Free INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) by Mary Buckham Page A

use her big guns. Let her try.
    I wasn’t the scared little witch that I had been when I’d first come to the Agency. I still wasn’t proficient with my spells and skills, but I was a damn site better than I had been. Her returning me to prison wasn’t the same threat it had been when I first arrived at the Agency. Now if I was sent back it’d cost me time in finding my brother that I couldn’t afford. So I’d do what I had to do to stay in Paris. I’d miss the team if I was booted, but Ling Mai had better know I was not the same witch/shaman she’d hired on only weeks ago.
    I looked around the room, not seeing the agency director right away until she walked from a side room to the main room, her footsteps silent as she crossed the patterned silver rug. She was shorter than I was but it took only about two seconds to realize that size didn’t matter around her. She was in charge and everyone knew it.
    “Would you like a seat Ms. Noziak?” It wasn’t really a question as she gestured toward the nearest chair. Good grief the room was big enough to contain half a dozen chairs and not look crowded.
    I shook my head. Best to face the firing squad standing upright.
    Ling Mai eyed me, watching me from those calm, impenetrable eyes. Ever since first meeting her I felt she was nonhuman, but the silver ring I wore to identify preternaturals never heated around her. On the other hand, the rings all of the team had worn this morning hadn’t worked either, so I’d go with my gut and walk wary around the director. No telling what she could morph into to lop my head off.
    She said nothing as she took one of the two chairs facing one another across a coffee table that mirrored the afternoon light off its pristine white surface. I waited, expecting the worst.
    Immediate transportation back to the Women’s Correctional facility in Pocatello, Idaho? A strong possibility. Or, now that Ling Mai was aware that I possessed a wildcard magical ability, for I was sure Stone had told her what had happened earlier, there could be other fallout. The Council of Seven didn’t have a holding cell for nonhumans deemed too dangerous to let them remain amongst the human population . They simply killed the offender for the greater good. Could Ling Mai do the same?
    Damn, I should have read the fine print on my one-year contract with the agency, but I was jumping so fast at the chance of leaving prison that I would have signed away my soul. Maybe I had.
    “You abandoned your team, Miss Noziak.” she paused, then continued, digging my grave deeper. “Plus you ignored a directive from your senior instructor to remain away from the warlock.” Her tone dared me to justify or refute.
    There was no need. She was in the right. But she wasn’t finished either.
    “You are undisciplined and put others at risk.” I could hear the coffin nails pounding. “You have great talent and abilities and yet you choose to squander them.”
    Wasn’t I the one who saved the others this morning?
    “Leaving your team behind was dangerous for you and your team, even if such behavior from you is not unexpected.”
    Which must be why she knew exactly where to find me. Leave it to her to be three steps ahead of me when I’d only made the decision as a way to salvage the morning’s disaster.
    “Unfortunately we still need your help.” She was throwing me off kilter. No “You’re off the team as of now”. Leave it to her to take the knots inside my stomach and tighten them.
    But her words made no sense. I worked for the woman, wasn’t I already helping the agency? If that’s what she meant by “we”.
    I raised my brows and waited. My family would have been in shock as I tended to be the most jump-first-and-learn-how-to-swim-later one of the bunch. But I was learning.
    However Ling Mai was a pro and I was just a newbie in the patience game.
    After a moment that I swore lasted several hours I shrugged my shoulders, released a deep sigh, and scooted to the