by Trina M. Lee
Arys chuckled. “Of course not. Just messing with you, love.”
“You again, huh?” Briggs greeted me from his place on the couch. “Can you get these shitheads to stop with the magic shit? It’s giving me a migraine.” He held a beer, which couldn’t have been his first of the evening. Dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt, he sported a subtle five o’clock shadow.
“Are you drunk again, Briggs? Seems so unlike you, from what I’ve observed.” A little trill of excitement slipped through me. I shouldn’t want to mess with him, but God help me, I did. “Better pace yourself. You’re going to lose that superhero physique to a beer belly.”
“Why are you here?” Utter disdain added to his already grumpy expression. Briggs didn’t bother with a poker face. He wanted me to know exactly what he thought of me.
“You know why. We’ve got to come to some kind of agreement. You want freedom and I want your help. Don’t let your pride keep you a prisoner. It doesn’t have to be that way.” With every word I spoke, his glower deepened. Such a frustrating man. What did Juliet see in him?
Briggs flung a hand out, gesturing wildly at nothing in particular. “All I have left is my pride. What kind of agreement with you could be worth parting with that?”
The sound of glass shards clinking together came from the kitchen. Gabriel cleaned up the mess while Arys leaned on the counter, listening to my conversation.
“You want things from me. You always have. This is your chance.” Rather than wrestle with the stupid soft chair again, I perched on the edge of the coffee table. “And don’t you want to get back in there to check on your lab? I know you were running your own personal experiments in there.”
Briggs stared at me. I stared back. There would be no backing down, no walking away. He would help me, even if I had to force him.
After a lengthy but silent appraisal, he swung his legs off the couch so he could lean forward. Briggs regarded me as an agent now rather than an irritated foe. Studiously he scrutinized everything from my expression to the way I held myself. It was promising to see him go into agent mode after being a lazy drunk for several weeks.
“What are you hoping to gain here, O’Brien? Is this really about Winston taking in the wolves?”
The weight of Arys’s watchful gaze grew heavy. He waited for me to get tough with Briggs, start manipulating him. I hoped the Fed would come around to my way of thinking simply by having his own reasons to make a deal.
“It’s about my people being hunted by yours,” I said with careful consideration. “You think I’m a monster—and maybe you’re right—but those wolves have families and jobs. They’re regular people just like you, Briggs. They don’t deserve to be hunted and used as lab rats.”
“Not to mention,” Arys piped up. “Agent Winston led the raid on Doghead. She stepped into your role and took over everything. Don’t you want your life back?”
I nodded, taking Arys’s angle and running with it. “Winston is also the one who told me the FPA would only kill you if you came back. Maybe she has her reasons for wanting you to stay away. She pretty much said it was fine if I just kill you myself.”
A hand went to his forehead, and Briggs rubbed his frown lines while muttering about Winston being a stone-cold bitch. “I trained under her back in the day. She never liked me, probably because I wasn’t interested in going to bed with her like so many of the other trainees. Went out of her way to make my life hell. She wanted me to fail, but I proved myself. She’s never been able to let that go.”
This was promising. Just what I wanted to hear.
“And now she’s stepping on both our turf. This is my city, Briggs, and it’s yours too. So let’s take it back from her. We can reach some kind of compromise. I’m sure of it.” In my mind, I was crossing my fingers. Who would have guessed he had more reason to hate Winston than he did me?
“You’re asking me to team up with the monsters against my own people.” His statement required no answer so I gave none. His dark stare darted from me to Arys and back. “And if I tell you to go fuck yourself? Is that a death sentence?”
“Your people are monsters too,” Arys said, not content to shut up and let me handle it. “You’ve killed amongst yourselves. Let’s not be hypocritical, hmm?”
Under Arys’s influence Juliet had confessed some of Briggs’s secrets, that being one of them. However, dredging up old shit that had nothing to do with us wouldn’t help. The vampire didn’t give a shit about that. He had to ensure that Briggs knew he couldn’t fool us into thinking he was some kind of holier-than-thou white hat.
Ignoring Arys, I held a hand out toward Briggs and slowly opened it, one finger at a time. Each one held blue and gold tendrils of pure eroticism. It took but a thought to call it forth.
“I truly want this to be a mutual agreement. Really I do. You will help me, Briggs. If not by your own free will, then it will happen under my manipulation.” I waited for my ultimatum to sink in before releasing the writhing wisps.
Although Briggs couldn’t see power the way I could, he leaned back as if he hoped to avoid being a target. He shuddered as the heady force crawled over him like an unseen insect. The rush of desire was immediate. Charged with his fierce masculinity, I couldn’t help but lean in closer to enjoy his virile scent.
Pupils wide and breath coming faster, Briggs put his beer down and rubbed both hands over his face into his hair. “Fuck, O’Brien, why do you have to be such a bitch?”
“I bet you’re hard as a rock right now. Hurts a little, doesn’t it?” My smile was vicious. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I don’t enjoy it any more than you do. But I need help getting into that building unseen, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
Briggs bared clenched teeth. Already perspiration beaded along his forehead and temples as he fought my thrall. He made a hell of a fighter. I loved that about him. The day I’d spent tormenting him had been loads of fun simply because he fought so hard to resist, refusing to succumb entirely and beg me like so many others had.
“There are things I want too,” he grunted, grasping the arm of the couch so hard the material ripped.
“Of course. I wouldn’t expect otherwise.” Just for fun, I turned up the intensity. It was satisfying to watch him squirm. “Be realistic though.”
The glare he turned on me didn’t pack as much venom as he tried for. A good glare proved difficult when flooded with arousal.
I felt an intense stare upon me and glanced up to find both Arys and Gabriel watching with obvious anticipation. My gaze lingered on Gabriel. Hunger burned in his dark eyes. Hunger for me. I’d come close to binding him to me. Having almost tasted my blood once, part of him yearned for it. Not good.
“My freedom is a given. Once I help you, you let me go.” Briggs grabbed the beer bottle and pressed it to the side of his head. “Also, when I get my job back you agree to work with me.”
“I won’t be a weapon for you, Briggs.” I shook my head, hair tumbling about my shoulders. “And I won’t be part of your sick experiments. If I work with you on anything, it will be solely at my discretion.”
He sucked in a deep breath and slugged back the rest of the beer. “Fine. Whatever. Can you please stop that lusty shit? You’re killing me here.”
“Would you like some relief?” I asked, toying with him. “I can sit on your lap if you’d like.”
“Please do,” Arys said, chin propped in one hand as he leaned on the island, watching. “I want to see him beg you for it.”
Briggs’s eyes widened. “Fuck that.”
Arys and I shared a laugh. Gabriel stood stiff, too quiet for my liking.
“Calm down, Briggs; we’re almost done here.” With one finger, I caught his chin, forcing him to look deep into me. “Have we come to an agreement?”
The man shook with the effort he exerted. Freedom from the agony could be found by giving in to the pleasure. Still he fought hard, refusing to accept defeat.
“There’s one more thin
g I want,” he managed to say, though his breath came hard and fast. “Tell me how you kept the wolf once you became a vampire.”
Should’ve seen that one coming. He’d already confessed to swiping my blood without my consent so he could try to create a hybrid like me. As the laws of the supernatural would have it, a werewolf turned into a vampire lost the wolf upon their mortal death. Kale had been one of them. I was a rarity, thanks to Lena, a good friend who knew her shit.
“Magic,” I said after a moment of consideration. “The person who did it is dead now. There is nothing else I can tell you.”
Briggs tilted his head toward Gabriel. “Is it something he could do?”
“You’re asking too much now.” I stated with a glower. “Tomorrow night. You’re going to make sure we don’t get caught or set off alerts of any kind.” I dropped the force flowing between us. I wanted him clear headed when he made this deal. Offering my hand, I waited while he gathered himself. “Do we have a deal?”
Because the man had to milk this for all he could get, he held his hand out but didn’t take mine just yet. “One last thing. Find out if Winston is the one who really wants me dead. You may be able to smell lies, O’Brien, but we’re trained from day one to tell them as if we believe them, so there is no lie to smell. If she’s the one who wants me out, I need to know.”
Not every agent was a good liar. Not even Briggs. However, he had fooled me into believing my sister was in lockup when it fact she was in Las Vegas. Agent Winston could very well have lied.
“Alright. We’ll do that. I’m sure Arys would be more than happy to put the squeeze on her.”
The vampire snickered. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Ok then.” Briggs took my hand and the deal was sealed. “We have a deal.”
CHAPTER NINE
I spent a restless day pacing around the house despite Arys’s best efforts to get me to stay in bed. Now we waited at The Wicked Kiss for Shaz to meet us after he picked up Gabriel and Briggs.
Dressed for sneaking into a haunted hospital, I was as ready as I could possibly get. Leggings were my go-to for the simple reason that they were easy to move in. No restriction. Paired with a racer-back tank, I could move as well as if I’d been naked.
Much to Jez’s annoyance, I’d chosen Briggs, Shaz, and Falon to come inside with me. It seemed safest to go in small and stealthy. If that didn’t work, it would be time to gather the willing and storm the doors.
Hanna was not informed of this mission simply because she’d proven herself unstable. There was no telling what we’d find, and if it were bad, I didn’t need her in there to see it. She could compromise everything.
Falon didn’t know yet that he’d been selected. I needed him though. Briggs could point out the cameras, but only Falon could freeze them without drawing immediate attention. Also, he’d stopped Arys from killing Shaz and me when the building’s evil entity made him lose his mind. He could do the same for me if needed. Falon was vital. I would have asked Willow if I thought he could handle it. Unfortunately I didn’t.
“I’m timing you in there,” Arys said. He lounged in my favorite booth watching me pace impatiently beside it. “One hour. If you’re not out, I’m coming in.”
Nothing short of a miracle, he’d agreed to wait outside with Gabriel as back up. Seeing as getting in and out unseen was the goal, the less of us going in, the better. Considering the evil in that hospital had already made Arys its bitch, I didn’t want to take any chances on him losing it in there. Not until we were ready to tear the place apart.
Now I just had to somehow lure Falon here. I wasn’t sure I could do it on purpose. It seemed to happen subconsciously. The hard part would be convincing him to help me with something that benefited him in no way at all.
I thought about him, about the way I wanted to wrap his power around me and bask in it. It was hard to go there in my mind with Arys sitting there staring at me. Weird didn’t begin to cover it.
“I don’t think I can do it.” I slumped in defeat and came to a halt. Pacing just made the growing apprehension worse. Going into the FPA building always made me a mess of angst.
Arys lifted a dark brow. “Maybe he only feels you when you want him for a need of the succubus kind.” This was said with no condemnation, a mere fact. “It’s been a while since you’ve—”
“Oh no,” I interrupted, as a hot sheet of embarrassment splashed over me. “Don’t go there. I don’t want to think about it.”
Arys looked at me like he didn’t know whether to laugh or frown. He seemed to be doing a bit of both. “Don’t be so uptight. It’s always been about the power for us. The guy is a willing power trip. I get it. You know I do. In fact, I’m a little bummed that you get the firsthand experience while I only get the contact high.”
His smirk was meant to set me at ease. It didn’t. I hated talking about this because I was ashamed. Arys went out of his way to make me feel understood, like it was ok. And that drove me crazy because it wasn’t ok to use someone for a high regardless of the risks involved.
It could never be ok.
When had I started to care? Perhaps that was a good sign. For a while, I’d had a hard time giving a damn that using Falon made me a shitty person. In Arys’s mind, it came with the territory. We were what we were, and he’d embraced that in full long ago. I had yet to do so.
“Trust me, you don’t want the firsthand experience,” I muttered.
Not only would Falon never go for that, but I didn’t think I wanted to see Arys under the influence of the fallen angel’s blood. He didn’t have my flicker of light to keep him from tumbling headlong into the abyss. Like the yin-yang, he had but a speck of my light, an echo really.
A midnight fire smoldered in Arys’s gaze. “Oh, but I do. With you, of course.”
Arys craved the intimacy and the power of a shared victim, a shared hunt. Especially when Shaz was involved. Sharing the hunt with Arys should have come easily. Yet, it didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t love it. Oh, I did. And it scared me. Losing myself in a hunt alone meant the two people I loved most never saw me at my worst.
When Shaz arrived with Briggs and Gabriel, I gave up on Falon. If he’d sensed my call, then he’d chosen to flat out ignore me. Which came as no surprise considering our last conversation. Well… fuck it. We would have to go without him.
Once we’d gathered in the parking lot, I laid out the plan. Get in, locate the Doghead wolves, along with Ebyn and Echo if possible, and get out. Once we knew where they were being kept and what kind of shape they were in, we could better plan our next move.
“So no Falon or Willow? Didn’t think this through, did you?” Briggs openly judged my failure in securing an immortal’s aid. “That’s going to make this a lot more difficult.”
Despite his attitude, Briggs was sober. He’d shaved and cleaned up from days of binge drinking and TV watching. Now if only I really trusted him.
“I tried,” I snapped. “Don’t you have anyone on the inside who can help us out?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t even know whom I can trust at this point. If you don’t have a way to manipulate the camera feed, they’ll know the moment we step foot in the building. I always knew when you were there. I just preferred to let you think I didn’t.” Briggs looked to Arys. “Aren’t you two supposed to be some big bad together? There’s nothing you can do?”
Arys eyed the snide agent, pointedly lingering on the visible scar over the pulse beating in his jugular. A scar Arys himself had given the Fed. Briggs had two such scars, though the one I’d bestowed on him was barely noticeable now. I guess I had a more delicate bite.
“Our brand of big bad tends to be more on the destructive side,” Arys said. “We’re saving that.”
Briggs refused to show the unease that his heart rate gave away. Keeping a tough front, he said, “My swipe card should get us in the doors without tripping the silent alarm. There’s nothing I can do about the cameras without getting up to the cont
rol room unseen, and that’s next to impossible.”
Glaring at Briggs didn’t seem to be helping. We had no choice but to go in anyway.
I almost didn’t notice Gabriel raise his hand, trying to get our attention.
“I can try something,” he said, his gentle voice quiet. “It can be tricky when it comes to tech stuff, but I can try a spell. Take down their system or something. Maybe even a chaos spell of some sort to scramble the cameras.”
Briggs gave a vigorous shake of his head. “The moment anything goes down, they’ll know something is up. Come on, O’Brien, you’re screwing the angel. Don’t tell me you can’t snap your fingers and have him pop right in. Otherwise, we’re kind of fucked.”
The punch Shaz threw was unexpected but welcome. Briggs stumbled back, slipped, and fell against a truck with a grunt. His hand went to his jaw. Glower firmly in place, he got up without another word.
“I just became the person here that you should fear most,” Shaz snarled, eyes flashing wolf. “Don’t ever speak that way to her again. She should’ve killed you after all you’ve done. Show her some fucking respect.”
Damn, if that wasn’t a turn-on, I didn’t know what was. The wicked delight that lit up Arys’s face conveyed his agreement. Shaz radiated a ferocity that was all Alpha wolf. Perhaps Dayne didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into with this one.
Rubbing his jaw, Briggs scowled and muttered something about useless fucking monsters. When he finished pouting, he drew himself up to full height and went on as if nothing had happened. “Tampering with the cameras is risky and buys us very little time even if it works. It didn’t take long for us to discover it even when the angel froze the feed.” Briggs stared off across the parking lot toward the downtown streets. “You’re not going to like this, but I can only think of two options here.”
“Do not even suggest that we let you go in alone.” The thought had crossed my mind, and I’d promptly written it off. We couldn’t trust him.
