by Sylvia Frost
My heart jumps. “Complete the bonding process?”
“Fucking, weresnail. Fucking completes the bonding process.”
My chest feels light and heavy all at once. Sex. Orion and I haven’t had it yet. Not in real life. No matter how close we’ve gotten. No matter how much my body yearns for his. Does that mean I still have a chance to be free of him?
But do I want to be free of him?
And why, if the bond isn’t complete, is Orion being so caring toward me? Why does he worry so much about my safety? Can it really be more than a side effect? And what about Cal? Orion taunted her with a mention of her mate being gone. But she’s not dead.
This time, however, I keep my mouth shut. The interior of the Camry isn’t large enough that I feel comfortable taunting a tiger, even if she only considers me to be in the bottom fiftieth percentile of people she hates.
Cal stares out the windshield for a couple more moments. Looking at what, I’m not sure. There’s nothing to see on the endless expanse of highway.
“Anyway,” she says. “All you need to know is—” Cal pauses, cocks her head, and then digs into her pocket and pulls out her phone.
At first I think she’s trying some ham-handed way of getting out of the conversation, but then I realize that there’s a sound coming out of the sleek object in her hand. A very high-pitched and very faint buzzing.
Does she have a supersonic ringtone? One of the benefits of having a tiger’s hearing as well as strength.
She taps the screen and presses it to her ear before saying, “Hello, Director O’Mailey. What do you have for me now?”
A shiver passes through me.
It’s the FBSI.
The organization that apparently faked my death.
4
Werebeast hunters are almost as old as werebeasts themselves, but while werebeasts were being fragmented by the territory wars of the pre-industrial era, the great hunter families were consolidating their power. The most famous was the Stormwell clan, who earned acclaim by founding the short-lived Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. Despite the gilded pedigree of its founding members and its equally gilded coffers, the FBSI fell apart after the extinction of werebeasts, although its name was the inspiration for the more mundane and now ubiquitous FBI, which was founded a little less than a century later.
Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates
By Dr. Nina M. Strike
My every muscle stiffens as I wait for Cal to speak, for her boss to tell her that their cover-up has been discovered and that they need to act quickly before Orion returns. To kidnap me. God, how can I ever save Lawrence if I can’t even save myself.
I resist the urge to hurl myself out of the car, and when Cal gazes at me out of the corner of her eye I force a smile.
Orion trusts them, I tell myself as I force my breathing to even out. He seems absolutely sure that they have nothing to do with my fake death. And maybe he’s right. Up until this point Cal has seemed as oblivious to my real identity as Orion was.
But maybe her boss isn’t as out of the loop.
Cal rolls her eyes and turns back to her phone. “Yes, I’m here with North and the girl.”
Through the tinny speakers of her smartphone I hear a voice with a high Irish brogue yelling, although I can’t tell what the voice is saying. Cal, on the other hand, is blisteringly clear.
“Stop screaming at me, O’Mailey. We’ve been over this. You needed someone to track them. The motorcycle was the fastest way for me to get here.” Her shoulders tense, her back rising in a way that reminds me of an angry cat.
“Yes, next time I take a motorcycle that I built by hand to chase down a mysterious kidnapper, I will make sure to fill out the fucking paperwork. Dotting our i’s is definitely more important than, I don’t know… actually catching bad guys.” Cal rolls her eyes so far upward, I’m convinced they’re going to slide back into her head.
I hunch backward into the seat, relief loosening my muscles. If her boss is yelling at her about paperwork, it means that I’m probably not on their docket of “problems,” but I still try to make my presence as small as possible. Unfortunately, being a big girl, shrinking is an activity I’ve never been good at.
“Now, do you want to tell me if we have any kind of an update from Stefania about unlocking the phone or tracking the werebeast herd, or has she gotten distracted by some new, shiny conspiracy again?” Cal presses her chin to her chest, listening. “Mhmm, yeah.”
I turn back to the window, fiddling with the glove compartment. Before Orion dragged me off to talk in the woods, he took the gun from my hand and gave it to Cal. I wonder if she put it in here.
The plastic door pops open and the car’s yellowed manual slides out, revealing a stash of parking tickets. Somehow I’m not surprised that Orion has so many. I close the compartment back up.
“What?” Cal hisses. She switches the phone to her other ear, the one farther away from me.
I would lean in to overhear more of what they’re saying, but I think Cal’s personal space bubble comes with an electric fence.
“Stop being so fucking cryptic, O’Mailey, and spit it out.” Cal’s feet slide down from the dashboard. “And why should I care about some old woman’s will?”
I freeze.
Oh, shit. That’s right. My house. It was willed to me under my own name. All they’d have to do is check public records and they’d find out. Although if O’Mailey was in on the plot to cover up my death, he wouldn’t need to look at old records; he would already know I’m alive. Still, I look back at the useless glove compartment again. I wish at the very least I had the gun.
“But that’s impossible,” Cal says. “You must have something wrong.”
My stomach twists as a whole new scenario occurs to me. If Cal and the rest of the New York FBSI aren’t part of the cover-up, that means they’ll need to be convinced that I’m the real Artemis Williams, just like I had to convince Orion.
And somehow I don’t think they’ll accept a story about my dad’s quarters as proof.
I slip my hands behind my back and try to open the car door without Cal noticing. I have to get out of here.
“I don’t believe you. Stefania has more bugs on the internet than the NSA. There’s no way she wouldn’t notice something as basic as a house being willed to a girl who’s supposed to be dead.”
Click. Behind me, the door unlatches. And a second too late I remember that while weretigers don’t have the superior sense of smell that werewolves do, they have something even worse. Superhuman hearing.
Cal whips her head toward me, her eyes narrowing at the exact same moment that the car door opens a sliver.
My lungs clog with fear. If only I were a werechameleon and could just disappear. There’s no chance of me getting out before her reflexes kick in.
She grips the cell phone so tightly in her hands I swear it starts to bend.
“Really,” she says curtly into the phone, her eyes not moving from me. “That’s very interesting.”
I don’t even bother trying to run. I saw what she did to the werecoyote’s mate. If Cal or anyone else at FBSI New York actually wants me dead, I’m as good as gone. Anyway, Orion wouldn’t leave me in a car with Cal if he thought she might seriously harm me. Right?
It’s that thought that makes me pull the door shut and raise my hands in front of me to indicate that I’m not going to run.
“Orion will be there in four hours or so,” Cal says. She ends the call with a simple upward twitch of her shoulder and slips the phone into her pocket. It’s thin enough that it magically goes into her skin-tight leather pants without even creating a bump.
“Four hours but Lawrence — ”
She glares at me and motions at the phone.
But my heartbeat starts to slow. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they don’t know that I’m Artemis Williams yet. Maybe they think it was a paperwork error.
I start to wipe my sweaty palms on m
y jeans, but then realize that they’re caked with mud and decide to press them onto the sides of the seat instead.
“You could have corrected me when we first met,” Cal says toward the windshield.
It takes me a moment to realize that her musing is actually directed at me.
“A-about what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. About you being the Artemis Williams.”
My stomach falls to my toes, and I try to shoot a panicked glance over Cal’s head to see if Orion’s still in the field or if he’s coming toward us. But it’s impossible to see beyond her hair. “I-I’m not.”
“Save it,” Cal says. “I just got off the phone with the director of the New York branch. He told me they just found out someone left a house to Artemis Williams. The house you’re staying at. Which is funny, because our records have Artemis Williams as being deceased. And when we investigated further, we found all kinds of strange things. Like, the supposedly dead Artemis Williams bought a gun only a few days ago. A gun of the same make and model as the one you were carrying.” With a flick of her Sharpie-painted fingernail, she locks the car. “I put it in the trunk, by the way.”
“I don’t know, okay?” I mutter to my feet, not having the courage to meet her no doubt murderous gaze.
To my surprise, Cal gives a long, though still somehow melodious snort. “Well, obviously.”
“What?” Startled, I look up and meet her gaze. Her eyes have a suddenly iridescent gold sheen to them and are… dancing with amusement?
Cal smirks. “It’s really fucking cute that you think anyone could ever mistake you for some great impersonator, weresnail. But there’s no way someone who can’t fire a gun, who throws herself blindly into danger and can’t even say the word ‘torture’ without having a fucking conniption fit is some kind of identity-stealing-and-or-faking-her-own-death mastermind. Clearly someone wanted us to think you were dead, and double clearly, that person is not you.”
Annoyance edges out my fear as my stomach starts to rise from its position in my feet. “Maybe I’m just that good. Maybe I’m hustling you.” I realize a beat too late that it’s probably monumentally stupid to argue for my own guilt.
Cal raises a thick, dark eyebrow. “Riiiight.”
“Fine.” I turn my cheek away from her so that she can’t see the blush staining my skin. “Then who do you think did it?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Orion said something about the Washington branch of the FBSI?”
“All I know is, it’s not us. None of us have clearance to even access your file, let alone tamper with it.”
Whatever Cal was going to say next is cut off as three loud taps sound against the window on the driver’s side. All at once her feet fly off the dashboard back onto the floor of the car and she brushes away the evidence of her destructive tendencies.
It’s Orion.
Still naked, glimmering in the darkness like the moon, he’s standing on the driver’s side. But for all Cal’s hasty cleanup he’s not looking at her or the car. He’s looking at me.
There’s no blood in his hair or on his body, but I know immediately that he killed the coyote. Maybe it’s the tension in his shoulders, or the way his eyes bore into my own, defying me to look away, to be afraid of him.
But I’m not frightened.
The realization washes over me with calm certainty.
He may be a monster, a hunter, a murderer, but there are greater dangers than him in the world. Not just the werecoyote, or even the werebeasts who killed my parents, but the grief inside of me. The abyss in my chest that will never go away. Never completely heal.
Yet when he holds me for a moment, I feel like maybe it won’t swallow me whole.
So I don’t give him the satisfaction of averting my gaze. I see you, I want to say, but settle for offering him a fledgling smile instead.
And this time he looks away first.
5
There is a very brief window between when the werewolf and weremate meet and when they consummate their bond. It is always brief because the power of the bond usually compels the coupling to happen as soon as possible.
Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates
By Dr. Nina M. Strike
The silence is broken by an electric whine as Cal rolls down her window and addresses Orion. “You might’ve told me that your mate was the Artemis Williams, ’Rion.”
Orion bends over and leans through the window, his gaze skating right by the gash Cal’s fingernail left in the dashboard and the mud-splattered seat to catalogue every inch of me. If he’s surprised Cal knows my identity, he doesn’t show it. “It didn’t seem relevant,” he lies smoothly.
He’s the one not wearing any clothes, but I still feel naked under his perusal. The force of his attention is enough to pebble my nipples.
Orion smirks, satisfied by my reaction, and only then shifts his attention to Cal. “How did you find out?”
“O’Mailey and his obsession with paperwork. Your girl’s been kicking up quite a trail.” Cal shrugs.
“And who does O’Mailey think is responsible for the false information?” Orion draws back from the window, resting an elbow on the frame of the car.
“Someone in Washington. Blah blah blah. You know his spiel. ‘Ever since I started employing werebeasts instead of throwing them in cages, D.C. has had it in for us.’ Wah, wah, wah.” Nonchalantly Cal shifts so her palm covers the giant gash her finger left in the dashboard. Not that it matters. Orion still hasn’t noticed the mess she’s made. But that doesn’t mean he’s not irritated.
Orion narrows his eyes, the effect only serving to emphasize his strong cheekbones. “And what do you think?”
“Not sure.” Cal ignores him and shoots a predatory smile my way over her shoulder. “I just know it wasn’t me. If I wanted the world to think the weresnail was dead, I’d kill her.”
I offer her a hybrid between a grimace and a smile in return. “Thanks.”
“No one is killing her,” Orion half-growls.
Cal flips him the bird with a sarcastic grin.
I sit there, frustration and fear festering under my skin like a rash. Figuring out who might or might not have faked my death is a distraction. While we’re arguing about this, who knows what’s happening to Lawrence. I take a breath and assert myself. “Can we focus on what matters here right now, please? What about Lawrence?”
Orion’s gaze flickers to me, his strong brow furrowing with annoyance. “You matter, Little Mate.”
Cal makes a very brief but very loud gagging sound.
I ignore both of them and try again. “Did the coyote tell you anything, Orion?”
Orion nods tightly, obviously restraining himself from biting off Cal’s head. Possibly literally. “Yes. He told me that they transferred Lawrence to their boss shortly after they took him from the house. Probably only a block or two away.”
“What about the point of transfer? Can you get a trail from there?” I ask, trying to cover up my growing anxiety by using professional-sounding lingo.
“Look at this. We’ve got ourselves a little detective.” Cal offers me the closest thing to a genuine smile I’ve seen on her face. It makes me feel a little bit like I’m a dog that’s fetched her newspaper.
Orion gives an authoritarian frown toward Cal. “Unfortunately, no.”
A cold numbness creeps through my body. Lawrence is the only reason I ever called Orion in the first place, and we’re no closer to finding him than we were twenty-four hours ago. I look down. “So we don’t have anything.”
“I didn’t say that,” Orion says. “The coyote told me about another meeting point. A gas station in Castile. They’re scheduled to make contact there in three days to take Lawrence, alive, to another location. The coyote didn’t know where.”
“We should go there now,” I say firmly. “Get a head start on them and surround the place.”
“Great idea,” drawls Cal, any hint of admiration gon
e from her voice as she combs through her hair with her fingers. “Let’s swarm the kidnappers’ meeting place with agents. Then they’ll definitely still bring your friend there. Even when they can smell the FBSI a mile away.”
“We can’t just wait!”
“There is no ‘we’ in this situation, Artemis,” Orion says firmly. “I’m keeping you safe while Cal and the other agents take care of this.”
I open my mouth, ready to protest. Then I remember the cold fury burning in Orion’s eyes when the coyote’s mate put a blade to my throat. That wasn’t just a side effect. He really felt it. Anyway, Cal and Orion are trained professionals, as well as superhumanly strong. In the end, even if I could go, I would only get in the way. And what is my priority, finding Lawrence or trying to be a badass so I feel less useless?
I sigh. “Well, then, where are we going?”
“To hell in a motherfucking handbasket.” Cal shoves her feet back up onto the dashboard.
“Put your feet down, Cal.” Orion glares at her. “For now, we all head back to the FBSI. O’Mailey will have already told Stefania about what he found, I’m sure. And she’ll want to do some DNA tests to verify your identity.”
“Verify my identity?” I bristle. “You said you believed me.”
“Of course I believe you. Stefania and O’Mailey are another matter.” Orion leans in farther through the half-rolled-down window. I catch a whiff of his scent, and in response I hold my breath. I can’t let myself be influenced right now. This is too important.
“And if we don’t convince them that you are who you say you are, there’s a good chance that not only will they not help us find your friend, they’ll go directly to Washington for answers.”
“How do you know that Stefania’s not the one who helped fake my death in the first place? She could’ve hacked the records.”
Cal chides me by sucking at her teeth, her good humor suddenly gone. “How do you know Orion isn’t?”
“Well, I…”
