It wasn’t a soft kiss, but it was sweet and long. My lips parted, and I tasted chocolate on his tongue, which made me start to grin as his arm circled my waist. He drew me against him. Out of instinct, I looped my arms around his neck. When he moved his mouth to the side, he kissed the corner of my lip.

I was a little breathless when he settled me back on my feet.

“You looked like you could use the distraction.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

He slid his hand up through the mass of my curls. “I’m not in your head, sweetness, but I know what you were seeing when you were staring at the floor.”

I closed my eyes as I rested my forehead against his chest.

“It’s the same damn thing I saw when I first walked in here and every time since then, but it’s not the doc I see on the floor.” He lowered his head as I dropped my hands to his waist. I knew he was talking about me. “I keep telling myself it’ll get easier.”

“Has it?”

“Not really.”

“That’s motivational,” I murmured.

Ren drew back, and I lifted my gaze to his. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Nothing really. Went to get beignets, but . . .” The truth rose to the tip of my tongue. Tell him, ordered Good Ivy. Keep your mouth shut, ordered the voice that sounded strangely like Tink.

“What?”

I lowered my gaze. “The place was packed.”

Tink would be so happy.

“And that stopped you?” he asked.

A door opened and a heavy, irritated-sounding sigh forced us apart. I turned around. I was kind of relieved to see Miles Daily, the de facto second-in-command. The reason I was “kind of” relieved to see him was because I was pretty sure Miles didn’t like me and also had thought I was the traitor.

Miles raised his dark eyebrows as he glanced between us. “Am I interrupting?”

“You going to get pissed if I say yes?” Ren said.

I bit down on my lip to hide my grin.

Miles rolled his eyes and turned back to the room he’d just been in, which was probably the most emotion I’d ever seen from him. I could never get a read on the guy. He was worse than David when it came to figuring out how he felt and what he was thinking.

There were daggers and files on the oval desk inside the room. One of them had Denver, Colorado, written on the tab. Huh. That was where Ren was from. Was someone that he knew coming down? That could be interesting.

TV monitors lined one side of the room. Obviously Ren had been in here with Miles. I stared at the files. “What were you guys doing?”

“Looking over prospects.” Ren slid his hand down my back before stepping away and heading back into the office. “Well, that’s what Miles was doing. I was just being annoying.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Miles muttered. He stopped in front of the monitors. There were more out in the main room. The Order had cameras randomly placed throughout the Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods.

As far as I knew, there were none near Jackson Park, thank God.

“Ready to get back to work?” Miles’s expression was inscrutable as he watched the monitors.

Ren faced me.

I ignored his look. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Ren squinted.

I also ignored that.

“Sounds good. We need every able-bodied person out there.” Miles turned back to the table. “The fae may be lying low right now, but we know it’s not going to stay that way. It’s only a matter of time. We need to be ready.”

This was the perfect time for me to mention the whole prince thing, but the words wouldn’t even form on my tongue. I glanced at the wall of monitors and started to look away when one of the images snagged my attention. My eyes narrowing, I turned fully to the monitor on the left, on the last row. It was a house—an old antebellum, which wasn’t odd since there were a lot of homes like that, but I recognized this one.

“You’re watching Val’s parents’ house?” I asked.

“Yep.” Miles picked up a folder and opened it. “Have been for the last week.”

Shit. That meant going to Val’s house was off the table. She wasn’t dumb, though. She’d be nowhere near that place. I still planned on checking out Twin Cups, a bar a few streets off the Quarter that was actually a hidden bar within a bar. Val like to go there to relax and chill after work. The likelihood that she’d be there was slim, but it was a start.

I looked over at Ren. His gaze was trained on me. A lazy half-smile was on his face, and I was thinking, based on that expression, that he wasn’t too mad about me being out on the streets. The problem with that was he was going to be hard to shake while I went looking for Val and her parents.

Knowing that the Order was probably still questioning them, there could only be a few places where they’d be kept. Definitely not here. I glanced at the wall again. Two of the TVs were off. Both would’ve linked to two different facilities the Order had. One was over in the warehouse district. The other was an old mansion, most likely haunted, out near the bayou. Those damn monitors would tell me where they were without me having to waste my time or get caught sneaking around. What I was going to do once I figured out where they were was still up in the air.

I was kind of winging things right about now.

I placed my hands on the back of a chair. “How are things going with Val’s parents?”

“Her parents are no longer a concern,” Miles tossed the file onto the desk.

The breath I took got stuck. “What does that mean?”