Page 33 of Mistletoe

Hal nodded. He approved, but now was not the time to be sentimental. Without a farewell, he faced the door.

“What about you? Where will you go?” Draven asked.

Hal ignored him, focusing on the sounds on the other side of the door.

Two heartbeats. Easy.

Draven touched his arm, stopping him. “Two things. They’re important.”

“I’m listening.” Despite every instinct telling him to leave.

“The Nexus fluctuates with the seasons. You’ll be most affected at the solstice and the equinox. Isolate yourself,” Draven said. “Find your anchor. Your person. A soulmate. It helps.”

“Helps with what?”

“Keeping us human.”

Hal shook him off, anger flowing into him and filling the gaps in his soul. There was no time for sentimentality. He had chaos to orchestrate. “Go. If I see you again, I will kill you.”

He pushed open the door and rushed out, surprising the lax guards. He didn’t hit them hard, just hard enough to get their attention. The last thing Hal wanted was for them to be incapacitated.

The thing is, no one expects a man Hal’s size to be fast. He had years of experience dodging minions in tight quarters. The memory of dashing through a hall, ducking and dodging to avoid Draven’s guards, emerged with crystal clarity.

Centuries of experience.

A pair of sleepy guards who thought they had an easy assignment? Insultingly easy. A troop doing morning roll call in an open field with plenty of space to maneuver? Laughably easy. The cluster of officers who were on their way to breakfast? Highly satisfying, if not a challenge.

Being big and green made him hard to miss, but just in case, Hal took a flag. He even found his favorite silver-haired officer, who sputtered with rage as he ran by with a stolen flag.

In no time at all, Hal had the attention of the entire base. Now to make use of it.

Chapter Nine

Emma

Sweetwater Point

Emma was releasedin the morning, just as she predicted, no dramatic prison breaks necessary. The lawyer her father hired bandied about several impressive terms in the sheriff’s office that morning, mostlyunlawful detentionandinhumane conditions.

“Did they feed you?” Agatha fussed with the collar of Emma’s coat. When neither her husband nor her daughter returned home, she rode into town the next day, bringing hell with her. A gentle, smothering hell. Agatha delivering a batch of shortbread cookies to the sheriff’s office with a smile and a casual mention that she planned to pay her respects to the sheriff’s mother and catch up on gossip likely had as much to do with Emma’s release as the fire and brimstone lawyer.

More. No one wanted their mother gossiping with Agatha De Lacey. Somehow, she always had the latest tittle-tattle and had zero compunction about sharing, which would be distressing if one had a secret to hide.

What don’t you want others to know, Nina?

“Yes, Ma, they fed me,” Emma answered.

Agatha made a doubtful noise. “You look thin, and what happened to your scarf?”

She knew what had happened: an orc took it. “How about I run to the bakery and pick up sausage rolls for the trip home? The sheriff fed me dinner but not breakfast.”

“No breakfast,” Agatha said in a tone that implied that information was the most scandalous thing she ever heard. “I wonder if Mrs. Navarre knows how her daughter runs her office.”

Emma made plans to meet her parents at the livery. For the moment, she enjoyed the sunshine and the non-damp nature of the air. She couldn’t wait to get home, hug her cat, and take a bath. After she tended the goats and did the chores. Her mother fed the animals but the stalls would need mucking out and other assorted grubby tasks. Farm work was never-ending and quite filthy.

Yes, a good long soak in the evening by the hearth in the kitchen was exactly what she wanted.

Shouts and pounding horse hooves came at her from behind, the noise signaling a need to get off the street. A mob of very riled soldiers headed her way, riding hell-bent for leather.

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