The wolf closed the door and headed down the main hallway, Reagan slid her hand to the window again and focused her mind on the Captain’s office, through her contact with the glass she could see him, sitting at his desk, feet propped on the top of it and phone in hand. He was nodding with whatever the head of the Agency was saying on the other end and finally spoke. “It’s all taken care of. She will be confined to the jail, Jake and I will convince her it’s for her own safety.” There was a pause. “Don’t worry, sir. Thanks to her father that girl is putty in our hands. She never questions orders.” Another pause felt like it took forever before the Captain responded. “Yes, yes. We broke the spirit right out of that one.” His laugh made her stomach churn. She wanted to pull her hand away and break the contact, but the curious part of her refused to move even knowing the dangers of focusing on the conversation and not paying attention to the world around her. His grip tightened on the phone as he sat up. “I’ll do it right now. He’ll be weakened and the McGregor’s will move in and finish the job. The O’Conner’s will lose their territory tonight and our shipment of humans will go on the auction block first thing tomorrow morning, have the buyers ready.” She felt another wave of nausea hit her. “Yes, sir. Tell them they are all top grade humans, young and healthy. They’ll get their money’s worth.”
He hung up the phone and Reagan almost removed her hand until she saw him reach for something fluffy from his desk drawer. She focused, feeling her physical self squinting to help see what it was the Captain was holding. The minute it registered in her brain she pulled her hand back severing the connection. Her captain, her boss, was holding a tuft of wolf’s fur that looked suspiciously like Liam’s.
Minutes ticked by and she stood frozen in place. Her mind raced through a dozen or more different scenarios. All of them ended with the same conclusions. One, she was in big trouble and two, Liam was also. Pressing her hand to the glass once more, she found the Captain still holding the fur and lost in a trance. His eyes were glazed over, staring straight ahead, his breathing was shallow, and oddly enough time seemed to slow down in his office. The clock ticked in slow motion and Reagan wracked her brain to figure out what kind of spell he was using. Kicking herself for never bothering to ask what sort of creature her commanding Agent was it was clear now that he wasn’t any sort of beast, he was a witch, specifically a psychic. Which explained why he was in charge of this particular division.
In order to stop him, her movements were going to have to be completely silent and swift. Admittedly, silence was not her specialty. Her father hadn’t trained her to be stealthy, but he did train her to be quick.
Sneaking into the Captain’s office was easy enough. Maneuvering around without so much as disrupting the air was trickier, but she had to make sure he didn’t come out of his trance before she had a chance to save Liam. Standing in front of Hampton James she sighed. It was a mistake. His mouth opened as he growled. “Reagan, leave—”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish the sentence. Snatching the wolf’s fur out of his grasp, she gripped his hands and pulled herself into his mind. They stood in a stark white hallway that seemed to extend for miles. She spun around trying to make heads or tails of the location. It looked like the halls of the Agency. “Where are we?”
“Limbo,” He growled.
A smile crossed her face, “Sounds good to me.”
“Oh, you think you’ve saved him? Wrong. I’d already made my connection, entering his mind now is as easy as one, two,” He snapped his fingers and the plane changed offering up the tranquil meadow of Liam’s mind. “Three.”
Reagan gasped. “No.”
“Yes, and you were told to wait for me, not play the role of busy-body wolf-lover and break into my office.”
“You were going to hurt him just to take over his territory.”
“No, the McGregor’s will be taking it over. We have made arrangements. Now, stand down and if you are a good girl I won’t lock you in that cell for the remainder of your life like your poor mother.”
She’d been ready to fight until those words left his mouth. “My mother?”
“Yes, filthy wolf-lover like yourself. I don’t know what it is about those men but you all seem to have a weak-spot for them.”
“You locked my mother up?” She was shaking. “My mother committed suicide because she was bitten.”
“Your mother asked to be bitten.”
“How in the hell would you know that?”
“She confessed.” The cockiness of his grin seemed to falter a bit, “When I had tried to convince her to leave your father and be with me. That I would love her regardless of the bite, she rejected me and told me that she’d asked that mutt to bite her.”
“But my father—”
“Was weak and lost your mother’s affection long before she was bitten. I’d hoped that I could convince her to leave after her she finished her mission to infiltrate the wolf pack, but one of those filthy mutts seduced her.”
“You’re a liar.” Reagan glared. “The Agency wasn’t even around at that time.”
“Am I?” His lips twitched. “Stupid girl, The Agency has had its plans in motion for far longer than anyone realizes.”
She took a step back. It was too much and too outrageous. “My mother and father loved each other.”
“No, they didn’t, and you know it. You remember the fighting, don’t be naive. You heard them. She wanted to leave, and even more, she wanted to take you with her. That’s when your father turned to me for help. Since I couldn’t have her and she’d gotten herself bitten I convinced your father that we’d lock her up for the good of everyone. She rotted in that cell, you know. She suffered. Do you want the same fate as her?”
“Jake said—“ She paused and clenched her fist. “I heard you tell Romulus that you and Jake would lock me away.”
The man she’d never seen smile was doing a whole lot of grinning and gloating over his plan. He nodded. “Yes, we are going to lock you up, but the question is, how do you want to be treated in your confinement? Do you know what confinement does to a witch, even a weak one like yourself? Do you know what being locked away from the moon, your goddess does? It drives you insane, Reagan, it’s hell. So pick your battles, young one. I can make your life easy or I can break you like I broke your mother and leave you withering in agony.”
Information overload started to pull her out of the Mindscape and the Captain grinned. That was his plan. As she started to fade from the plane he gave a smug little wave and advanced across the field. Just like that she was snapped out and found herself standing in the Captain’s office. She touched his hands again but any connection she’d had was severed due to her conflicting emotions and jumbled thoughts. Cursing herself, she buried her head in her hands and screamed. The door opened and Jake stepped inside. “Hey, Cap—” His voice cut off. “Reagan, what the hell did you do?”
She spun on him. With every ounce of strength she leaped over the desk and tackled the vampire on the ground, “Tell me everything you know, Jake, or I swear to the goddess I will end you right here and now.”
“Everything I know about what?” His pale face seemed to grow paler. “Did you kill him.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a fucking vampire; you’d know if he was dead. Tell me what the Captain and Romulus are planning with Liam. And what part do you play in all this?” When he didn’t answer she pulled back her hand and summoned magic energy in the palm of her hand, something that she’d never been able to do before. “Tell me!”
Jake’s eyes locked on the ball of magic. The vampire hated magic more than most creatures and the fear registered on his face. “I don’t know much. I just know that they had plans for the dock area where O’Conner has his construction yard. His guys run the docks there too, and the Captain needed them out of the way. We tried to make a deal with some local thugs, but they tried to extort us so I killed them and dumped the bodies in the water.”
“It was you? And
you pinned it on Liam?”
“No, that was the Captain’s idea. He figured if he could bust Liam for the murders then his people could take over seamlessly and it’d give the Agency a foothold out on the streets to better protect the humans.”
“They are fucking trafficking in human sex slaves you moron! You helped them!”
“I didn’t, they aren’t doing that. The captain would never—”
She pressed the ball of magic to his chest and nearly delighted in the sizzling sound it made against his clothes. “They are, and he did.” As a button of his shirt melted from the heat of the magic she asked one final question. “Did you know about my mother?”
His gaze slipped, it was a blatant tell. Jake held up his hands. “Reggie, I swear I only know a little bit.”
“Tell me!” She ground out through clenched teeth.
“She killed herself,” He paused and licked his lips. “Because she was being held in the magic containment area below the building, the ones we use for witches and werewolves.” Reagan glared she knew the cells, underground to deny both witches and wolves access to the moon light, warded against magic and lined with silver from top to bottom ensuring that neither could escape. Jake continued, “She’d broken the law, the Captain said she’d been bitten and started attacking innocent humans, he had to lock her up to protect them…” His words trailed off and when she shook him he refocused on her. “But when I was working in records I stumbled across something, there’d never been any attacks. When I tried to confront him he assigned me to watch over you. He’d promised me you in exchange for my silence.”
“And you took the deal?”
He reached up and caressed her cheek. “I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
She flinched from his touch and glared. “You don’t love me. Manipulation isn’t love.”
“I would protect you.”
Reagan paused and glanced at the Captain still in his trance. “I’m going to help Liam and stop the Captain. If you truly love me then you’ll help me.”
Jake’s expression seemed to waiver for a moment before he nodded his head. “What do you want me to do?”
“Find me the files about my mom and let me handle the Captain.”
“Will that be enough to prove my loyalty to you?”
“Yes.”
“Will you give yourself to me?”
She stood up, extinguishing her magic and sauntered over to the Captain. “Do you want a lie or the truth?”
“Truth.” He whispered.
“No.”
His face fell. “A lie then?”
Reagan didn’t answer and the vampire stood up. Glancing at the security camera in the corner of the room, she cooly asked, “How long do I have?”
Something changed in the air, but he didn’t say another word until he got to the door handle. “You’ve got five minutes alone before I pull the alarm. Lucky for you the Captain doesn’t allow surveillance of his office and disabled the camera long ago.” He opened the door and called over his shoulder. “I hope the wolf is worth it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Seamus stood at the entrance to the work yard, arms folded over his chest and eyes glowing in what Reagan chalked up to pure unadulterated anger when he saw her. She stepped up, nose to nose with the wolf and glared. “Let me in.”
Seamus laughed. “Why in the bloody hell would I do that? Haven’t you hurt him enough today?”
“My job is to save him, remember? Your alpha is in danger.”
“You are the only danger I see.”
“Damn it, Seamus! He’s in danger. It’s Captain James from the Agency. It was him all along.”
He opened his mouth to say something and shook his head. “How do you know?”
“Because he admitted it to me.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you kill him then?”
“I’m—“ She shook her head. “Let me in, now.”
“No, if he’s in trouble I’ll help him. If you couldn’t kill the prick before, I don’t know how the fuck you think you’re going to save him now.”
“I’m not a killer, Seamus. I couldn’t—“ she grabbed the wolf by the collar. “Besides, if I killed him in the physical world and he’d already done something to Liam I wouldn’t be able to help him very much. I need in his mind to stop the Captain from doing whatever it is he’s planning on doing and you need to stay here.” Seamus shook his head but she tightened her grip. “The McGregor’s are coming, they are working with the Agency to take Liam’s territory away. They are planning on selling humans on the black market as sex slaves. You can stop them, I can save Liam.”
As soon as she let go, Seamus swung the gate open and barked one simple order, “Hurry.”
She ran into the building immediately came to a halt, Liam’s office was destroyed, he wouldn’t be in there. “Liam? Where are you?”
A soft howl came down the opposite hallway and Reagan dashed in that direction. Liam’s astral wolf stood outside a door, pawing at the wood. She ignored the knot of dread building at seeing it once again. As soon as she got the Captain out of Liam’s head her next task would be putting the beast back where it belonged before she got Liam killed over it. Swinging the door open she found Liam on the floor, covered in sweat and shaking. “Oh goddess,” knelling down next him she brush the hair out of his eyes and whispered. “Hold on, Liam.”
Her hands rested against his temples and immediately she was sucked into his swirling, horrific Mindscape. A beautiful woman stood before Liam, torturing him with a knife, screaming at him for betraying her. For his part, Liam took her abuse, seemingly too shocked to react. Reagan swallowed hard. She knew that face. It was the woman she’d attempted to use against Liam when she’d first interrogated him. His wife was now a twisted and sadistic puppet being used against him. She called out but he didn’t hear her.
Something moved from the corner of her vision and Reagan sucked in a breath. The wolf lay still and bleeding, his chest rising and falling slowly as if he struggled for breath, and the dark figured she’d spotted before inside Liam’s mind was slowly creeping from the wolf’s body toward Liam’s back. His movement was silent but the effort was pointless, he could have ridden a stampeding bull and Liam wouldn’t have heard it over the wails of his dead wife.
Reagan bolted for the Captain, but he whipped his head around and flung something at her. The invisible force hit her like a ton of bricks, knocking her to the ground. It slowed her but she picked herself up and advance again. This time she got within striking distance before the Captain hit her with another blow. It knocked the wind from her lungs and a sudden cold seeped into her bones. Ignoring what she could only imagine was a curse of some kind she leaped and grabbed hold of the Captain.
His larger frame made it hard for her to wrestle with him, but she refused to let go. In his hands he held another crystal and as he stabbed towards Liam the magic from it sliced the wolf’s back without making contact with him. “What the hell?” She growled.
The captain laughed. “Wolf’s bane can be fashioned into a weapon, you think I’d face him without an advantage?’
She ignored him and gripped his arm as he went to make another slash. They tumbled to the ground and Reagan tightened her grip on his wrist. She whispered the fire spell she was most capable with in the Mindscape. Flames exploded from her hand and engulfed his wrist. The specter of Lia flickered and Liam spun around as if the spell had been broken. “Reagan?”
She shook her head and focused on the spell. The fire grew, Captain James screamed and struggled to get out of her grip, but before he could, she did the one thing she was never supposed to do. She touched his temple and entered his mind. It was forbidden to enter a psychic’s mind from inside someone else’s Mindscape, mostly because it was an invasion, but as far as Reagan was concerned all of the Agency’s rules had already gone right out the window. But also because both would be vulnerable in this state.
He rushed her with the crysta
l weapon he’d been clutching and this time she was ready for the attack. Grabbing his arm and twisting it in one fluid move. He didn’t drop his weapon and was already muttering a spell but before he could finish she summoned her fire again, this time the flames ignited his entire body. The vulnerability of his mind being locked inside another made the flames hungry, the energy seemed to feed on the weakness and flames licked at her as if they hungered for more than their current meal.
She stepped back as the captain crumbled to the ground. His body still burned but the flesh had all but been destroyed, bones were the only thing stoking the fire and the heat intensified. His physical body would survive, his brain, however, would never recover. Her spell turned on her. Her weakness being stuck inside the now brain-dead Captain’s mind fed the flames. She coughed but couldn’t pull herself out, the heat was unbearable, and as she watched the bones of Hampton start to turn to ash she felt the tips of her hair singe and her skin start to blister.
Liam’s voice broke through the crackle of flames. “Reagan, snap out of it. Reagan!”
She shook her head and focused on his voice. He was there with her. Not in the same plane as the dead captain, but she could hear him. He was her anchor. He was the one person she could hold on to. The noise in her head grew silent as she gave him her full attention until she was certain she could pull herself out.
As soon as the flames exploded in one final effort to claim her, she found herself standing with Liam in the calm meadow of his mind. Lia, his dead wife, was gone, he seemed to be at full strength and she smiled. “You saved me.”
“You saved me.”
Again she grinned and wrapped her arms around him.
In the physical realm, she let her hands drop from his temple and broke the connection. Liam kissed her before she had a chance to catch her breath. Wanting to swim in this moment forever, she wrapped her arms around his neck. There was a stirring in the air that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Liam reacted at the same moment she’d felt it. He pulled back and stared at the door. “What are you doing here?”
Code Name: Fox / Mind Games (Syndicate Series Book 1) Page 19
