by Helen Scott
Victor hung suspended in the air for a while before his head snapped up. The silver of his eyes was gone, replaced by a red glow that made it look like the light was coming from within him. As the energy in the room increased, Victor’s pale skin began to show intricate markings all over his face and down his neck, finally appearing on his hands and fingertips. The bright white lines on his skin dulled to a silver as his attention focused on the bowl and blade in front of him.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure what was happening, but then the lines flared again as though he was drawing some kind of power into himself. When the glow of the lines remained steady and was more white than silver, he tipped the contents of the bowl over the dagger. The ruby liquid hung suspended in the air just below the blade, which was also coated in the blood. He smeared the viscous liquid all over the silver before bringing it to his hand and slicing into his palm in a similar way he had done to Elijah, and then he sliced into the other hand. Finally, he brought the blade to his lips. He kissed the blood-soaked metal and let it fall.
It hung in the air the same as the blood, which he reached out to. Valentina could swear she saw the blood going in the cuts in his hands as he reached toward it. She had seen him bleed before when he’d cut his hand at the same time as Elijah’s, and she knew his blood was silver. It wasn’t something she had expected; she’d heard the rumors as she was growing up, but had always dismissed them as just that, rumors. So, if he bled silver, why were the cuts on his hands red?
Victor grasped the knife again in his bloodied hands and began speaking to it in a language she didn’t recognize. It was melodic but full of hissing sounds and elongated vowels. In a way, it was beautiful, but it was also the kind of language that haunted dreams.
She wasn’t sure how long exactly it went on for since the whole performance was hypnotic, but when his voice fell silent and he flipped his hold on the dagger, she could tell it was coming to an end. It didn’t hurt that the energy in the room had reached what felt like a fever pitch, making her skin itch and the jaguar growl within her. Suddenly, Victor was laser-focused on Elijah. He said what she thought were a few more words in that strange language and then threw the dagger at him.
Her heart stopped as the silver blade sailed through the air, end over end, until it bounced off a wall and landed on the map. The tip of the blade embedded in the paper and the table underneath.
By the time she looked back up at Victor, he was back on the ground. The glowing lines on his face had faded, and the blood-red sheen to his eyes was gone, leaving just the gleaming silver in its place.
“That is where he was for longer than a few minutes,” the mage said, sounding tired, not completely exhausted, but as though he’d gone for a good run.
Valentina leaned in to look at the blade and the blood now draining off it onto the map itself. “Can I wipe the blood away?”
“If it offends you, yes. The hole is where he was; the blood, if left, will eventually highlight the path he took.” Victor sat on the chair opposite them once more, and the cat returned to his side and began licking his hands.
She wanted to ask if that was sanitary, but then looking at the cat once more, she had no doubt that it was a familiar or something similar. No Siamese house cat was that big, and they certainly wouldn’t stand guard or bring golden bowls to their owners’ feet. Her curiosity got the better of her, so she sat back and waited. While it wasn’t particularly clear, she could see where certain areas of the map were getting darker, especially along the roads.
As she thought back to the route Anthony had showed them on his laptop, she knew that it was accurate. The darker red lines followed the roads he had pointed out, and shortly after he stopped being able to track them, the dagger was embedded in the map.
What she hadn’t expected was seeing the lines appear coming out of the section where the tip of the dagger was embedded. It made sense, of course; she just hadn’t thought of it. The route on the other side of the dagger wasn’t straight, though. Hell, it wasn’t even crooked. It looked more like a child learning to write than anything else, but as her eyes traveled along the path, she could see that it cut through forest preserves, community parks, anywhere with significant tree cover.
She could tell that, even though there were more loops than a roller coaster on the path, the general direction he had been heading was north, and although the path wavered from left to right, Valentina knew that if she unfolded the map and drew a straight line north, it would either run close to or go directly to Woodhaven.
The idea of him being drawn there sent a shiver down her spine. Elijah had frozen next to her, and when she looked up at his face, she could see that his eyes were the pale jade green of his panther, while his fingernails were turning the dark black of his claws.
If he didn’t get out of there soon, she could have an interspecies incident on her hands. Just the thought of a shifter killing, or just injuring, a mage was enough to make her blood run cold. The mage clans would retaliate without mercy, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to be the one who caused that to happen.
She summoned all her alpha power to her, searching within herself for a direct connection with her jaguar, and said, “Elijah, go wait on the porch. I’ll be right out.” The power in her voice reverberated between the two of them, and he sat there longer than anyone else in her pack would have. When he looked at her with those jade eyes, she thought he might stand his ground, try to out alpha her, but then he was on his feet and moving toward the door.
“He couldn’t have hurt me,” Victor said in a sure voice.
“Not worth the risk. Would you mind removing your dagger from the map?” A hand as pale as the moon itself reached out from the folds of his robe and plucked the silver dagger from the paper. “Thank you for your assistance, Victor. Now, is there anything else I need to do, or can I take the map and get us out of your hair?”
“The map is all yours, but the favor you owe is all mine, and a mage doesn’t forget a debt.” He smiled at her, but it was close lipped, smug, and made her very bones feel cold.
Chapter 19
They had gone back to the estate where Valentina had changed into something more casual that she claimed wouldn’t draw attention as much. Elijah had wanted to laugh. It was as though the woman had no idea she looked like a model with extra curves in all the right places, but they had been in a rush to get back out the door. Their destination was the hole in the map, but neither of them knew what they would find when they got there.
He knew he had promised to devour her when they got somewhere private, but she was way too focused on what was coming next, and he got the feeling that if he tried anything, he’d find out exactly how sharp a jaguar’s claws were.
The generic black SUV that had replaced the one they had left at the construction company was a bit bigger and the engine was louder, which was unfortunate given their sneaky objective. They parked at the forest preserve a couple miles away and hiked the rest of the way toward the hole in the map. What they found was a junkyard, or at least what used to be a junkyard, but now looked more like a trash dump in general than anything specific.
Thick wire fencing surrounded the place, with the main structure being the only thing that stood out. The building almost looked as if it was constructed solely out of corrugated metal, which had been blue at some point, but the paint was now mostly gone. The scent of oil and grease hung heavy in the air, which made sense when she looked around. The lot was filled with cars, vans, and even some semi-truck cabs, most of which were missing important pieces. A large gate was pulled across the driveway, one that would no doubt make one hell of a noise if they tried to open it. The whole place was surrounded by trees, and he would be willing to bet that whoever owned it owned up to exactly where the fence was and no more.
A hissing sound drew his attention, and he found Valentina perched in the crux of a tree. Her ebony hair had been pulled back into a long, silky ponytail, and her faded blue jeans and black leather
jacket did nothing to hide her in the green foliage. He loped over to her tree and looked up.
“We can jump over from here. There is a clear patch of ground on the other side of the fence. I’ll go now, you follow.”
The woman didn’t even wait for him to respond before launching herself from the branch, over the chain-link fence, and onto the muddy ground below. He wanted to yell at her, to tell her how reckless she was being, but he knew the best thing he could do was catch up with her, so he was in the tree and over the fence before he drew his next breath.
A low growl greeted them as he straightened and brushed off his jeans, and as he looked up, he saw the scrapyard’s resident mutt bearing its teeth at them. The thing was rail thin, its ribs poking out on each side, while his hips, shoulders, and spine stood out painfully through the skin on his back.
Without turning, Valentina said in a hushed voice, “Stay there and don’t move. Don’t make eye contact with the dog.” Her hand fumbled in her pocket, and she reached her arm back without looking. “Take this, message Imogen, and tell her that there is a pick up. Don’t forget to share our location.”
He wanted to disagree with her, to tell her that they needed to subdue the animal somehow, to shove the phone back in her hand, but the way the dog looked and the fact that she ran an animal shelter kept him still. Quickly, he messaged Imogen and shoved the phone in his own back pocket. He had never so much as owned a dog, so if either of them was going to try to approach it, she was their best bet.
Valentina squatted and edged forward with her body turned to the side. “Easy, pup, we’re friends. I’m going to help you get out of here, okay? Get you to a nice warm home with all the food you want. Doesn’t that sound good?” Her voice was low, and even as she spoke to the dog, and Elijah could feel the alpha power rolling off her.
By the time she reached the dog, it had settled and was sniffing at her outstretched hand with interest.
“Can you stay here? We need to go inside, but I’ll get you on the way out, okay?” He wasn’t sure if she was talking to the dog like that because she could make it understand her, or because she just felt like she needed to. “Elijah, slowly walk past me. Try to keep your body to the side, if you can. It will make you look less threatening.”
He followed her instructions and passed the dog, waiting for the thing to whip around and go after him, but nothing happened. Valentina kept whispering to it about how good it was and how she was going to fix everything. The woman was grace under pressure.
When she stood up and walked away from the dog, it stayed in place, exactly as she had said. Together, they headed into the building. The whole place appeared to be empty, which was strange. He thought there would have been guards or something to prevent people from escaping, or breaking in, as they were doing.
The door to the building squeaked loudly when they opened it, and as though she had given up on being sneaky, Valentina just strolled in, bold as brass. “Valentina,” Elijah angrily whispered, “what are we doing? We don’t have a plan, and if someone is here, then we just announced our presence. We should turn around, get the dog, and come back another time, maybe bring a can of oil with us.”
“I appreciate the concern, but no. We are ending this tonight, one way or another,” she said, glaring at him with fire in her eyes.
Elijah looked around, expecting them to be attacked at any moment, but what he saw was just a regular shop, a bit disorganized, but nothing disastrous. They moved around cautiously. Two desks took up most of the space, and there was little else in the room, which was strange since it had seemed bigger when they had looked from the street.
“Do you smell that?”
He paused and waited for his brain to kick into gear. When he caught the scent, his panther roared within him. This was where he had been held. Memories started flooding him, from the first fight with the doctor and his guards all the way to his escape, something he hadn’t remembered until now. “This way,” he said as he followed the direction his panther was pulling him.
A door was hidden just behind a shelving unit. He could barely see it at first, but when he tugged on the shelves, they easily gave way and the door revealed itself. He tried the handle.
It was locked, of course. Anger ignited within him at the thought of being stuck so close to his goal.
“You can open it if you try.” Valentina’s voice was soft behind him as the fire of his rage stoked higher.
He squeezed the metal handle, which crumpled in his grip, and shoved at the door. The wood splintered and cracked all around him until the thing just hung on its hinges. When they went through to the other side, he realized that there must be another level to the building as well, because all that was in this new area was the white-paneled van that had taken him, and since there obviously wasn’t a second floor, that meant whatever else there was had to be underneath them.
Moving on instinct, he found the door to the basement and was down the stairs before Valentina caught up with him. This smelled right, and the whole area was starting to seem familiar. He moved along the hall and found a large room full of cages the size of prison cells. Most were empty, but some held prisoners.
His stomach revolted at the image, and he had to fight the urge to rage and tear everything down. They needed to find out who was running this place before he could do that, but once they had that information, he was going to destroy everything, burn the whole damn place to the ground if he had to.
The whole room was filled with the scents of different animals, different shifters. It had his panther on edge. Bears, wolves, horses, among a myriad of others. It was almost too much. As he passed the first occupied cell, a woman roused. Big brown eyes stared up at him, and her lip quivered as her raspy voice said, “You came back?”
“Do you know where the panther is? The man with the tattoos?” The question scared her, and she backed up into the corner of her cell, clutching her arms around her knees and shaking her head.
The other prisoners had overheard their conversation and were watching, but no one was talking. Valentina silently made her way down the row of cages, her shoes not making a sound on the concrete floor, looking at each person. He knew she was cataloging injuries and remembering their faces. When something bumped and the sound of a door swinging open reached them, they all froze. She motioned for him to hide while she did the same.
Soon enough, the guard walked in. Rage exploded within him as Elijah recognized the woman who had taken him from the bar, who had helped put him in a cage. He took a step forward, but before he could reach her, she was running to the other end of the room where he saw Valentina. He didn’t know when, maybe when she’d sensed his recognition, but she’d emerged from her hiding spot. As the woman ran toward her, she pulled a weapon from a special holster on her thigh, and when she flicked her wrist and it extended, he recognized it as the cattle prod that had been used on him before. A roar erupted out of him at the thought of his enemy hurting the woman he cared about. The guard spun to face the new threat.
“The prodigal son returns,” she said, smiling at him.
He was going to destroy this woman for everything she had done to him and to everyone else there. Valentina burst into action, attacking the woman from behind and wrenching the cattle prod from her hand as she clutched at her while they both fell to the ground.
The guard’s face smashed into the concrete. A shriek of pain escaped her, and blood gushed from what could only be a broken nose as the jaguar picked her head up and knocked it against the floor again. The woman fell silent, and Valentina felt for a pulse. Seemingly satisfied with whatever she’d found, she grabbed the keys off the woman’s belt and stood, looking around at all the prisoners again.
In a quiet voice, she said, “My name is Valentina Cordoza, and I’m the alpha of the Midnight pack. This is my territory. We are going to open the cages and let you out, but first, I would like to make you an offer. Anyone who would like a place to sleep and bathe, a good meal, clean c
lothes, and whatever else you need, you are welcome to return to my pack headquarters with me.
“I am offering you sanctuary for however long you need, the same as I have offered to Elijah.” She gestured to him with a hand. “All you have to do is wait for us. Now, I know that’s terrifying considering you’ve been trapped here as prisoners, but I promise you that we will get you to safety. Elijah is going to use my phone to message my packmates and ask them to come pick up whoever wants to stay with us. Aren’t you, Elijah?”
“Yep,” he said, pulling the phone out of his back pocket. He had forgotten it was there until she mentioned it. As quickly as he could, he tapped out a message to the pack, advising them of the situation and asking for backup vehicles, because he suspected a lot of the prisoners would take her up on the offer.
“Once we get you back to our place, I would love to talk to each and every one of you about what happened here, and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said as she began unlocking the cages.
The prisoners stayed exactly where they were, and though they were trying to be patient, Elijah knew they had to move before either another guard or the doctor himself came.
“If one of you would kindly leave your cell so I can lock this guard up, it would be much appreciated. Oh, and please don’t harm her. We need to question her.”
A large man pushed out of his cage, and Elijah went on high alert as he moved toward Valentina.
“Thanks, lady,” he said in a low voice as he picked up the guard and put her into his cell.
Valentina followed behind him and locked the door.
“We have to keep searching, but please stay if you want to come home with us.”
