Page 96 of A Shade of Myself
“Not sure. We’ve only attempted this a couple other times and the demon was already locked up, so we didn’t check when they became aware that their magic was disrupted.”
I might get away with freeing Giselle before Edvin caught on, but there was no way to help Gigi without him finding out. “The demon threatened Sadie if I messed with his business.”
“Stop crowding me,” Nav said. “I heard her.”
Laurent said something I didn’t catch, but Nav told him to take his wolf hearing and wait inside his truck.
I curled up against the corner throw pillows. The more people looking out for my daughter the better, but it was also confusing when technically Laurent and I were just friends with benefits. “Did he leave?”
“No, because Hell didn’t freeze over. When will you give me your answer on how to proceed?”
“I’ll speak to my client tomorrow. It’s her life and she needs to be involved in this decision. I also need to clear this with Tatiana.”
“Bloody hell. She’s going to run me through the wringer negotiating her fees again. You’re lucky Sadie is a sweetheart because you, poppet, are a pain in the arse.”
“So you’ve said. But seeing as Daya would skin you alive if you didn’t help Sades and you’re trying to get in good with my baby daddy, I’m confident in my leeway to expand the pain well beyond the arse region.” I smiled beatifically from my end of the phone.
“You mean the man who bolted when I got to your house?” Nav said with a sniff.
“Awwww. Want me to pass a note for you?”
On the other side of the phone, Laurent laughed.
“Shut it,” Nav muttered.
“Me or him?” I said.
“Yes.”
I smirked. “I’ll touch base when plans are firmed up more.”
“What am I supposed to do with the wolf breathing down my neck? Our pool game is clearly ruined. Take him off my hands,” he ordered imperiously.
“Good night, Nav. Night, Huff ’n’ Puff.” I hung up with a smile, which quickly disappeared upon realizing that I’d have to bring Eli and Sadie into this conversation. My desire to free the twins from the demon’s magic didn’t give me the right to unilaterally make a decision that painted a target on my daughter’s back.
I headed next door before I could chicken out and laid out the entire case for them. Surprisingly, they listened calmly.
Sadie, sitting on the floor, shook a bottle of blue polish. “I can’t just hide behind the wards. I have work and a life.”
“I know,” I said. “Ideally, Nav will assign people to tail you. They’re good and you wouldn’t even know they’re there. But if either of you are uncomfortable with this idea, we don’t proceed.”
“Then those women are stuck.” She uncapped the bottle and applied the first layer to her toes.
“Not necessarily. We could kill the demon instead of undoing his illusion first. It might take a bit longer to target him instead of removing the women to safety, but eventually, they’d be free.”
My daughter wiped polish off her little toe with a cotton ball. “Eventually could be years.”
“Or days,” Eli pointed out. He perched on the sofa doing biceps curls with a ten-pound weight. “My vote is the second plan.”
“No.” Dipping the applicator into the bottle, Sadie redid the blue on her small toe. “I don’t want them to wait. Between Nav and Dad protecting me, I feel okay about this. You can rescue them while the demon is being hunted down.”
“You should probably touch base with Naveen about this,” I said to Eli. “Purely professionally, of course.”
“We’ve been speaking,” Eli said.
“My mistake. I thought given the way you ran out of my kitchen like an embarrassed teenager that there was drama.”
Eli shot me the finger.
