Page 86 of Oath
I nodded once.
“My turn,” I said, and when he would have risen, he sank back into the crouch. “You still mad that I want to do this?”
“I was never mad.” No matter how flat the statement, he couldn’t fool me.
“Liar.”
One corner of his mouth curved upward. “I don’t like it. I will never like having you go into danger. You have scars now, Dollface. Scars you didn’t have before you met us.” He touched a finger to high on my cheekbone. There was a small one there, I’d seen it. From when I’d gotten a cut. Honestly, I barely remembered the injury, much less when I got it.
“They aren’t so bad,” I told him. “If they really bother me, there’s creams and stuff.” Things I probably should have thought about before now, but I hadn’t. Bruises, scars… who cared when Am was out there?
When he cupped my chin, I focused on his gaze. There was just something so compelling when he looked at me like that. It was as though he could stare right into my soul, weigh it, then make a choice based on what he discovered.
“You will be wired when you go in,” he said, his tone utterly uncompromising.
“Okay.”
“You will have a receiver on here,” he continued, curving his hand over my ear before stroking his fingers against the skin.
“Visible or hidden?” Just because he was stroking the soft, vulnerable flesh behind my ear—when the hell did that become an erogenous zone—didn’t mean it was going to be there.
“Flesh-colored ear bud.” He paused, considering me for a beat. “Can you wear your hair down?”
I considered it. When it came to work, Amorette was buttoned-down and professional. “I can make it work.” Containing her sexuality was as much a weapon for Amorette as it was for me to use mine to get my way.
“Good.” His touch on my face remained feather light. “We’ll have eyes and ears on you at all times, if I call abort—you get up, you walk out and you keep going. Do you understand?”
While it wasn’t phrased as an order, it was still very much a command. Previously, my kneejerk reaction would be to balk. But that was before…
“I don’t like it,” I admitted. “But I’ll do it.”
The fact something like real relief shivered through his eyes made the breath back up in my lungs. Bones could be such a hardheaded asshole, but hecaredand he wasworried. Hebrushed a kiss to my lips, then another to my forehead. The ghost like touch was barely there before he rose.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said, standing to grab my small backpack that also doubled as a purse at the moment. Bones took it right out of my hands.
“For?” He ducked at the hatch and walked down the two steps before turning to offer me his hand.
“For not suggesting she might be dead, and that all of this won’t net any real answers or even… where she is.” I had to swallow around a hard lump at the end of that. “I know it’s a possibility.” One I hated so damn much. “But…”
“You need hope.” The words were so soft, I wasn’t sure I’d heard them right but his expression matched the soft sentiment. “If I ever truly think that we’re on a fool’s errand, I will tell you. I promise.”
That offered me an odd kind of comfort.
“But until then, we keep looking and we fight.” He handed off my bag to Legend as he rejoined us.
“And maybe we pick up someone to torture along the way. Maybe more than one.” His quicksilver smile helped settle the jumble of debris that had been crushing my heart since reality sank in that we were officially back on the hunt.
“You guys know how to show a girl a good time.” The teasing remark earned me another grin from Legend and a stroke of a hand down my arm from Bones. “Right. No more time for my sulking.” I summoned the smile.
While it was cold here in Virginia and there was snow on the ground, it was nowhere near as cold as it had been back at base. Didn’t make it that warm, a fact that Voodoo seemed concerned about when he tugged my knit cap lower to cover my ears. We had two big SUVs waiting, and they were fully loaded with gear.
“Will you guys tell me one day how you have so much stuffeverywherewe go?” At this point, I was more curious thananything else. The sun chose that moment to slide out from behind the clouds, even if it was already late in the afternoon.
“Maybe if you’re a very good girl,” Voodoo said with a wink.
“Or a bad girl,” AB countered, then grinned. “We’re not all that picky.”
I snorted in unison with Bones, the sound so exact in echoing our skepticism that the other three stared at us before they began laughing. Goblin barked, tail wagging. He was in the cutest little shoes for the frozen ground and a little body jacket.
