Page 69 of Legacy of Temptation

“I’m putting you on with Maja. You have five minutes.” He pointed to the red button on one corner of the unit. “Push that, and it’ll make your conversation private and engage your implant’s security scrambler.”

“Thank you,” she said, grateful that he was finally allowing her to speak with an Elder.

He nodded and left. A heartbeat later, Maja popped up on the holoscreen in front of her, looking frazzled but concerned.

“Eva, it’s good to see you. My end of the conversation is secure. Is yours?” When Eva nodded, the Elder relaxed a little. “Are you okay? Are they treating you well?”

Eva wasn’t sure how to answer that. Rade and his interrogation had been terrifying, and her head still throbbed. But even worse, it had been a violation, a theft of her private thoughts. What had he seen? What did he know? And how was she supposed to sort through all of that with words? There were none.

“Eva?”

She shook her head. “Right. Sorry. I’m okay. But I don’t know what information they might have gotten from me during the interrogation with that demon bastard.”

Maja scowled. “What demon?”

“Name’s Rade. He’s a Seminus demon.”

Maja went still for a moment. “I’ve heard stories about him. He’s the guy every government agency in the world calls when all else fails to break someone. Did he get inside your head?”

As if in answer, pain streaked across the top of her skull. She could use a couple of aspirin. “Yeah. Logan stopped him, but he still got some info. Definitely got some stuff about the Smiter. They suspect StryTech made it. They’re probably dissecting it right now. Carlos put it in my bag, so I had it when DART caught me.”

Pursing her lips, Maja nodded. “They were bound to find out we had it eventually.” She exhaled on a soft curse and shifted focus. “Do you know if the demon got anything about our locations?”

“Didn’t sound like it, but he could have kept that to himself in front of me.”

Eva rubbed her gritty eyes, completely wiped out. It was as if all the day’s events, the grief, and the panic, hit her all at once. She just wanted to crawl into a bed and cry herself to sleep while hoping she’d wake up and find that all of this had been a nightmare.

Even if that meant the nightmare demon was still haunting her.

“Do you know who Draven’s victims are yet?” Eva asked.

“We just heard from Keeley. Everyone got separated when they were attacked. She saw Sig get away, but his comms unit was damaged, so it makes sense that we haven’t heard from him yet. Keeley is on her way to the airport in a taxi…wait.” Maja looked over at something and turned back. “Hammond’s on the line with Sig. He’s on a train to a safe house in Ghent. We’ll extract him as soon as possible and get him back here. We’ve had no contact from Mason, Benji, or Carlos.”

Eva’s gut clenched. “I need to be there. I need to—”

“You’re staying. We gave DART more time, but we’re not giving up their people in exchange for you. I’m sorry, Eva, but listen to me. This is a golden opportunity for us. And you.”

“Golden…” She sat back in the seat, stunned and numb. “Being held like a prisoner by demons and werewolves and who knows what else isgolden.”

“I know, and I don’t like this, either,” Maja insisted. “I don’t trust any of them. But I do believe they can keep you safe.”

“Safe?” Eva gaped at the Elder. “From one of their own colleagues?”

Maja held up a hand in a calm-down gesture. “I understand how it sounds, but they know Draven, and they know how to counter him. In the meantime, you have a prime opportunity to get a look at DART’s operations from the inside. We’ve never had that before. You can find their weaknesses, learn about their weapons, their allies…we might not have this kind of chance again.”

“But—”

“It’ll be okay. Logan will be personally responsible for you.”

The hell he will. “That’s insane. His buddy is ademon. As good as Logan is in the gym, how is he supposed to keep me safe from that?”

Maja stared. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About Logan.”

And right then…holy shit…it clicked.

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