The Wicked (Elder Races #5.5)(6)

Phaedra pushed away from the wall. She looked bored again. She said in a curt voice to Sebastian, “I will see you in San Francisco after your flight.”

Sebastian’s hard face turned to the Djinn. “No, you won’t. You will travel on the plane along with every other member of this crew.”

Phaedra’s expression turned edgy and unpredictable. “That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s the rule,” said Sebastian. “You travel with us and attend the meeting, or you’re off the team. In fact, you do everything I say, or you’re off the team.”

The Djinn’s expression turned deadly. “Don’t push me, Wyr.”

“Or you’ll do what?” asked Sebastian, his voice flat. He tilted his head.

He looked unimpressed. Unafraid.

Which meant he believed he could face down a Djinn and win the confrontation.

Olivia was reluctantly impressed.

She also knew that Phaedra had already given her word to her father that she would see this assignment through successfully to its conclusion, so she was not quite as taken in by the scene as everyone else in the room.

She walked around the end of the table, collected her luggage and said to Phaedra, “Quit making an ass of yourself if you possibly can.”

Then without waiting around for any more drama, she walked to the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.

One by one, other people joined her at the elevators. Olivia kept her head down and eyes to the floor. When the elevator doors opened, people filed in with their luggage. They rode down to the ground floor in silence.

Outside the main entrance, two black Cadillac Escalades idled at the curb. With a minimum of conversation, the group loaded into the vehicles. Olivia managed to score the front passenger seat of one Escalade. Thankfully neither Sebastian nor Phaedra joined the group in her SUV. During the trip to the airport, she listened to the others’ desultory conversation from the back seat, but she didn’t join in.

The driver took them to a smaller, more business-oriented airport than Miami International Airport, where Olivia had originally flown in. They met up with the group from the other Escalade, and in short order a uniformed flight crew took their luggage out to a corporate-sized Boeing parked on the tarmac. Soon after, the group filed into the sunshine to board the plane.

Sebastian went first. Olivia watched him run up the airstairs. It was such a simple, ordinary feat, running up stairs. But his body in movement was mesmerizing, full of grace and power, and so effortless he seemed to float. When he stopped in the doorway of the plane, she could hardly believe what she had seen. Watching him for those few seconds had taken her breath away.

He remained by the door, turning to watch the others as they boarded. When it came to her turn, she ducked her head as she climbed toward him and pretended she was invisible.

“You,” he said when she reached the top.

Resigned, she lifted her head. She had been right about his height. He stood just a few inches taller than she did. His compact body was proportioned remarkably well, his shoulders not too wide, and his lean legs not too long. Exposed by the short sleeves of his gray T-shirt, his arms were cut with lean muscle.

Combined with his lack of expression, those sunglasses of his were truly unnerving. Up close, she felt the force of his presence as a palpable thing. As he turned his head to glance down the stairs at the others, she also saw that he was not as young as she had first thought. Lines bracketed his hard mouth and fanned out from the corners of his eyes. She couldn’t tell if the white that flecked his sable brown hair so strikingly was from age, or if it was a characteristic of his kind of Wyr.

Groping for some measure of composure, she reminded him, “My name is Olivia Sutton.”

“I know who you are,” said Sebastian. He did not make that sound like a good thing. “Take one of the seats at the first table. You will sit with me.”

Her entire body pulsed in reaction. Surprise, and something else, something quite out of the ordinary. All she knew was that her response was completely involuntary, and by the small tilt of his head, she realized he had sensed it. Damn those ultra-sensitive Wyr senses.

All the while, his expression remained as revealing as a stone wall.

She refused to feel as if she were back in grade school and summoned to the principal’s office. With as much composure as she could muster, she said, “Certainly, if you wish it.”

Without another word, he turned to the next person in line, and she knew that, at least for the moment, she had been dismissed.

Sebastian knew exactly when things had gotten interesting, and it hadn’t been when he had accepted the contract for the job that Carling had offered and decided to head the team himself.

In fact, Bailey, his vice president and the second in command of his security company, had questioned that very decision at their home office in Jamaica.

“You’re not cleared for work,” she said, leaning her tall frame against the doorway of his office. Her sleek, Light Fae build was corded with muscle, and she kept her curling blonde hair cut short in a careless, charming tousle. “In fact, you’re getting worse, not better. Why did you take this job?”

“There’s no major, life-altering reason,” he said without turning away from his desk. The morning had already turned sultry, and a ceiling fan pushed the hot air around the room. He had already discarded his shirt and wore cutoff jeans. He had promised himself a long, cool swim as soon as he had finished some necessary paperwork. “Carling is an old friend, and we bartered an exchange of services, that’s all. And there’s no point in me remaining holed up in this office, sitting on my ass while I wait for our research teams to bring me news of something that may or may not be of use to me. This way I can spend a few weeks keeping busy, while the time slippage will give them a few months to try to find answers.”