Page 18 of I Regret Nothing
“We had an agreement! Your fox is safe, and we get our ingredients.”
Dakarys shoved Venus’s list at Astrid.
“Venus bypassed Darius and came to us to get her ingredients for poison. Which begs the question of how she knew to come straight to us and why she thought we would help her. You do realize our little business keeps going because we don’t tell just everyone what we are doing. There are a lot of snitches in Silverhold.”
“Venus must be watching me. She saw me meet with you before I called my coven about Rei. I don’t trust her. That poison could very well be meant for me so she can take over my coven.”
Well, shit. Wedid notneed Venus taking over the witches here. The only reason we got along so well with them was because of Astrid.
“So, what are we going to do about this wayward witch?” I asked.
“Wearen’t going to do anything. Venus is my problem, and I’ll handle it. I’ll make sure she doesn’t become your problem, though I’m still not sure why this fox is so important or why she’s not with the other shifters.”
I still didn’t know that myself. We were risking so much protecting Rei and causing so much drama with the witches. And we still didn’t know why Rei was hanging with us instead of her own kind.
Chapter 16
Faust
I
should not have an inmate in here helping me with my paperwork. I was lucky the warden liked me because I had to spin about a million stories as to why I needed her in my office instead of fixing shit in mechanical with the other shifters.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her around the other shifters so they could get curious about her too. She seemed to have pissed off a lot of witches. There was the one in here that wanted her, and I’d already gotten a message from the coven she stole the Grimoire from on my burner phone. They wanted her dead.
They offered enough money that I knew even if I didn’t take the job, it was only a matter of time before someone else did. That particular coven was swimming in money. Enough to get an inmate out of Silverhold early and set them up nice and comfortable if they killed her and didn’t get caught. Enough for someone to be willing to commit a crime and get caught to come here and complete the job for them.
I didn’t know why. Even when I found out what she was, I didn’t want her dead. I should have. She was mouthy, and I didn’t think she was the least bit sorry for all the shit she had stolen. She probably had every intention of going straight back to theft when she got out.
Still, I could respect that in a way. Stealing was her job just as much as killing people was mine. She had to be good at it if they could only tie her to one theft and being at the scene of another. There was nothing I hated more than sloppy criminals.
I had her in my office doing my paperwork because it was the only place I could watch her and keep her safe now that I knew they had put a hit out on her. Fuck. I was risking so much for this girl, and I didn’t know why. She smelled better than anyone I’d ever met before. Why did she have to smell like that?
She smelled like diving into freshly laundered sheets under the full moon while someone was baking your favorite dessert nearby. It was like everything I liked at once, and now I had her right in the same room all day. I wasn’t just curious about what she was. I was addicted to her scent.
And she was just so fucking adorable as she slammed my files around and called me an asshole under her breath. Why was this happening to me? I’d been on countless hunts. I’d never once sat there thinking about how cute my prey looked when they were frustrated. Maybe I should just take the job and kill her. I needed to focus.
I couldn’t kill her without finding out what she was first. There were too many unanswered questions about her. I pulled my tablet out and connected it to my personal hotspot. I could settle this once and for all by finding her birth certificate. This hunt was getting too personal. I needed to stop focusing on her so much. If my mind weren’t totally on the present, I would leave something behind and end up a resident in Silverhold.
I glanced up as she called me another name. She was getting pretty creative with them too. I let out a growl and focused back on my tablet. There was a record of every single supernatural birth, and she was of an age it would be digital. I typed her name in and…nothing. What the fuck? Supernatural hospitals were meticulous about this. Even if she were born in a human hospital, she wouldn’t have been given a social security number unless her parents had updated this after the birth.
I still had her file on my desk. I hadn’t given it to her to put it away. I looked at her social security number and ran it. She had ahumansocial security number. I checked for a birth certificate again in human records. One didn’t exist. The only record I was able to find for her was that she was adopted by humans and raised human.
She wasn’t even remotely human. Did she even know what she was? The Fae had recently opened their gates, and not only started living on Earth, but they were allowing carefully vetted people into their realm. She wasn’t Fae. I’d never heard of a Fae who could turn into a fox.
Was she from an entirely different realm? Why was she here getting raised by humans? I let out a little growl.
I couldn’t kill her yet. I had to solve this mystery.
Chapter 17
Rei
W
hat did Faust do all day in this prison? It certainly wasn’t paperwork. There were stacks all over this office. The fucker played on his tablet, sniffed me, and growled all day instead of helping me. I never did get to my commissary file, so I didn’t even get my cookies. Faust was a dick.
He personally escorted me to the mess hall and leaned against one of the walls to let me eat. What did he think I was going to do in the mess hall? If Venus came at me again, I’d fight her with my fists like I did in the shower. Iwas notrevealing I had the wrong cuffs on this soon. I might need my magic later, and I was only bringing it out if I had no choice. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t stupid. If only I could figure out how to get rid of Faust.
