out for any evidence left behind,” he ordered.

“Take Tarron and Taylor with you. They’re particularly good with security and electronics,” Silas said.

Michael nodded his consent as the four of them left without even asking for Kim’s address. I figured they either already had it in their intel, or they’d be back.

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