“Oh, don’t worry,” I was quick to assure him. “I’m plenty pissed.”

  Fear had no place in my life. Not anymore.

  The hall stood empty, but I didn’t think too much about it. I had probably beat Midas here.

  “Do you hear that?” Ford cocked his head. “Are you expecting someone?”

  “No, and yes.” I passed him the mouse cup. “Stand back.”

  Adrenaline dumped in my veins as I gripped the knob and found my apartment unlocked. A quick twist of my wrist opened the door, and I rushed the figure who spun around with a gleaming weapon in hand.

  By the time my brain put a name to the face (Midas) and I had ID’d the weapon (staple gun), it was too late. I hit him center mass with my shoulder and knocked him backward, right onto the futon. Momentum got the best of me, though, and I tumbled after him. He landed in a seated position, and I landed between his thighs, on my knees, with my arms loosely wrapped around his waist.

  “Um…”

  Midas flattened his spine against the fabric. I wasn’t sure he was breathing, but his eyes sparked crimson.

  “I wasn’t expecting you.” Slowly, slowly, I kept going until I sat on the floor, but I didn’t pull back before I got a nose full of his scent, cedar and amber. “I didn’t mean to tackle you. I don’t even like football. Except for tailgating, which is worth the crowd and the noise if you do it right.”

  He closed his eyes, fisting his hands where they rested on the futon, but I never thought for a minute he might hurt me, and not just because of my gender.

  Folding my legs into lotus position, I gave him space. “Are you all right?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  The frustrated tone convinced me he wasn’t going to rip out my throat if I took my eyes off him, and when I did, I goggled at the transformation my apartment had undergone since I left it in shambles.

  “You fixed it.” I got to my feet and ran a hand along the walls, draped in the same material and colors. “Where did you find so many top sheets?”

  “You’re not the only franchise in the city.”

  “You bought from a competitor?” Clutching the material, I gasped out, “How dare you?”

  A smile twisted the right side of his mouth, but he kept his eyes shut. “You were closed.”

  I wandered through the space he had so carefully reconstructed without ever having been my guest.

  The sewing machine, new with a user manual pinned underneath, almost brought tears to my eyes.

  This was why he called Bishop. He was piecing my life back together after it had been shattered on his watch. Maybe that’s all it was, just professional courtesy. Or, like Ford said, part of the Faraday package. When I spotted the TV on the wall, the screen a few inches bigger, the fancy mount capable of hiding the DVD player I saw peeking out from behind it, I couldn’t stop my eyes from leaking. He even hid the cords in the walls, something I had been too cheap to do at the time I had the original installed and had regretted not doing ever since.

  New futon, new dining room table, new dishes, new…everything.

  “You got it all right.” Afraid of giving him too much credit, I had to ask. “How?”

  “Bishop.”

  Who knew his routine checks on my living space would serve a purpose down the line?

  After I completed a dazzled circuit of the room, I found myself standing in front of Midas again, subject to the full weight of his stare.

  I hadn’t owned much to start with, so he didn’t have to source but a few things to set my apartment back to rights. Even for him, the biggest investment had been time. That still didn’t explain why he did it.

  “Thank you.” I wiped my face dry with the back of my hands. “You don’t strike me as a hugger, so that’s all I’ve got.” I laughed wetly. “I don’t know what else to say. Just, thank you.”

  Slowly, slowly, as I had done, he leaned forward, eyes never leaving my face. “You’re welcome.”

  We remained that way for a long moment, him in a submissive pose, me in a dominant position, before he exhaled through his teeth, unable to stand it any longer. “There’s something we need to get out of the way.”

  Unsure where this was heading, I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Ford and Bonnie are in the hall.”

  “I’m aware.”

  I swallowed once to wet my throat. “You’re not going to bite me, are you?”

  “Hadley,” he said on a sigh, a wrinkle gathering across his forehead. “Kneel.”

  “I just got off my knees,” I pointed out, but lowered myself without hesitation, which made me question what the heck I was doing taking orders from him. “Now what?”

  “Look in my—” He sighed. “You’re already looking in my eyes.”

  “I can’t help it.” I started to rise, but he caught me gently by the wrist. “Ford told me it was as much your fault as it is mine. That means you’re in as much trouble as I am. So whatever you’re thinking of doing to me, you should do to yourself first.”

  “Hadley Whitaker,” he said, smoothing his thumb over my pulse, “you are an equal in my eyes. You may look upon me without fear. You may hold my gaze and not be punished for the offense. You are absolved, here and now, for any prior trespass, and no insult can henceforth be taken.”

  A few seconds lapsed where I waited for tingles to spread through my limbs or for magic to caress me. Neither happened, and that left me more confused than ever. “What did that accomplish?”

  “His inner beast won’t force you to submit,” Ford said from the doorway. “That’s what it accomplishes. You’re a dominant personality, a predator, and it’s hard for the same to be around you. The oath, for lack of a better word, he swore allows you to look freely upon him, to maintain eye contact with him, and not be punished for either by anyone—including him.”

  “That will come in handy.”

  Though it would have been less dramatic if he had just told me I won’t growl at you for looking me in the eye from now on.

  The tension in Midas eased several degrees as I watched, and he openly looked at me now, inviting me to do the same. I’m embarrassed over how long I sat there, drinking him in. I would have felt worse if he hadn’t been doing the same. I felt like both an animal in an exhibit at the zoo and the person admiring it.

  Ford was right. Midas was starved for contact. Not physical, but… I don’t know how to describe it.

  Once he noticed he still held me, he frowned at his palm, which had grown damp, and broke his grip.

  “Now that we have the formalities out of the way, we have a small problem.” I pinched my pointer and thumb together to illustrate. “About the size of a lab mouse if you want to get technical.” I waved Ford over, but his gait was stiff when he crossed to me. “Bonnie tried to escape this morning.”

  “Shut the door,” Midas told Ford. “We need privacy for this.”

  Ford handed Bonnie off to me then did as he was told and took up a position there.

  “Release her.” Midas eased onto the floor with me. “She won’t run.”

  Trusting him that she wouldn’t bolt for the gap under the door like a runner sliding into home, I removed the coaster and tipped the glass gently on its side where she could scurry out onto the polished concrete.

  “You’re under no obligation to answer my questions,” he began, and I choked on an instinctive rebuke. “Refuse to cooperate, continue to endanger my pack, and I will turn you out. You have made no effort to socialize, and you refuse to live at the den. I didn’t push you because I thought you weren’t ready. Do you want a new life as a member of the Atlanta pack, or are you only using our resources to escape your old one?”

  The two weren’t mutually exclusive, and Midas had a right to want an answer. I had no doubt he would do all he could to help her in any case, but there was no reason to shelter her at the Faraday, or employ her as his PA, if she had no interest in either long-term.

  The mouse flexed its whiskers, jerked its head to glance back at me, then whipped its tail.

  “No one is going to hurt you,” I reassured her. “We just want answers.”

  The air around her shimmered, standing her fur on end, and she began to grow until I had to scoot back to make room for Bonnie the human to sit between Midas and me.

  Dressed in the same outfit she wore to Perkerson, with the same damp hem, she inched away from Midas until she sat beside me.

  Reading into her body language, Midas held my stare to convey this was my show.

  As much as her posture begged for it, I didn’t touch her or comfort her. “Did you know Shonda Randall?”

  “No,” she rasped. “I might have seen her in passing, but we were never introduced.”

  New to the pack, living separately, I could buy that. “You were acting as Midas’s personal assistant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you intercept the call about Shonda’s death?”

  “Y-y-yes.” She twisted her hands in the fabric of her skirt. “I took a message and gave it to Midas.”

  Unlike my first exposure to her, where her fragility called to my protective instincts, I had trouble swallowing the act this time. I had spent too much time around her while she was glamoured to believe the stark differences in her personalities were genuine. A gwyllgi form could definitely boost her confidence. I had no trouble with that. But a corgi? A mouse?

  A slim chance existed that she had blossomed under my care, but that smacked of an inflated ego, and I tried to keep mine squashed flat. Hubris had landed me with Ambrose, after all.

  An edge crept into my voice I didn’t try to dull. “Did you recognize the caller’s voice?”

  Bonnie wilted on the spot, and a sob escaped her. “Yes.”

  “Who is it, Bonnie?” Unable to resist the misery pouring off her, I rested a hand on her shoulder. “Who are we dealing with here?”

  “My son,” she whispered. “He’s my son.”

  Pity softened my tone, but I wasn’t done yet. “That’s why you investigated Perkerson Park alone.”

  “Siemen asked me to meet him, and I thought I could reason with him, so I went alone, but he wasn’t there.” A tremor shook her fragile limbs, and I tightened my grip. “Once I saw what he had done, I knew there was no saving him. That’s when I told Midas what I found, and then he called you.”

  “You’ve been able to shift for a while now, haven’t you?”

  “I wasn’t tricking you that first morning. I was terrified, so afraid Siemen was watching, waiting for me, I couldn’t switch back. I’m safer as my other self, and I didn’t want to face him like this.”

  “I need some air.” Midas rose in a fluid motion and strode for the door. “Ford—”

  “—keep an eye on her,” I finished for him. “I need to confer with Midas.”

  As Ford stepped aside to let us pass, he flared his nostrils and swore under his breath, but I didn’t have time to stop and grill him if I wanted to catch Midas.

  “Go back in and finish your interrogation,” he ordered, like his title meant boo to me. “You’re not done yet.”

  “I’m done when I say I’m done, and I’m not pack. Your Jedi mind trick doesn’t allow you to boss me around, Goldilocks.”

  The jaw I had admired earlier began grinding. Audibly. “You overstep.”

  “Pretty sure the vow you made means not only can I say whatever I want, I can look you in the eye while I do it.” I bet he was regretting that decision in record time. “What is your problem?”

  “I found her,” he said coldly. “I welcomed her into my pack, into our den.”

  “I welcomed her into my home, into HQ.” Thank the goddess for her magical gag order. “So what?”

  “This whole fiasco is—”

  “Tell me it’s your fault, and I’m going online to purchase the world’s smallest violin to play for you.”

  “She knew she was being hunted and said nothing. Thanks to me, a killer is—”

  “—in Atlanta?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Try again. You found her here. Her son, if that’s who we’re dealing with, was always going to come after her. Atlanta was always going to suffer. It stands to reason that since she’s gwyllgi, and our initial tests show he’s warg, half warg anyway, he was always going to target the same demographic.”

  “You told me yourself it was personal. That he was calling me to—”

  “—brag? In light of what we’ve just learned, I better understand why the calls were placed to you. He watched her, found out you had taken her in, given her a job, and he discovered how to get in touch with her through her capacity as your PA.” I stepped closer. “This is not your fault. All you did was show kindness to a woman in need. There’s no shame in that. There’s no blame either.”

  Midas speared his fingers through his hair and tugged on the ends. “Can I talk now?”

  “The floor is yours.”

  He stared at me, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Well?” I cupped a hand to my ear. “I’m waiting.”

  “You derailed my entire argument.”

  “You’re new to the leadership thing. I am too. Believe me, I get it. It’s easy to accept the blame for every little thing that goes wrong. The thing is— We’re only human.” I snorted when he arched an eyebrow. “It sounds better than we’re only a necromancer and a gwyllgi, okay?” I sliced my hand through the air. “My point is this. We’re going to make good calls, and we’re going to make bad ones. We’re going to help some people, and we’re going to hurt others. We’re going to do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and there’s no room for looking back. The past is past. Chin up, eyes forward, head in the game.”

  “The decisions you make don’t impact—”

  “—a large group of people I’m sworn to protect?” I tapped my chin. “Hmm. It’s almost like being the POA means every heartbeat in the city is your responsibility.”

  “Can you please stop—?”

  “—cutting you off?”

  “You are the most frustrating woman I have ever met,” he told me, not unkindly.

  “The feeling is mutual,” I assured him. “Except the woman part. I’m, ah, pretty sure you don’t qualify.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “I’m not a booster seat for the male ego. Ask Ford.”

  Mentioning Ford struck a chord with him, and his expression shuttered. “Finish questioning her.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  He took the elevator down, and I walked back to my apartment, knocked on the door, and let myself in.

  Ford kept his eyes averted, and it gave me the creeps. “What crawled up your butt and died?”

  “He can no longer hold your gaze,” Bonnie said to the vicinity of my navel.

  “We’ll sort this out later.” He brushed his fingers down my arm. “Work, don’t worry about me.”

  Bonnie had moved to the futon while I was out yelling at Midas, so I joined her there and almost moaned as I sank into the new mattress. If my old one had been cloudlike, this one deserved its own angelic choir.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She stared at the slender fingers twined on her lap. “I ran away when I couldn’t take it any longer. I didn’t expect Midas to find me, to be found at all, but that doesn’t excuse what I did. I should have turned him down. I should have stayed at the shelter. Or maybe I shouldn’t have left the pack in the first place.”

  “You had every right to leave a situation that made you unhappy or put you at risk.” I ran an absent hand over the velvety-soft fabric, forcing my thoughts away from brooding beta gwyllgi. “Where you went wrong was in assuming trouble wouldn’t follow you. You should have told Midas where you came from and why you left. He could have protected you, and his pack, better with that information.”

  “I heard what you said to him in the hall.”

  Gwyllgi hearing made keeping secrets hard, so I wasn’t surprised given our volume. “And?”

  “Do you believe that?” Voice a bare whisper, she asked, “Would Siemen have done this to these people with or without me here?”

  “Yes.” Of that I had no doubt. “He targeted the warg packs as well as the gwyllgi. There’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t have done the same whether you went to one of them for help or stayed in the shelter instead of going with Midas.”

  “It’s my fault.” Her fingers went lax. “I am responsible.”

  Blame was easy to cast but harder to cast off. She was doing a fine job of piling it on, so I didn’t add to her burden.

  “Talk to me about your son.” I offered her a pillow to hold to give her hands something to do. “Why is he hunting you? Why is he killing to get to you?”

  That poor lavender pillow would have begged for mercy had it a voice. As it was, I worried she might squeeze the stuffing right out of it. It did the job, though. Gave her something to hold on to when her world must feel like it was crumbling all over again.

  “I was given to a warg pack a century ago, and they used me to…” She wet her lips. “I have many children.” She squished the pillow tighter. “None of them came out right.”

  Dread whispered up my spine, and I didn’t want to know but had to ask, “What do you mean?”

  “Lore on both sides of the veil between Earth and Faerie claims gwyllgi who interbred with wargs became creatures of this world. Their children were born with half the magic of their parents, but they were born free of Faerie rule, and that was what mattered.”

  “That’s the version I was told too.”

  “Lore is a story passed from one generation to the next, embellished as it flows in one ear and out another’s mouth.”

  “You think there was more to it?”

  “All my children were born feral, more warg than gwyllgi. Their forms were warg in appearance, but they were twisted, horrible things that made the earth weep to behold them. Their madness prevents them from holding their shifted form. It wasn’t uncommon for them to take down deer and other large prey in one form but eat their kill in another.”

  That fit with how Reece interpreted the data. “Are there more like your son still out there?”

 

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