Page 3 of The Powers of Nyx

Thea groaned and lowered her head. “Lord save me from my friend’s idiot boyfriends,” she muttered.

My heart skipped a beat, and the grin widened. “You think I’m her boyfriend?”

She glared, watching as I put the cooked chicken into a bowl. “If you weren’t, I’d be worried. Especially after what I know, Cuddles.”

I pursed my lips and didn’t respond. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ivy had told her about that day. Even if it had been for a short time, it soothed something within me.

If we weren’t mates, I knew I would cherish it. And if we were…

Without another word, we worked. Thea added an array of vegetables to her soup while I shredded the chicken. She accepted the meat without comment, tossing it into the simmering pot, and barely acknowledged me beyond that.

Maybe it was a good thing, I decided, as she let me help her prep the meal for serving. There wasn’t much I could do to help Ivy’s sisters, but I could at least help here.

The double doors to the main warehouse opened with agents leaving their day-shift duties. Their voices remained soft so as not to startle the girls, something Elias and I tried to enforce—but Thea was more forceful with. She wasn’t afraid of the agents, who were usually double her age or stronger than her.

I looked up as Jay entered, his brows drawn tight. He met my stare and gave me a nod.

Tension lined my body as I wrapped up the job Thea had given me. Our eyes met briefly, and she sighed.

I helped her pour soup for the kids and walked them to the table. Elias’s eyes darkened as he watched Jay, who waited for us by the doors with his arms crossed.

“Make sure you finish your food,” the wolf muttered, eyes alight, the shift close to the surface. “I’ll see you guys soon.”

Maisie hugged his arm before releasing him, pouting into her chicken-noodle soup. Ginny barely looked up from the page she’d been drawing on. And Eloise…

Her eyes followed us. We didn’t speak until we were out of the warehouse, walking the long hall towards the loading bay. The tension between the three of us thickened, threatening to explode, until we made it out to the cars.

“What happened?” Elias asked.

Jay turned on us with dark eyes. The tattoos lining his body shifted, slithering like snakes across his skin. “The vamp is still down, but we may have gotten something out of the other one.”

The other one being a shifter. Fox, arctic, male. He was a strange anomaly, considering he was dated at nearly two hundred and thirty years old. Shifters aged at a slower rate, but not like Fae, Vampires, and Demons.

And since our guy was a full-blooded shifter, it didn’t make sense.

I had a feeling it had something to do with whatever problem our enemy had with the Daughters of Nyx. Some kind of experimentation, considering the state of the bear shifters we’d fought during the kidnapping.

It sent a shiver of uncertainty through me. But I bottled it up and put it away. If anything were to happen to Ivy again, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

I knew what her destiny held, and I would do anything in my power to stop it from happening.

If it meant bloodying my hands, then so be it.

Elias and I shared a look. It was like he knew the current war within me, the one I wanted to fight so badly but couldn’t win.

He said nothing, though, and nodded once.

We strode into the storeroom where our shifter waited, and we worked.

2

IVY

MYhead pounded with a tear-inducedheadache. Surprisingly, I’d been able to hide it from Elias and Adrian. My wolf had sent me agood morningthought, said he would check in with the girls, and hadn’t prodded me about last night at all. Adrian was nearby, close to the edges of my thoughts, but never pried.

I knew I couldn’t hide my puffy eyes from him, though.

Splashing cold water across my face, I tried to clear away last night’s unwelcome visit. Maybe it was being nearhimagain, or his inability to answer my questions. But there was something about Ry that unsettled me even now that he was no longer inside my head.

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