Zayne obviously didn’t comprehend that being my bonded Protector wasn’t code for leaving me—his Trueborn—behind while he went off to track down demons. Granted, our bond was new, so I was going to give Zayne this one get-out-of-jail-free card, but still.

I was not a happy camper.

A horn blew in the street and someone shouted. I plopped down on a bench, letting out an aggravated sigh as I looked around. Because my vision was so damn blurry, it was hard for me to tell if the people walking past me were ordinary humans or the dead.

Ghosts and spirits—and there was a world of difference between the two—often not only sensed me but knew that I could see and communicate with them before I even realized they were there. Since no one was bothering me, I was guessing those around me belonged to Team Alive and Breathing.

I kicked one leg over the other and jabbed an elbow into my knee and jammed my chin into my palm. Over the scent of exhaust, I smelled cooking meat, making me hungry even though Zayne and I had grabbed a bite to eat only an hour or so ago. The ever-present warm tingle at the nape of my neck told me there were demons nearby, probably low level ones like Fiends, so I wasn’t going to do anything about them as long as they weren’t actively harming humans.

I wasn’t familiar with the city, and with my poor vision, roaming around wouldn’t be the brightest of ideas, but sitting here like a dog given an order kicked my irritation into overdrive.

The chance of me throat punching Zayne when he reappeared was currently somewhere between 60 and 70 percent. Although that was probably far smarter than what I normally wanted to do when I saw Zayne.

I focused on the little ball of pulsing warmth in the center of my chest. I’d never felt it with Misha, but since there were no other Trueborns for me to compare notes with, the lack of sensation hadn’t been a red flag.

But it wasn’t like others hadn’t started to guess that something wasn’t right between Misha and I. Thierry, the duke who oversaw the Wardens in the Potomac Highlands region, and his husband, Matthew, had begun to suspect that there’d been a mistake once Zayne had arrived. If I was being honest with myself, I’d known something was up. From the moment I’d laid eyes on Zayne, there’d been something there. Right now, I could feel that little ball of warmth, but I couldn’t sense emotion through it like I had yesterday, when I’d felt his frustration as if it were my own. Maybe distance had something to do with that.

We needed to explore all of that.