“Me too, Gem. Me too.”
Sucking in a deep, bracing breath, Tay entered the room where Kynan, dressed in his usual jeans and leather jacket, braced his forearm above his head on the windowsill, looking out at the grassy quad. Tufts of spiky dark hair stood up haphazardly as if he’d been running his fingers through it.
“Hey, Dennis.” He swung around, his combat boots squeaking on the tile.
“Hey, Ky.”
“Tayla. Jesus Christ.” He came forward as though to embrace her, but battlewise wariness sparked in his eyes, and he halted a stang’s length out of arm’s reach. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
His proximity forced her to look up at him, but she wouldn’t be the one to back off. “Disappointed?”
“How can you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you tried to kill me? Twice?”
To his credit, he looked stunned. But then, in all the years she’d known Kynan, she’d never known him to be anything but brutally honest. If he appeared to be surprised, he probably was. At least, she’d have believed that before. Right now she wasn’t so sure. Not when her life was on the line.
“I’m not sure what to say.” His voice was a deep rumble that gave nothing away about what he was thinking. The man was no fool, and his cautious nature had saved his life more than once.
Her temper flared, because she could think of a million things to say. “How about, ‘Sorry The Aegis tried to turn you into a suicide bomber’? Or, ‘Hey, I apologize for putting a price on your head’? Yeah, I can think of a few things you could say. Why don’t you start with what you were told about my death?”
For a long moment he took her in, from her feet to her face, until she had the urge to fidget. “Lori said you were sent to the demon hospital to release a tracking spell. But when you didn’t release the spell or return, Jagger sent Bleak and Cole to your apartment. They were ambushed by demons. We assumed you’d been killed, too.”
“You were lied to.”
Ky stared down at her, the calculation in his denim eyes something that had always fascinated her. He could take in information and process it faster than anyone she’d ever known. To her relief, his angular, hard features softened—minutely—and he stepped back in a minor concession.
“Tell me everything.”
She did, leaving out her parentage and her sexual relationship with Eidolon. Kynan listened, his expression impassive, but his golden-tan skin went the color of pale butter when she told him Jagger had given her the phone that had contained the explosive device but no tracking spell, and that the two Guardians sent to her apartment had claimed that Ky knew about the order to kill her.
“Who killed Cole?” he asked, his voice so devoid of emotion and inflection that she couldn’t get a good read.
“He tried to kill me, Ky.” She refused to elaborate. Cole’s death had nothing to do with what was going on inside the cell.
Ky leveled a probing stare at her. “Fair enough. And you say Lori was in the interrogation room when Jagger gave you the phone?”
Tayla nodded. “I don’t know if she knew—”
“She didn’t,” he snapped. “Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes. Sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Tayla. This is just all so unbelievable.”
“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
“Not at all. “ He cleared his throat and brought his head up. “But something has gone wrong somewhere. This doesn’t add up. I don’t get why Jagger would want you dead.”
This was it. Positioning herself near the door in case he went crazy was a plan that might have worked had he not noticed exactly what she was doing.
“No matter what you say,” he said softly, “I’ll stay level.”
She wanted to believe him, but two attempts on her life by people she’d considered friends had killed her ability to trust. Not that she’d ever fully trusted anyone, but The Aegis had been good to her, and after years of fighting alongside friends, she’d started to let down her guard.
“Someone is capturing demons and chopping them up to sell their parts on the underworld black market. The demons think The Aegis is doing it.”
“That would be a natural assumption, given that we’re the enemy.”
Why did he have to be so logical about it? She’d railed about how The Aegis couldn’t possibly be involved, and shame on Eidolon for thinking so. “Yeah, well, I thought the demons were full of shit. But I’m not so sure anymore. And I think our cell is involved.”
“We’re not.”
“You might not be, but what if others were?” She shook her head, because suddenly things were becoming clearer. “See, up until right now, I thought The Aegis wanted me dead for another reason, but even then, it didn’t make sense, because I think you wouldn’t have been so hasty.”
Ky leaned forward on the chair and braced his forearms on his spread thighs. “You’re talking in circles. Spit it out.”