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her stars she was out of his car and safe in her apartment?
    Brenin had moved to the front seat and now played some game on his phone. Something about candy.
    Rhys cast him a sidelong glance. “Really, dude? You, and like, all the middle school kids in the country play that.”
    “It sucks you in. You should try it.” Brenin’s thumbs flew over the screen.
    “No, thank you,” Rhys muttered.
    Brenin pocketed his phone. “So while you and your hottie were chatting up he—”
    “She’s not my hottie.” Though damn. She’d bitten her lip when the stupid bulb had flickered, and now her mouth was front and center in his mind.
    Brenin snorted. “Yeah. Okay. So while you two were getting to know each other better , I scanned her.”
    “And?”
    “And got the same shit you did. Flashing from Deserati to human. I’ve seen that a lot. And every time, the creature was a halfling. Half human, half whatever the screen said.”
    “I’ve seen it too. Not what I expected tonight though.” Rhys’s hands tightened on the wheel. Though anything he may have expected had disappeared when Enza first pinned those frightened brown eyes on him. “I don’t think she has any clue.”
    “Then why was she running for the portal?”
    “Says she didn’t know what it was, thought it was a mirage. Just air.”
    Brenin paused a beat. “You believe her?”
    “Yeah. I do.” Indignation flared, sharp and out of nowhere. “You didn’t hang out with her back at The Arboretum. She was scared, almost cried, and passed out. A Deserati female would have told me to fuck off or started a fight.”
    “She coulda been faking.”
    “She doesn’t have horns. I checked when she was unconscious.”
    Brenin smirked. “You check for a tail too?”
    “No, asshole.” Rhys glared at the street ahead, where gleaming high rises sprung up from the concrete.
    Brenin chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, sorry I asked. I wouldn’t either. Got enough nymphs offering up the goods. Don’t need to take when it’s coming right to us.”
    Watchers had groupies—a fact of life that went with the job of being a protector. And nymphs were happy to fuck almost anything. But suddenly the thought of other women seemed totally unappealing.
    “I wondered if she was faking the whole thing at first,” Rhys said. “But she doesn’t have the physique of a fighter.” And with every word and action, she had systematically eliminated each brick in the foundation of that theory.
    He guided the car into the underground garage of their house. It was a big dark brownstone, three stories high, and set back from the street. An iron fence kept people away from the windows. They owned the house next door too, though all that paperwork was buried in layer upon layer of trusts and lawyers and holding companies. And both buildings were magically protected to high security levels. Unlike Enza’s, where anyone could walk up to the front door and slip in when someone entered or left. “She needs wards on that crappy building of hers,” Rhys muttered.
    In his peripheral vision, he saw Brenin turn to him. “Not sure why, unless you think she’s hiding something.”
    Damn it, he didn’t think she was hiding anything. But he couldn’t shake the tantalizing mystery of her, and the potential of how much she didn’t know. “Basic wards are easy to set up and can’t hurt. I’ll talk to Rilan.”
    Rilan was also a Lash demon, but not a fighter. He was an Elder, a member of their race who was older and more learned in magic than the warriors. None of them knew exactly how old he was. Rhys’s guess was in the thousands, though Rilan didn’t look older than forty.
    Rhys parked the car and he and Brenin headed into the basement of their home. One level below this, a tunnel—that the city didn’t know about—connected the two buildings. Not only did they need space, but they also needed room for training, and for guests visiting from Torth.
    Their previous home had included a firing