by Amelia Jade
His mate laughed and leaned down to kiss him.
They hadn’t discussed that part of their relationship since the first time it had come up, but that was perfectly okay with Hector. He knew what Rachel was to him, and all he had to do now was wait until she came to that conclusion herself. After all, what was a few more weeks or a month, when he got to spend it all with her anyway?
Though he had to admit, he would be glad when things could go back to normal and everyone could move on from the fire. He was looking forward to that so very much.
Chapter Seventeen
Rachel
“You’re positive I look good?” she asked nervously.
“You look amazing,” Angela said at almost the same moment that Elle said she was beautiful.
“You two are the best friends anyone could ever ask for,” she said with a little smile. “Thanks for helping me out.”
“No problem!” they said together. “You look great. He’s going to be so surprised, and all the other shifters are going to be jealous as fuck.”
Rachel snorted. “Not what I’m going for, but I guess I’ll take it as a nice side effect.”
She looked at herself in the mirror once more. She was wearing a black top that hugged her skin tightly, made from some sort of Lycra-spandex cross. Whatever it was, it was comfortable as could be, and also stretchy enough to fit her large stomach. It had a low cut at the front to show off some rather impressive cleavage thanks to an amazing bra, and a big cutout in the back as well. She’d paired it with a white skirt that hugged her legs, coming to a halt well above her knees.
Rachel hadn’t been sure about the outfit, but her friends had reassured her she looked great in it, and the longer she’d had it on, the more comfortable in it she’d become. Now all she could think about was seeing Hector’s face when she showed up at the embassy to surprise him.
The idea had been kicking around in her head for several days now, but she’d needed some planning, including figuring out what time he finished work. She’d known when he got to her place regularly, but she wasn’t sure how long he took after finishing work before he actually got there. But she’d managed to do so without arousing any suspicion, much to her relief.
“Okay, time for me to go I suppose,” she said, glancing at her phone. “I don’t want to be late and risk missing him.”
“Nope, absolutely not.”
She looked at herself in the mirror, admiring the makeup that Elle had applied for her. It really accentuated her eyes and her cheeks. Even Rachel was impressed with the way her friend had made her look, without using a large amount of makeup either. But for someone who never wore it, the difference was stunning. Rachel hoped Hector felt the same when he saw her.
They called a cab and did last-minute touchups on her while she waited for it to arrive. Finally her phone buzzed and she headed for the door. This time she wasn’t going to walk outside the complex to wait for it. The cab was at the front door and she gave her friends a tentative wave before leaving.
***
The ride itself was uneventful. Her driver said very little, simply asking where to, and then carrying her there with little in the way of conversation. She paid the driver and emerged at the foot of the embassy under the watchful eye of a pair of guards.
That was one change that had been implemented since the fire. Hector had told her all about the increase in guards that Andrew had pressed into service. It robbed them of their vacations to an extent, but the safety of the embassy itself was paramount, and none of them seemed to complain much from what she had heard.
“Can we help you?” one of them asked as she approached, moving to block her path, his eyes trying hard not to look.
“I’d like to see the guard captain,” she said firmly, crossing her arms over her stomach, which also had the convenient side-effect of increasing her cleavage.
The guard’s face tightened as he was forced to redouble his efforts not to look. In the end he failed, but it was that failure that also seemed to spur him into giving in to her request. By retreating to go get whoever was in charge at the moment he could stop staring, leaving his partner to be the one who got in trouble.
Moments later a familiar face emerged from inside as Gray made his way over to her.
“Hello Gray,” she said with a smile.
“Hello…Rachel, isn’t it?” he asked politely.
“Correct.”
His face tried to smile, but it didn’t succeed. Rachel felt herself stiffen. Something was wrong.
“Is Hector here?” she asked quietly. “I’d like to see him if he’s available.”
Gray looked down first before looking back up at her, and she caught a look of something all too close to shame that he just managed to hide before meeting her gaze once more. “I’ll go see if he’s available,” he said. “You can come hang inside in the lobby if you want.”
Rachel followed him up the stairs and through the double doors into the interior of the embassy. Once there he left her at the front desk and then proceeded into the back. Looking around, she could tell that a lot of work was going into the place. The entire lobby was currently painted white, in what looked like a primer coat. All the marble-tiled floors had been removed and same with the tiles that had been installed on the walls too. The columns that supported the two-story roof way above her head were also white.
Repairs were coming along well it seemed, though she knew that there was likely a long way to go. She wanted to know if they were going to make it look like it had before, or if a new color scheme was going in. Perhaps Hector would know. Now that she’d seen it firsthand, she’d be better able to understand what he told her. The only other time she’d been here had been the very first night, so long ago, and her memory didn’t include what the place had looked like. Being in shock could do that to someone she’d found out later.
There wasn’t any work going on right now, and she couldn’t hear the sound of people working, so hopefully she’d arrived at the right time. But where had Hector been that Gray had to go and fetch him? Couldn’t he just show her to his room?
Moments later she heard the sound of booted feet on the wooden subfloor. From the back of the lobby and off to the right Hector emerged, walking toward the front. Rachel stood up and tugged on her outfit to ensure it was seated properly before waving at Hector. He approached, but she immediately sensed that something was wrong. His attention wasn’t on her. It was barely fixed on what was in front of him.
That, and the fact he was walking past her, toward the front door.
“Hector?” she asked, moving to his side.
He turned and looked at her. His eyes were dull, the shine of intellect that he always seemed to have within him gone, replaced by...nothing. A blank spot. He smiled, and as he looked her up and down some of the glow seemed to return.
“You look nice,” he said in a strange, detached voice and then headed outside, leaving her behind.
Rachel was astonished. Her first instinct was to be furious that he wasn’t giving her the proper attention that she warranted after all the effort she’d gone through to look the way she did. She’d shaved her upper legs for this, dammit, and he was going to admire her properly!
The Hector she knew would have been stunned into silence by her look, his eyes traveling up and down her in wordless admiration. But the person that had walked past her hadn’t been him. It had been like some ghostly facsimile that only looked like him. The real Hector wasn’t home.
She followed him outside.
“Hector,” she said a bit more firmly, using the word like a command.
He turned to look at her.
“What’s going on? Why are you ignoring me?”
He didn’t respond at first, his eyes focused somewhere else.
“Hector,” she repeated, her voice growing angry.
“It’s over,” he said, and she was stunned by the emotion in his voice.
Something she’d never, ever thought she would he
ar from him. Even after the fire had wrecked everything he’d been working toward, he hadn’t sounded like this. Defeated. That was the only way to describe his tone. Completely and utterly defeated.
“What’s over?” she asked.
“Everything.” He paused, then his eyes focused on her. “I’m being forcibly recalled.”
Rachel went still. “Recalled to where?” she asked, terrified that she already knew the answer.
“Cadia,” he said weakly. “They found out what’s going on, and now I’m being recalled.”
Her feet stood rooted to the ground for another handful of seconds while she thought things over, deciding on her course of action. Then, without another word to Hector, she spun on her heel and marched back inside.
“Rachel!” he called behind her. “Where are you going?”
“To get some answers,” she snarled, mostly to herself.
Gray saw her coming as she approached the desk, moving more to bypass it than anything.
“Where is Andrew’s office?” she snapped at him.
The shifter guard broke out into a grin, somehow immediately understanding what she was up to. “I can’t tell you,” he said at first.
She glared at him, but he just smiled wider.
“But I can tell you that down the right-hand hallway, second door on the left, is absolutely off-limits to you. You are not allowed to enter without proper permission.”
Rachel nodded her head and kept walking, barely having slowed to get the answer. Now her legs carried her as quickly as she could across the plywood floor and into the back corridors. She hung a right at the back of the lobby and then made a beeline for the second door.
She didn’t knock. The door flew open as she turned the handle and pushed with all her might. It made a loud bang as it slammed into the far side, opening fully.
“Andrew,” she said angrily as a tall man coated in muscle rose swiftly from behind the desk. He didn’t have the bulk of Hector or Gray, but something about him screamed power anyway, making Rachel very glad she wasn’t here to have a fistfight.
“Yes?” he asked calmly. “Who are you, and why are you in my office?”
She barely managed not to sneer. “My name is Rachel, and I’m…” she hesitated. “I’m with Hector,” she decided, not wanting to say something she wasn’t ready to.
“What can I do for you?”
“You cannot send Hector back to Cadia, for starters. You know he doesn’t deserve that, that he’s innocent.”
The other shifter regarded her for a long moment, deciding whether or not to answer she figured. But in the end he bobbed his head once.
“Point of fact, I know he’s not innocent,” Andrew said at last. “He’s admitted to leaving his post, and we have video evidence as well, if you don’t believe me. That’s a major offense.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand. The simple motion was so casually done that it just reeked of confidence. Andrew was used to being obeyed, and his body language said as much. Rachel fell silent.
“As for sending Hector back to Cloud Lake, you have my word that I’m going to delay that for as long as I can.”
“Delay it?” she snapped. “Why don’t you just not do it?!” Her voice was raised.
There was a commotion behind her and Hector appeared. “Rachel, come on. You can’t be here. You need to stop this.”
“You’re damn right I need to stop this!” she said, her voice near a roar. “You’ve been telling me all along that Andrew is a good guy. Well right now all I can see is an asshole. Why is he sending you back, Hector? You had a damn good reason to leave your post and you know it! It’s not like you wandered off to go drink or make food or something. You were helping someone else out. Isn’t that your job?!” she practically screamed, directing most of the fury at Andrew, and not Hector. “Why did he order you sent back?
Hector made to reply, but Andrew beat him to it.
“Second point of fact,” he said softly, “I’m not the one who is ordering him sent back.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hector
He and Rachel whirled to face Andrew at the same time.
“You’re not?” they asked together.
“No,” he replied, and there was ice in his words. “I have a report about the incident and punishment taken, but I haven’t filed it yet.” He looked at Rachel. “I was holding on to it to see how Hector does, and if he keeps his word to help repair all the damage that was caused. I have yet to file it to anyone.”
“Well, I can tell you that he’s dedicated to doing so,” Rachel said fiercely. “It’s almost all he ever talks about, besides how much he likes me.”
Andrew smiled. “That’s good to know, though I had few doubts. That’s why all the punishment was being handled here, at a local level, instead of reporting it back up the chain to my superiors and the whole bureaucracy. I didn’t think that would be necessary.”
Hector considered those words, somewhat surprised by the unspoken endorsement contained within them. He hadn’t known Andrew believed so strongly in him. A bit of chagrin filled him as he realized that he’d doubted the gryphon shifter when he shouldn’t have.
“Thank you for believing in me,” he said quietly.
Andrew simply inclined his head. “You’ve given me no reason to doubt you, Hector. If the fire hadn’t happened, we likely would never have been put in this predicament. It was simply something too noticeable for me to ignore. It was never personal.”
Hector nodded. “So how did this happen then?”
“My guess is that it worked up the chain,” Andrew replied. “Shifters go back, and we get a fresh batch. Eventually someone back there finds out and issues the recall order for you.”
Rachel spoke next. “Could it be that the family of the shifter who passed away is filing charges? Could that be the case? I feel like word of mouth from low-level shifters—no offense to any of them—wouldn’t really carry much in the way of weight. Wouldn’t they contact you first, before going ahead and doing this?”
Andrew considered the words. “I would think so, yes. This is…more formal, than I might have expected. It’s almost as if they possess a copy of my report. But Corvin had no family back home.” He looked unhappy. “I know, I had to look into it to see what anyone wanted to do, but there was no one.”
“Even if they did,” his boss continued, “it likely wouldn’t fly.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.
Hector jumped in. “In our world, death is not treated quite the same as with you humans. We understand that it’s the natural way of things. That we are born, we live, and then one day, we will die. It might be while we are young, or maybe we’ll be lucky enough to grow old. But our wild blood, our animal DNA, is much more in tune with the fact that death awaits us. I hesitate to say that we’re not as scared of it as you are, because that makes it sound like we’re all high and mighty comparatively, but it’s a fairly apt description.”
“I still don’t get it,” his mate said, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“What Hector is trying to say, is that there would be nothing to stick against him. Hector didn’t start the fire, and there was a certain onus upon Corvin to get his ass out of the fire. If he wasn’t all that drunk—”
“He wasn’t,” Hector interjected. “He’d had a bit to drink, but he was on his feet and moving on his own. There’s no way he shouldn’t have been able to escape.”
“Exactly,” Andrew said. “So it’s not Hector’s responsibility to baby Corvin, in our eyes. Even though he left his post and should be punished for that because of what happened, he couldn’t be held legally responsible for Corvin’s death.”
“Just morally,” Hector said softly, avoiding the looks of either of them.
Rachel’s hand reached out and found his, forcing her fingers between his when he didn’t respond right away, unwilling to let go of him.
“That’s been bugging me,�
� she said after a minute. “Ever since I heard about the fire.”
“What has?” he asked, looking at her.
Rachel hadn’t mentioned anything bugging her. Not to him at least.
“The fact that that shifter, Corvin, died. I mean, I know a little bit about you guys. Aren’t you pretty tough?”
Andrew shrugged. “Sure, but we’re still just as vulnerable as you humans. We have all the same weaknesses, they’re just smaller.”
“Yeah,” Rachel pressed. “But that’s what I’m saying. The fire started quickly, but going by Hector’s timeline, there were but a few minutes between when he saw Corvin and when he came back to see the embassy on fire. That shouldn’t have been long enough to kill someone. Especially a strong shifter, even if he was a little drunk. Shouldn’t he have been able to bulldoze his way through some walls, or the ceiling…or something?”
Hector shrugged. “Unless he started the fire, maybe? Perhaps he was drunker than I thought and passed out while making food or something, starting the fire. Then he wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“I guess,” Rachel said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “What did the autopsy have to say about cause of death?”
He blinked, then looked at Andrew.
“The what?” the two men said almost at the same time.
“The autopsy? You know, the examination done after someone dies, to determine the cause of their death?”
“We…don’t do those things,” Andrew said, speaking first. “You examine each dead person to see why they died? Isn’t it normally obvious?”
“Well, no,” Rachel said, looking back and forth between him and Andrew. “Are you guys serious?”
“Yes,” he replied. “The cause is usually well known. We…why would we examine their body?”
Rachel let go of his hand and pushed her fingers through her hair in frustration. “Oh, I don’t know. What if someone killed him and used the fire as a coverup?”
Hector’s jaw was hanging open. He knew it was, but there was nothing he could do about it. The suggestion she’d given was so…so...vulgar… that he couldn’t even contemplate it. “You’re saying someone might have murdered Corvin, but then tried to make it look like he died naturally?”
