Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews Read Free Book Online

absent—deposited my trace evidence into our office vault, and drove home. I climbed the stairs, which turned out to be web-free and singed with dark soot from the PAD flamethrowers, and stopped by the Haffeys’ apartment. Nobody answered my knocking. Hopefully Mr. Haffey had made it through.
    I walked to my apartment, got inside, and leaned against the door, afraid that the world outside would somehow bust in and get me.
    My place was dark and empty. It served as my little haven, especially in the three weeks I had holed up here, trying to come to terms with being thrown out of the Order. It was my safe little prison cell, just me, myself, and I. Well, and Grendel, but the poodle, as good of a listener as he was, couldn’t really hold up his end of the conversation.
    My place didn’t seem safe now. It felt stifling and barren.
    No Raphael. I remembered what it felt like to wake up in the morning and find him holding me. If I closed my eyes, I could hear his laugh. He made me so happy, but more importantly, I made him happy. Whatever my shortcomings were, I knew that I could make his day. I never realized how much joy it brought me. I didn’t have to even do anything. I just had to snuggle up next to him on the couch, while he peered at his business reports, and his face would light up.
    And now he was gone.
    This sucked. This sucked so, so much.
    “This sucks,” I said, my voice alarmingly loud in the silentroom. I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to pick up the phone and call him and tell him how I felt. I should’ve done it weeks ago, but lifting that phone felt like trying to pick up Stone Mountain.
    Our happily ever after ended in one fight and both of us were to blame for it. Back when Erra was rampaging through Atlanta, Kate and I had barely survived a huge fight with one of her creations at the Order. The Order’s office was half burned, half flooded, every window shattered, the walls still smoking. That’s when an emergency call came in from Clan Wolf. They were under attack by Erra too and they were dying. Kate and I wanted to help. Ted, the resident knight-defender, ordered us to stand down. He needed us at the Order.
    Kate ripped off her Order ID and walked out. I didn’t. I was a knight. I had sworn an oath and I didn’t get to pick which orders I obeyed.
    Raphael took it personally. In his mind I had rejected the shapeshifters, the Pack, and therefore I had rejected him. He was the prince of Atlanta’s boudas, the favorite son, loved, admired, and supported on every turn. To him being a shapeshifter was the most natural thing in the world.
    To me being a shapeshifter meant being hurt, degraded, and living in fear. Every bone in my body had been broken by shapeshifters before I was ten years old. I’ve been stabbed, punched, kicked, whipped, and set on fire. I’ve watched my mother being beaten to a bloody pulp repeatedly and with vicious glee. I had rejected that life and chosen the Order instead. The knights were my pack and Ted was my alpha.
    Raphael knew all this, or most of it. I had told him about my childhood. But to him all that abuse had been inflicted on me by “bad” shapeshifters. The Atlanta Pack consisted of “good” shapeshifters, with laws, discipline, and safety. He thought they deserved my loyalty above everyone else simply because all of us turned furry. He had expected me to walk away from everything I’d worked so hard for and be his bouda princess. We had an ugly fight and went our separate ways. Neither of us said we were through. We just stopped talking.
    I meant to call him. I had planned to do it after we finally took Erra down, but in that last fight I was injured. My shapeshifter status came out, and the Order cordially requested mypresence at its headquarters. It wasn’t the kind of invitation one declined. So I went to stand trial. I thought it was my chance to change the Order for the better. There were other people in the ranks like me, closet shapeshifters,