Magical Midlife Battle （Leveling Up, #8）(92)

Sebastian’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out.

A text from Jessie: Nessa is MIA. Is she with you guys?

“Hold up.” Sebastian put up his hand. “We need to stop by the warehouse to see if Nessa’s there.

She’s gone from Jessie and Austin Steele’s house.”

“Now Tristan, how’s that? Ye stick yer nose in and see what happens?” Niamh asked. “It’s probably for the best anyway. We should check on Edgar. Lord only knows what he’s got up to.”

TWENTY-THREE

NESSA

TRISTAN CUT through the night like a predator, every movement of his large body graceful and sleek.

The shadows slid over his face, accentuating those glowing eyes as he walked up the pathway to the little bungalow he shared with Gerard from the Khaavalor cairn and Gerard’s lead enforcer. Kingsley had made the accommodations available, figuring a cairn leader should have more space than a hotel room, and Tristan was worthy to share it.

His shoe scuffed the concrete before he stepped onto the dark porch, looking up at the dead light.

Not broken, just a loose bulb. There’d be no signs of tampering—Nessa had made sure of it.

Only the moonlight reached him now, allowing Nessa to see the loose, hardly buttoned shirt and trousers with the belt undone and fly open. It wasn’t like him to be so messy in his appearance. Then again, he was clearly home for the night after visiting those bars and taking down those mages.

Probably interrogating them as well. Why not? He’d shown he was incredibly competent in getting information. They wouldn’t need Nessa so long as Tristan was on the scene.

Frustration and fear ate away at her. She didn’t know what she’d do if she became irrelevant.

There was no family to cushion her fall. No friends to share in her misery. If they took her purpose and Sebastian, she’d have nobody. Nothing.

At the front door, he hesitated a moment before reaching for the doorknob.

She was action.

She launched from her hiding place in the rafters at the corner of the porch, tossing a rope around his neck as she did so. That dark rope had been looped inconspicuously around a rafter board and tied to her belt. It pulled tight as she landed on top of him, jerking him backward. He staggered, immediately starting to grapple instead of reaching for his neck. She’d figured he would react that way.

She slipped a loop of a parachute cord with an arbor knot around his reaching hand, sliding it down to his wrist and pulling tightly, first one hand and then the other. It connected to a series of pulleys above, adding much-needed strength to this rig. She hadn’t dealt with someone this large and strong before, but she was a master engineer when it came to this stuff. The adjustments hadn’t taken but a little thought.

As he grabbed at her waist, she yanked the ending of the parachute cord with all she had.

The pulleys whined. The taut cord nearly dragged her body from his, but she wrapped her legs

around his torso and held on. She had to land on top of him or he’d have the scant few seconds he needed to weasel his way out.

His wrists jerked over his head. One of his shoulders popped as he continued to fall backward, the rope around his neck constricting, swinging his body to the right.

She unhooked her belt and the rope fell away, dropping him nearly toward the destination she’d chosen for him. He fell like a ton of bricks, his wrists held aloft but pulling dangerously at her setup.

The knots continued to constrict, though, cutting off his circulation and causing pain.

Not like that would help with someone like him, but every bit counted.

She rode him to the ground like a spider monkey, his size helping her hang on and balance—she had a lot of real estate with which to work. At the last moment she pulled her legs up from around him; the right one banged painfully against the wood of the porch and the other kneed him in the stomach, safe from what he’d fallen on.

The knife was released from the center of her bra in a flash, her shirt loose and low cut to accommodate the weapon. The point waited at his eyeball by the time he settled to the ground.

From beginning to end, the whole situation had taken less than thirty seconds. Now he lay there, struggling to breathe through the rope still around his neck.

“Hello, Natasha,” he said with a grunt, his eyes rooted to hers. “What did I fall on?”

“Nails. I hammered them up through the boards.”

“Very clever. They hurt.”

“Good.” She pressed the blade into the skin right below his eye. “You can heal the holes from those nails, but you won’t be able to grow another eye, so it would be best if you cooperated, don’t you think?”

“It seems so, yes. The others are still looking for you. They’re worried about you.”

“Not you, though.”

His eyes traced her face slowly, like glowing embers in the deep night. “I wasn’t worried about you, no,” he said softly. “I knew you’d find me. Nice setup you’ve got here. I feel honored you went through the trouble. Do you travel with pulleys and parachute cord?”

“Parachute cord, yes. You never know when you’ll need it.”

“Very true. And the pulleys?”

“Hardware store at the edge of town. They have all kinds of neat stuff in that store. There might be a large BDSM undercurrent here, considering how many options they have in stock.”