Page 72 of Protector Unmatched

“I was very thorough.”

He knew he could trust Enya.

“Could he describe him?” Hamish interjected.

“Big guy, brown eyes, facial hair. Nothing concrete.” Enya shrugged.

“Big guy with facial hair sounds right,” Pearce said. “But his eyes were demon-green when we encountered him. Why would he take his lenses out while he was still in the human world? It makes no sense.”

“Odd,” Aiden said. “The other three demons wore no colored lenses either. Guess they didn’t expect to encounter anybody.”

Hamish hummed to himself. “Possible.”

Pearce asked Enya, “And Vasili gave him the same information we got? That the dagger was in the safe?”

Enya nodded. “Vasili said so. There were other things, too, some old Nazi knife and an Egyptian artifact, but his client was only interested in the dagger. He said Tim and Kevin were supposed to steal everything in the safe.”

Pearce remembered something. “And Grayson? Did he speak to Tim? Can Tim confirm that?”

“Grayson is still at the safe house, but he called in. Tim was told there would be several valuable artifacts inside the safe. And to steal them all. When Grayson grilled him further, he admitted that his friend Kevin had actually seen the items once, when he’d done some carpentry work in the study, and the owner had taken the items out and photographed them. That’s how Vasili got wind of them in the first place. Kevin mentioned it to Tim, and Tim said he knew somebody who could hawk items like that.” She shrugged.

“And the owner put the items back in the safe?”

Enya nodded again. “That’s also when Kevin peeked at the combination and wrote down what he thought the code for the safe was. And permutations thereof.”

“Do we know when that happened? I mean, when the dagger was still in the safe?”

Enya pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “Let me find out from Grayson.” She dialed a number and put her cell phone to her ear, while she stepped away from the group.

Manus asked, “Did you manage to kill any of the demons at the mansion?”

Pearce pointed to Aiden. “Aiden hit one in the chest. But he was just an underling. Zoltan got away.”

“As usual,” Hamish added. “That guy has all the luck in the world. We’ve been so close so many times, and he keeps slipping through our fingers.”

Manus nodded, a grim expression on his face. “Just like when he came for the book…”

Though Pearce hadn’t been with his brethren when they’d fought Zoltan and ripped Manus’s mate from the demon’s claws, he knew that having snatched a page from an important book gave Zoltan all the information he needed about the source dagger.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, Manus,” Pearce said. “It wasn’t your fault. Thanks to Kim, at least that’s all Zoltan got. It could have been worse. He could have gotten the entire book.”

Manus grunted.

Enya joined them again. “Grayson says that Kevin saw the dagger about a week ago. It was definitely in the safe then.”

Pearce nodded. “Then we have to find out what happened between then and now. Where did the dagger go?”

Enya yawned. “I doubt we’re gonna figure anything out right this minute. Guys, it’s late. How about we get a few hours of shuteye and then get to work when our minds are fresh?”

Pearce hated the idea of delaying the search. “But the demons—”

“Enya is right,” Logan said. “The demons don’t know any more than we do, or they wouldn’t have blown open the safe. They’re not gonna figure it out any faster than we will. Let’s get four hours of sleep, and then we’ll regroup. Agreed?”

Slowly, everybody nodded, and Pearce had to admit that he, too, was beat and needed to rest. It was no use to rack his brain right now when he wasn’t at his sharpest. In a few hours, he’d be refreshed and come up with a way of finding the dagger.

“All right, then,” Pearce said.

Everybody dispersed. On the way out, he sidled up to Enya. “Is Daphne in my—”

“Yeah, she’s sleeping in your quarters.”

“Thanks.”

He walked to his private rooms and passed through the wall that led directly into his bathroom, not wanting to make too much noise. He shucked his clothes right there, stepped under the spray of the shower for a couple of minutes just to rinse the dust of the explosion off his skin and hair, and dried off quickly. Then he walked through the closed bathroom door into his bedroom.

Daphne was asleep. Naked, Pearce slipped under the covers and molded his body to hers, putting one arm around her.

She stirred. “Pearce?” she asked in a sleepy voice. “What happened?”

He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” He rested his head next to hers and closed his eyes. “Sleep now.”