Page 33 of Guarded By the Krampus

“Then let’s go.”

Half-a-second later we were stepping onto the Monster Security Agency lobby’s tile.

“You couldn’t deposit us up in the server room?” I complained.

“No—because then people wouldn’t see you, and where would the fun be in that?” Sylas said.

“See us?” Sarah asked.

“I did some of my own recon after Ace called. Your shadowy group seems to have been keeping tabs on us since you two left, possibly waiting for news, or Ace’s return.”

Which meant that they knew I had, seeing as the lobby windows in front of us were open to the outside world.

“And this was your helpful plan?” I confronted him.

“I have a baby to feed,” Sylas stated. And the infant that was obscured by his baby-sling started crying.

The Nightmare had gone and put my mate in danger—and for what? “Sylas!” I growled.

“Shhh—you’re upsetting him,” he said, bobbing his child up and down—as Sarah’s hand squeezed my arm. I shook my head and wrapped an arm around her instead, propelling us both toward the elevator.

We were quiet on the eleven floor ride up to the server room. “This is going to work,” I promised her. “I swear it.”

“I know,” she said, giving me a deep nod.

“Okay,” I said, as the doors opened. “Twenty steps down the hall, then there’s a door to the right,” I told her, before letting her go to run ahead and get it open. “Nex!” I shouted once I had, turning on the lights and banging a fist on a metal wall.

“Hello Aceon,” said a clinical sounding disembodied voice from somewhere above me.

“Hey, Nex—I need your help.” Nex was the AI that coordinated our branch of the MSA’s affairs. He was wildly overpowered and annoyingly good at Call of Duty.

“It will be my joy to serve you.”

“Cut that shit out,” I told him, rolling my eyes.

“Sup, dawg, time to get fragged?” Nex tried next, in his prim and proper voice.

“We really need to work on your personality.”

“That would require working around more normal people.”

I started setting a workstation up for Sarah. “Over here!” I shouted, when she came in the room. “Four steps forward, ten to the left!”

I’d managed it by the time she got there, so she had a chair in front of a monitor, and one of the plates we put potentially dangerous gear and magical objects onto, until we could safely disarm them.

“Just tell Nex what you want, and he’ll do it, or tell you how. Nex—without her tech, Sarah’s blind, and you’d better treat her right, or I will never let you win at CoD again.”

“Wait—you’re leaving?” Sarah said, just as an alarm started going off from somewhere in the building below.

“Yeah.”Bombs and babies didn’t mix.“I can’t let that idiot fight without me.”

“Ace—” she called out, before I could leave. “Be careful?”

“Of course,” I swore, before running off.

How could I not be?

I had important things to live for.

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