“Explain the difference as you see it.” She sat back and crossed her legs, like a teacher waiting to be amused by a student’s reply.
“When they killed Ilya, Sasha thought we were going to sell her to someone else. She didn’t choose to be his slave out of some kinky desire to have someone else in control. She was a slave because he bought her.”
The air in the living room vibrated with their collective anger, but under the surface, like a river of lava under a hard shell of volcanic rock.
“So the Master-slave dynamic was not consensual.” Natalja sucked in one lip and chewed at it. “Well, that changes things completely.”
“How so?” Vadik leaned forward.
Natalja continued to consider, as though there was something moving behind her blank stare. “I have no experience with non-consensual Master-slave relationships. In fact, one of the bedrocks of the kink community is consent.”
He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“Okay, let’s try this, then.” She snapped the flogger and stood. “It may actually work in our favor that you’ve slept together, because you’ll tend to be more aware of each other’s movements and body language. But it’s important that we got to the true nature of their relationship. That’s going to change some of what we had talked about last night.” She snapped her fingers. “Stand. Both of you.”
Vadik obeyed and one of the leather dangles snapped at his wrist. He instinctively let go of Andrea’s hand.
“Good. You won’t be holding hands again for a long time.” Natalja took a wide stance in front of them. “Now, it’s going to be important to pay attention to this next exercise. I’m going to tweak a few things for this situation, that we would never do in a consensual relationship, but I think it’ll be important for us to recognize how Sasha’s fear of Ilya is going to make her act in certain situations.”
He squared his shoulders and moved his head as though he planned to consent, but he still wasn’t sure what he was consenting to. He felt the weight of the flogger being forced in to his hand, and he looked down at the strange object. Vadik met Natalja’s gaze and her brows rounded in compassion.
“I know this isn’t—”
The sharp blast of a ring cut the air. Andrea dug in her pocket and pulled out her smart phone. The screen held a picture of a laughing, bearded man with his arm around Andrea’s shoulders in a selfie.
Above the picture, the screen read, Aaron.
“Shit.” She gripped the cell to her palm. “It’s my brother.”
“Take it,” Natalja said, pointing toward the kitchen. “I’ll work with Vadik while you talk to him.”
But as she left his side, Vadik felt his attention go with her. He didn’t know how they were going to survive on the island, pretending to be two people who didn’t care about each other, with him acting like he only wanted to use Andrea to service his own needs.
Especially when he couldn’t even see a picture of her brother holding her without getting a little jealous.
He was absolutely fucked.
“Andrea.”
“Aaron, what’s wrong?” She slipped around the corner and into Natalja’s kitchen. She leaned against the chipped veneer countertop and sighed. Her brother was not going to make this easy.
“The alphas have activated the Rangers. They’ll be in Choaca by midnight tonight.”
Holy fucking shit!
She gulped down the angry snarl fighting its way out of her throat. She’d known they were considering it, but they’d acted without telling them. The team.
“We’re bringing you all home. Everyone is getting a call. I’ve booked you a flight out of Chicago and I’ll be picking you up tonight at DFW.”
Stall, Andrea. Say anything but, ‘I’m planning to role play as a slave and sneak onto a madman’s island with a human assassin who knows I’m a wolf to save women and children you’re choosing to ignore.’ “It would be closer if I flew into Houston.”
“You’re on flight 726 out of Chicago tonight. Your ticket will be waiting for you. I’m texting you the confirmation number.”
Her phone beeped a second later when the text came through.
“Everyone is being called home. Not just you. This has all gone far enough and no one is willing to risk your lives any longer.”
“I understand.”
“Good. I expect to see you tonight. Go get packed. Your flight leaves in two hours.”
Packed?
She swallowed a laugh. They hadn’t brought anything with them. Everything was back in Choaca with Alex, Hannah and Donovan.
“I’ll see you soon, Aaron,” she finally squeezed out.
Lying to him not only went against who she was, it went against the magick that linked them together as wolves. They were bound as a pack and she was betraying her alpha.
The wound created by this lie would not easily be healed—for any of them.
“8:47pm.”
“What?” The time caught her off guard.
“That’s when you land in DFW. I’ll see you then. It’ll be good to have you home. I’m sure your temporary manager at the bar will be glad to get back to her life too.”
She snorted. “Reyna is doing just fine at the bar. I talk to her most days.”
The door to the apartment opened and shut. Multiple sets of footsteps entered and she could hear Niko arguing with his sister in the living room.
Vadik poked his head around the corner and caught her gaze.
“I have to go, Aaron. Niko’s here to take me to the airport. Love you.”
“Love you too, sis. See you soon.”
She clicked off the line and made a beeline for Vadik. “What’s going on?”
He tipped his head toward Niko.
“Everyone’s getting calls from their alphas. They want us to go home.” Niko toed his black leather boot into the rug and glanced down.
“Are they going?” Andrea’s pulse raced.
Surely they hadn’t given up. Surely after everything they’d been through together the team wouldn’t just leave all those women and children at the mercy of whatever plan the alphas had concocted with the Rangers.
“Maggie has already talked with everyone, Andi. We’re in if you are. All of us. But it’s up to you and Vadik. You’re the ones taking the huge risk.”
Andrea looked at Vadik, and he inclined his head, nodding ever so slightly. He was in. “We’re doing this. And we have to go now or we won’t beat the Rangers to Choaca. Aaron said they arrive at midnight tonight.”
“Maggie was going to call Rain the second we knew you were still a go.” Niko grabbed the fluffy black coat from the chair by the door and tossed it to her.
Andrea caught it and slipped into the downy warmth.
Niko kissed his sister’s forehead and opened the apartment door.
“You two remember,” Natalja started. “Stay in character. No eye contact, Andrea. And Vadik, you have to keep your hands off of her.”
She nodded and followed Niko down the stairs with Vadik hot on her heels.
They had a plane to catch, and it wasn’t the one any of their alphas were expecting.
Chapter Ten
Dani and Niko had taken up residence in the dark cockpit and Maggie and Luther were huddled around Maggie’s laptop.
Vadik sat on the opposite side of the narrow table with Andrea by his side, trying to obey Natalja’s directions and act like a pair of strangers.
He didn’t like pretending.
“I can’t find anything better than this.” Maggie turned her laptop to one side so all four of them could see the outlines on black backgrounds. “It’s not complete, but it’s at least a power grid.”
“You’re sure, shutting down the power is going to be enough?” Andrea’s legs wiggled under the table and he had a strange urge to still them. But he wasn’t supposed to touch her.
Maggie pressed a finger into the tabletop. “Dr. Lee said the implanted device in both women appeared to be controlled b
y frequency. That’s why, when Faye was a certain distance away from the house, or the central station, or whatever, she just dropped dead.”
“And the Toronto pack found a watch on Ilya’s wrist that they think was putting out a frequency signal that was keeping Sasha alive—” Luther stopped suddenly, with a glance at Vadik.
“So if I’d taken his watch, Sasha would still be alive.” He rested his chin on tented fingers and let that sink in.
“That’s not what I meant to say.” His friend gave a vigorous shake. “I only meant that he was a bastard for treating a woman like property.”
Andrea sighed. “Well, it gives me more insight into the person I have to pretend to be for the next who-knows-how-long.”
“Not long.” Maggie pointed at the laptop screen. “I think that the main power stations are in two places. He appears to have one in the house, where Luther and I have already been, so I can tell you how to get there.”
“It’s not big enough to be the main power station,” Luther said. “We think there’s a second station somewhere in the center of the island, past the house, sort of out in the wilderness that we don’t have maps for.”
“But there are lights.” Maggie made a few flicks with her finger and the white outlines got smaller. But there was a ring of small white circles on the edges of the black screen. “We thought they only went around the front of the island, where there’s beach. But these lights go all the way around, even on the cliff side, for the entire span of the island, every hundred yards.”
“Niko’s uncle Janosz got us a couple of timed charges.” Luther passed a silver case across the table and Vadik accepted the heavy item with care. He’d seen many a case like this.
“I don’t even want to know where he got timed charges in half an hour,” Andrea said, sarcasm lacing her voice.
Vadik waved a hand. “I could’ve made them myself if we’d had time to stop at a hardware store.”
He felt her stiffen beside him, but he didn’t look back. He wasn’t going to look back.
“And I know a guy in Choaca.” Luther made the same gesture, like it was picking up a chocolate bar at the corner store. “This way, we don’t have to do any clandestine ops kinda stuff. You just take the case with you on the boat, get into the house, set the first charge, leave the house, set the second charge, and meet us on the beach.”
Maggie’s gaze softened and turned to Vadik. “Actually, Sasha’s death helped us to better understand the system on the island. It’s not much consolation, but her death had meaning.”
Andrea leaned against the window and sighed. “Can you imagine what would’ve happened if the alphas had called in the Rangers after Faye?”
Maggie’s compassion disappeared and hard lines replaced the kindness. “All I think about some nights is exacting a new death from Adrian Rossi. One for every one he caused.”
“With wolves,” Luther said, glancing at Vadik, almost as an aside, “Healing is so fast, they can sometimes be on the edge of death and come back.”
“I thank the gods every day that we heal so quickly.” Maggie reached under the table, no doubt for her man’s hand. “And that I thought of changing you when I did. I can’t imagine life without you now.”
Luther offered her a secret smile and leaned in for a kiss.
Vadik moved his own hand to the seat beside him and found Andrea’s fingers there. He didn’t grab her hand or her leg or her arm, as he wanted to. But he rubbed his fingers against hers.
“Plus, it makes the thought of vengeance really sweet,” his old friend said, his mouth obscured by Maggie’s lips.
They both laughed and Vadik stroked Andrea’s fingers.
“It’d be great to kill him, then resurrect him and kill him again.” Maggie rested her head on Luther’s shoulder.
“You’d never do that, Mags.” He feathered her hair. “No matter what your revenge fantasies are. You don’t have it in you.” But Luther’s eyes went dark and met Vadik’s.
The two friends nodded.
But I would.
“What are we going to do with Rossi, anyway?” Vadik asked, before he and Luther started planning a nice, long torture session in their heads. He needed the focus, not the emotion.
“Rain was pretty clear,” Maggie said. “They’re going to take Rossi. That was not negotiable.”
Andrea snorted. “The alphas. They want him alive. Well, they haven’t walked in our shoes, that’s for sure.” Her fingers tensed and Vadik moved his hand to cover hers. The warmth that shot through him at the movement threatened to ignite his whole body.
“True that.” Maggie nodded.
“We’d all like to kill him,” Andrea said, a sad note in her voice. “Personally.”
“There’s a line of us,” Maggie added. “Starting with Lani, I imagine.”
Vadik searched his memory, trying to place the name, but Andrea pulled at his fingers. “She was the one whose mother he killed in front of her.”
Maggie’s inhale was sharp and her hand shot to her neck like she’d been shocked. Luther stroked her arm.
“All of us want to kill Rossi,” Maggie hissed.
“Except the alphas.” Andrea tugged her hand back and crossed her arms.
From the cockpit, Dani’s laugh cracked the air. She and Niko were in another world up there.
In the back, there was no laughter.
“Well, the alphas don’t have any control over me.” Vadik fisted his hands and pressed them into his thighs. “Andrea’s right. They haven’t walked in your shoes. They definitely have an agenda. Foxes in a sheep’s pelts, as Babushka would say.”
Andrea jumped to her feet and stepped over the bench, but when he reached for her, he couldn’t find her hands. She still had them clenched around her body, and she stalked to the back of the plane, taking one of the seats on the dark edge of the cabin.
Luther nodded. “Go on. Don’t be Ilya right now, man. Just be Vadik.”
The plane engines hummed away, and Vadik followed his fake slave’s retreat. When he stood over her, she sniffed and turned her head toward the window.
A tight fury lanced through him, lodging in his throat. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Her eyes were red and bleary, and wet streaks bleached paths down her cheeks. “You’re not why I’m crying.”
Vadik slid into the plush chair beside her and his knee made contact with hers. It wasn’t enough. He breathed, hot and heavy and slow. “I need to tell you something.”
Her smile was weathered, like it’d seen too many days to be the bright, white-washed enthusiasm he’d known her to have. “You can tell me anything.”
He slipped his hand into hers. “When Natalja asked me, before, why I’m doing this, I said it was because of Luther.” His heartbeat lumbered toward a breakneck pace, like a train careening down a hill.
Don’t say it.
Say it.
Don’t.
Trust.
He worked air in and out of his lungs and pressed his lips together. “I’m going on this mission because of you, Andrea. I don’t know what’s been happening between us for the last two days, but I know you make me feel like I’ve known you all my life, like I want to know you for the rest of it. And I don’t understand why, but I know I have to protect you with my life, and stand with you even in the face of the worst danger. I guess what I’m saying is…” Vadik searched for the right words, but before he could put more sentences together, Andrea burst into tears and crumpled against the window.
Great work, asshat.
The tears streaming down her cheeks burned with guilt. Guilt over lying, not only to her alpha, but to her brother. Guilt over not realizing what was happening between her and Vadik.
They were mates.
The magick ebbing and flowing between them couldn’t be anything else. It may not have been the slap-you-in-the-face type of connection that Maggie and Luther shared. But each couple was different. She should’ve recognized that magnetic pull she
’d sensed from the very beginning. It’d been slow and he’d been so…not her type. He hadn’t even liked her when they first met.
Now they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves, and he was telling her he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. Andrea felt his arm brush against hers as he sank into the seat next to her.
“Are you scared?”
Scared? Crap. She hadn’t had time to process everything else fighting for attention in her brain to be scared of what they were about to do. She couldn’t think about it. They had to do this. If they didn’t, all those women on the island wouldn’t have a chance.
What if Adrian had adjusted the signal since Maggie and Luther’s trip? What if the girls couldn’t even leave the house without dropping dead of an overdose?
Blowing the power before anything else was attempted was the only option. And only she and Vadik would be able to get close enough to do it.
They had one chance. And they might not come back from it. She shuddered through a sob. That was what he’d been trying to say at the end. That he would stand with her through the worst danger. They could die. Inherently, she’d known that all along. He’d started this mission owing Luther and now he was staying for her. He was both-feet-in-staying-for-her.
“I wasn’t scared until you mentioned it,” she whispered. “We’re about to pretend to be two people and do something neither one of us is truly prepared to do. I’m terrified Adrian will see right through our act, but we have to do this. We are their only chance.”
Vadik rubbed his cheek into her hair, nodding ever so slightly. “You said it yourself, to Natalja, we only have to be Ilya and Sasha long enough to find the power stations. Then we disappear into the jungle and wait for the Rangers to storm the place.”
“It sounds so simple.”
He chuffed out a breath. “It is simple. Doesn’t make it easy. It’s you I worry about.”
“You don’t think a werewolf bartender from Texas can take care of herself?”
“I don’t doubt you can. It’s just that my sweet smiling werewolf cowgirl from Texas doesn’t have black ops military training.”
Broken Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Seven Page 9
