Shadowmated, p.10
Shadowmated, page 10
But then the tracking dot drifted sideways. Not in the direction it would have if it was inside Gabi’s apartment but rather the other way.
Julius might be moving a body, but I refused to believe that. No, it was a good sign Maya was being taken away from the apartment building. We needed to get the door to the hallway open and follow her. But first—
“There’s something,” I told Orion, “that we need to discuss.”
In the dim glow of the cell-phone light, I could see him tensing. He started to sidle away from me, even though there was no space to sidle on the elevator ledge.
Did he really think I was going to take him to task for his arm against my skin preventing me from getting tangled up in the elevator? When his sister was in danger?
I grabbed onto his wrist, suddenly terrified he’d give me too much space and fall into the vast emptiness yawning behind us. Then I returned to the topic at hand. “That was an ambush in Gabi’s apartment which means Julius knew we were coming. So who tipped him off?”
One beat, then Orion assured me: “No one in my pack.”
Which left the pack I’d recently been a part of. But despite breaking that connection, I spoke with certainty when I said: “Vega wouldn’t do that.”
Which left—“Finnegan,” I noted just as Orion said, “Hailey.”
“Hailey?” I couldn’t wrap my head around Orion’s accusation. But…maybe I could. The young woman I’d shared a house with was definitely part of Vega’s clan, but she didn’t seem to be related to anyone else there. Which meant she’d been taken in from outside—a plant inserted by the Council?
Plus, in the desert last night, Hailey had asked a question of the outpack that had been so vague the answer opened up more uncertainties than it closed. Her apology had smelled truthful. Still…
I didn’t want to accept the idea that the person who was starting to become my friend had betrayed us. But I needed to yank on that thread for Maya’s sake.
So I handed Orion’s phone back to him and pulled out my own. Vega, as my ex-alpha, was still top of my speed dial. The top of Orion’s, I noted while waiting for my call to connect, was the man I now knew was his half-brother—Donovan.
After that, our conversations intermingled like the air we breathed, pressing close together there on the dark ledge. “It’s me,” we both said, gazes colliding without meaning to. Orion half-smiled and my cheeks heated. He was the one who angled his neck away to give me space our bodies couldn’t actually take.
His voice was firm, though, as he ordered: “I need you to find out if Finnegan had access to any phones or computers since arriving.”
I kept my request briefer: “Do you trust Hailey?”
“Is she causing problems?” Vega sounded like my aunt again, which I guess is all she could be now that I’d broken our pack bond. “I knew she wouldn’t understand why I traded her. But perhaps you can help her make sense of it. The choice wasn’t a rejection of her role as my heir. It’s part of her training, proof of my confidence. Still, you can send her back if she’s a detriment.”
That hadn’t been what I was asking, but it answered my question anyway. Vega considered Hailey to be her heir, which meant she trusted the younger woman implicitly. She thought Hailey was in a snit, not that she was calling up the Council and relaying information behind our backs.
Still, I had to be sure. “How long has Hailey been part of your clan?”
“Five years? Six?”
Hailey would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time then. A child. Surely even the Council couldn’t expect to install a sleeper agent at such a young age and keep her at their beck and call indefinitely.
So—“Hailey’s not a problem,” I reassured my aunt. “She’s an asset.”
Then I placed another call and begged that asset to get Celeste out of the building now. No, I hadn’t forgotten my sister or the danger she was in. I just had to be sure the help I sent her didn’t make matters worse.
Orion ended his conversation at the same moment. Then he reopened the tracking app, which told us Maya remained within the building. Likely being loaded into a car or van for transport.
I was the one who stated the obvious. “We need to get out of this elevator shaft.”
“Brute force won’t open the doors,” Orion rumbled.
Since he’d already tried while in a fit of protective rage, I didn’t argue that my additional strength might help matters. Instead, I admitted. “I’m out of ideas.”
“I’m not,” Orion countered. “As long as you don’t mind losing more ink.”
Chapter 16
One of the pieces of cactus-scented clothing Orion had passed to me contained that handful of electrified sand in its pocket. And that was all we needed to call the desert magic toward us. Or so it seemed when Orion decanted bits of desert into his hand and electricity promptly raised hairs along both of my arms.
But he didn’t do anything else immediately. Instead, I was given time to shift my weight from foot to foot while imagining Julius searching Maya more thoroughly and finding the tracking bead. She wouldn’t have hidden it, just slipped it into a pocket. Why were we waiting when we couldn’t afford delay?
At long last, Orion caught my gaze and rumbled out words that seemed to have been building inside him ever since he’d turned lupine atop the elevator. “You’ve been having difficulties since breaking your pack bond.”
“Not so many difficulties I can’t do this job.” It was hard to remember the emptiness, actually, with his naked body pressed shoulder-to-shoulder up against my single layer of clothing.
Orion nodded as if he’d heard my thoughts as well as my words. “Still, you said friendship made it possible for you to be a lone wolf before. I’d like to offer you friendship now. No strings attached. No need to make further commitments until we’re both ready. Agreed?”
As he spoke, he extended a palm full of sand, and something settled inside me. Friendship wasn’t as exciting as when that same arm had slung itself around my waist and pressed our torsos so close together I could feel his breathing. But friendship was solid. It was dependable. It was…exactly what I needed right now.
So I placed my hand in his, grit grinding between us. And maybe it was friendship that made it so easy to act on instinct.
Two sandy hands struck the metal doors in tandem. Sparks flared brighter than previously while pain seared through my forearm. We were definitely losing ink, a lot of it by the feel of things.
But the electricity did its job. The doors opened onto a normally lit hallway that was so bright after the elevator shaft that I had to blink liquid out of my eyes. That was the only reason for teariness, I told myself, even as I forced the blur aside to peer down at my forearm. Still, I found myself desperate to determine how much of our frozen matebrand we’d used up.
Not as much as I’d feared. There were still swirls of magical markings on each of us. Mirrored lines that would have met and joined if we stood just a little closer together. Opening the elevator door hadn’t taken nearly as much of our silenced matebrand as we’d lost during Chief Bellwether’s ritual.
Which meant I could still think straight. Could remember who was in real and present danger—Maya, not Orion or me.
Orion must have had the same thought because he turned his cell phone face up to consider the tracking app, punching the door closed button at the same time so no one would accidentally tumble down into the darkness. The mechanism obeyed him. The tracking app, on the other hand, was immediately obscured by an incoming call.
“Donovan,” Orion rumbled, keeping the phone away from his ear so he could swipe back over to the tracking app after answering. Maya’s dot continued to sit in one place. What were they doing down there in the parking garage?
“Bad news,” Donovan answered, sounding grimmer than I’d ever heard him. “Finnegan’s ereader wasn’t just an ereader. When we ripped it apart, the guts included what appears to be a cell-phone transmitter.”
I winced. I really was off my game to have missed something so obvious. Especially when my gut had warned that Finnegan couldn’t be trusted.
“Not such bad news,” Orion countered, and the way his gaze met mine absolved me of any wrongdoing. “At least we know who was responsible for passing along information.”
“We know, but we don’t have him,” Donovan countered. “While we were going through his possessions, Finnegan slipped through our fingers. He’s gone.”
After that, it took us longer than we’d hoped to reach the garage level. First, we were reminded of the fact that Orion’s clothes were still wrapped around my waist by a very wide-eyed dog walker. Then Celeste—safely out of the building, thank goodness—called for an update before changing gears and chewing me out about what she referred to as “chasing Finnegan away.”
Eventually, though, Orion and I took the last set of stairs down to the parking garage as quickly as we could while keeping our footfalls silent. His gaze flicked back and forth between the path ahead and the tracking app on his cell phone while I kept all of my senses intent upon seeking signs of immediate danger.
The first showed up at the bottom of the stairwell where a heavy door lacked a window to let us see what might lie on the other side. Despite the barrier, I caught the faintest trickle of scent that made me hesitate. Not Maya. Not a shifter of any sort. Yet still familiar…
A cigar stubbed out before the multi-agent offensive that ended up capturing Vega’s entire clan. The tobacco’s sweet scent was so unique I’d been able to tell where the cigar-smoking agent was located during the entire takedown, something I’d made a note of because I intended to tell him it was a weakness when working with werewolves. I hadn’t seen the agent afterwards, though, to pass along the warning. Had since changed sides and was glad to know he had a weakness. I’d never smelled that brand before or since…
My hesitation turned into a full stop and I sensed Orion going still and alert behind me. For the dozenth time, I wished we were still able to communicate silently down a mate bond.
But Orion didn’t require words. As I turned my head to meet his gaze, he twisted the cell phone around so I could see the glowing dot all the way on the other side of the parking garage and continuing to recede into the distance.
If Maya was being moved away from us, there shouldn’t be a Council agent waiting outside this door. Not unless they knew about the tracker and were using it to set up another ambush.
Could we have discussed the device’s existence in front of Finnegan? Honestly, I’d been so hollowed out during that phase of the planning process that I had no memory of when the idea of trackers had first been broached.
Looked like we needed to assume our sole advantage had been compromised, to assume that dot might not even represent Maya. Instead, it could be an agent tasked with drawing us away from innocent humans so we’d be easier to take down.
Behind me, Orion smelled like impatience and concern for his sister. He understood there was danger ahead, but he leaned forward anyway, barely held back by my stillness.
I shook my head at him, slipping around his stationary body and starting back up the stairs. Walking into an ambush now had the same problem as us arriving at the penthouse in the elevator. Council agents packed firepower we were forbidden from carrying. Plus, they seemed to know we were coming, which stole away the element of surprise.
Behind me, the scent in the stairwell turned sour. Orion didn’t like this. He wanted to find Maya.
Well, I wanted to find Maya too. But this wasn’t the way to free her.
Our silent conversation was interrupted by the clang of another door closing above us. Whoever had come in wasn’t even trying to stay quiet. Probably just a tenant heading out for the evening.
No such luck.
“Let’s talk,” said Gabi, leaning over the railing on the landing above us, “about sisters.”
Chapter 17
We were caught between two Council operatives. But while Gabi was bound to be armed, at least she wasn’t menacing us at the moment. Which suggested we might be able to talk our way close enough to plant a tracker as originally intended then escape.
“You admit it?” My feet began carrying me up the staircase, and my actions weren’t entirely because of my perfectly rational plan. Instead, I found myself peering at the woman I’d spent years training under then working alongside.
Was her nose the same shape as mine? Were the intricate box braids that kept her hair virtually maintenance-free also preventing me from noticing a similarity in curl pattern?
Her eyebrows—lighter than mine, but perhaps just as prominent?—rose as Gabi answered my question with a question. “You knew?”
“I know now.”
“Then you’ll understand why I’m concerned about her new boyfriend.”
Okay…color me confused. Which was actually helpful. It reminded me that there were more pressing issues at play than my hunt for a sister…who might not be Gabi after all?
With that in mind, I climbed the last few steps up so I could join Gabi on the landing, all the while slipping my hand into my pocket to palm the tracking device Orion and I had originally intended to plant in Gabi’s favorite pair of work boots. It wasn’t any bigger than the beads Celeste and I used to thread onto friendship bracelets. Still, I trusted Orion to notice when I twisted my hand around to make the tiny sphere visible behind my back.
Orion was close enough to warm my shoulders, so he was definitely close enough to see the tracking device. However, when he spoke, he drew us back toward Gabi’s recent statement instead. “Whose boyfriend are you referring to?”
“Celeste’s,” Gabi bit out, as if we were unpardonably slow rather than carrying on a completely different conversation than she was. Or perhaps we were carrying on two additional conversations if you counted the tracking bead along with my original assumption that Gabi had been referring to herself as my sister.
On the tracking bead topic, I waggled the hand behind my back a little harder. Maybe Orion was too close to notice it? If so, surely movement would draw his eye.
Meanwhile, Gabi explained without further prompting. “All Celeste could talk about this evening was some mysterious boyfriend. But she admitted she only met him a few days ago. She’s smitten and I don’t like it.”
“Which is why you set up this sting,” I goaded, knowing that wasn’t the reason. Because Julius was involved along with at least one other Council operative. No way they’d take time out of their busy schedules so Gabi and I could compare notes about Celeste’s dating life.
“No,” Gabi countered. “Julius set up this sting because he had a feeling Celeste was feeding you information. I didn’t think that was likely or I would have shut the whole thing down before it started.”
“You’re saying there aren’t actually shifter children being raised by the Council? That mentioning them was bait for Celeste?”
Gabi shrugged. “If there are shifter children being raised by the Council, they’re none of your business. Ask yourself, who had a better childhood, Celeste or your mate?” Then she proved the question to be entirely rhetorical by returning to her previous point. “Children aside, Celeste is the one Julius is currently fixating upon. You need to get her out of town now.”
“And I’m expected to believe you care about Celeste even though you proved last month that you didn’t actually have any personal feelings for either of us.”
“I don’t have any personal feelings for you,” Gabi corrected. “But I just told you why I’m here in this stairwell. I’m concerned about my sister.”
Then, when I stared at her, totally befuddled, she spelled it out for me. “I’m here for my sister. I’m here for Celeste.”
Was that why Gabi had always been so much gentler to Celeste than me during our training? Not because Celeste lacked my lupine resilience, but because the two of them shared DNA?
Unless, of course, this was yet another ploy in a long line of similar ploys. My ex-mentor always strove to be two steps ahead of the competition and she’d feign any advantage necessary to make that happen. But what could her purpose be in claiming sisterhood with Celeste?
I’m not sure how long I stood there before Orion brushed past, his fingers trying to pluck the tracking device out of my hand in the process. So he had seen it. That was good news, but I closed my fist rather than accepting his assistance. Because I had a better chance of planting it on Gabi’s person than he did.
Orion didn’t try to force the issue. Instead, he leaned in and sniffed Gabi, his nose far closer to her face than was appropriate in human circles. No wonder she took a step back.
“You think I’m a teenager who needs her breath checked for alcohol?”
“I think you’re a very good liar…”
Gabi dimpled as if he’d praised her beauty. “Why thank you.”
“…Who isn’t lying this time.”
For a split second, the implications of Celeste and Gabi actually being siblings continued spinning through me. Then I remembered the other sister involved—Maya, who I hoped was only drugged instead of dead.
“You can’t be serious,” I emoted, even though I trusted Orion’s judgment. As I spoke, I stumbled…
…Or pretended to. At the same time, the hand containing the tracking device wobbled out to catch my balance by making contact with the one part of Gabi she wasn’t likely to mess with in the near future—her hair.
Unfortunately, Gabi never trusted werewolves, and she was also the one who’d taught me the stumble-then-stab. No wonder she thought I was attacking. No wonder she easily countered my offensive with a manacle-tight grip on my arm.
Which meant the tracker was stuck just shy of contact with her scalp. I needed a distraction to grant me that final inch, and Orion provided it.
“Don’t touch her,” he growled, his fingers digging into the skin of Gabi’s wrist.
