Page 110 of Seduce Me in Shadow

“You dragged me here at the crack of dawn to interrogate me?” Shock snarls behind his dark sunglasses. “I’m not your fucking puppet.”

Bram’s eyes narrow dangerously. “So you only answer to Mathias, then?”

“I have to make my loyalty look real, you git,” Shock spits. “Or are you too thick to understand that?”

“Thick, no. Suspicious, always. Your family’s reputation precedes you, Shock. When you vanish for days, I’d be a fool not to wonder if you’re really Mathias’s man.”

A double agent? My mind reels at the possibility. But I completely understand Bram’s skepticism. The tough, tatted-up bloke in leather hardly strikes me as Mr. Upstanding.

Suddenly, Shock’s head snaps in my direction. Even through his dark glasses, I feel his gaze boring into me. Heat floods my cheeks.

Busted.

“Speaking of untrustworthy, we’ve got an eavesdropper,” Shock drawls.

Bram rounds on me, his scowl thunderous. “This isn’t for your bloody online tabloid. These warriors’ lives are at stake if you leak information.”

I’ve already inadvertently caused harm. Shame washes over me. “I’m not after a story. I want to help. When Mr. O’Shea arrived last night, I realized that magickind knows nothing about Mathias’s return. They need to. I have experience. I interned at the BBC. I can?—”

“This must be the ‘nothing’ Caden warned me about,” Bram cuts in. “Shock, go to my office so Zain doesn’t see you. We’ll finish our chat in a bit.”

Shock complies with a grumble, leaving me alone with a furious Bram.

“Honestly,” I tell him. “I’m not trying to?—”

“Save your breath. The Council?—”

Before Bram can finish his thought, the front door slams open.

Tynan O’Shea bursts in, rage emanating from every pore. “People are dying because of the bloody Council’s stubborn stupidity! The Pullmans would be alive if someone had warned them about Mathias. Stop being a coward and act like the future of the Council you’re meant to be.”

“Watch yourself. I started the Doomsday Brethren in secret,” Bram argues. “If the Council catches wind of it, they’ll oust me.Who do you think they’ll replace me with? Someone backward. Someone who thinks like them. We have to be smart about this.”

Magical politics? How fascinating. I can’t take it in fast enough. Being one of the few humans to know about this world within a world is amazing. So is being in a position to help, because despite what Bram says, magickind deserves the truth.

“What about the next family attacked?” I interject, stepping through the door. “If a transcast could save them?—”

Bram gapes. “Who the bloody hell told you about that?”

That doesn’t matter. “I’ll do it. Just show me how it works. No one has to know you’re involved.”

Bram’s incredulous stare burns into me. “Do you understand the danger? Mathias and every Anarki scum will hunt you relentlessly. They’re banking on the Council being useless and paralyzed by their fear.”

“So why give them exactly what they need to flourish?” I counter.

“She has a point.” Hurstgrove’s calm voice cuts through the tension as he drags in a bedraggled figure, wearing a T-shirt that says:Do not disturb. I’m disturbed enough already.

My breath catches. Zain. The man who hurt Aquarius.

Clearly, his T-shirt is appropriate.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Bram snaps before turning to Zain. “You’re going to perform thehelbreselespell.”

“If I expended the energy to hurt someone, why would I bother healing them?” Zain’s sneer is pure venom.

At his flippant tone, white-hot fury floods me.

“Because I said so,” Bram snarls. “And if you don’t…” He glances toward Tynan, a cruel smile playing on his lips. “Remember Auropha MacKinnett?”

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