by Riley Storm
“What do you mean?” Haley and Kaelyn asked at the same time. “You know the restaurant?”
“What? No, never heard of it until today,” he said, turning his attention to his Queen. “Not the restaurant at least. But don’t you see?”
Both she and Haley were staring at him, bewildered. Neither of them had made the connection. But he had.
“All this time, I couldn’t figure out why. Why did Canis want me gone so bad? I’ve been in Europe for a decade, my Queen. I like to think I’ve been doing a good job there, but I certainly haven’t been in open conflict with Canis. Truthfully, we had a bit of an unspoken accord over there to just avoid one another.”
“Yes, we know that,” Kaelyn replied.
“Well, I think I finally have a motive. I don’t know how it relates to Canis. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe someone is using them as well to get back to me. But I have it at last. I know why they’re after me. Whoever they are.”
“Well, tell us already!” Haley exclaimed. “Stop being all mysterious.”
He glanced at the Queen of High House Ursa. This wasn’t his decision right now. It was hers. “It has to do with my last mission in Europe.”
The Queen didn’t hesitate. “I suppose we may as well tell her about that side as well. I suspect she’s going to become more involved over the next little while.”
There was something in her voice, in the way she was hinting at the future. Kincaid couldn’t quite pick it up, but he was positive it was directed at him. The confusion must have shown because Kaelyn smiled briefly.
“What? Tell me about what side?” Haley asked, tugging on his shoulder through the bars.
“The magic side,” the Queen supplied when Kincaid couldn’t find his voice.
He was still trying to figure out just what the Queen had meant by Haley becoming more involved. How could she possibly know that? How much more could she get involved than she already was?
“Wait a honkin’ minute here,” Haley yelped. “Did you say magic? Like what, card tricks and stuff?”
Kincaid shook his head. “No. Like real magic. Mages and staffs and spells.”
“Rigghhht,” Haley said, scoffing at his explanation. “This is all some sort of practical joke, isn’t it? Magic, shifters. I’m on a tv show or something, right? Cause let me tell you, this has gone on too long, and I want out, okay? I’m done. It’s over.”
“It’s no joke, Haley,” the Queen said, also speaking quietly. “It’s quite serious, in fact.”
Haley was rubbing her temple with her free hand. Kincaid still had a firm grip on the other, and he gave it another squeeze now, trying to help her, to let her know he was there as support no matter what.
“Alright. So, magic. Shapeshifters. Little green men from Mars?”
Kincaid coughed to cover his surprise, and to prevent him from saying something he shouldn’t. “Ah, no. To my knowledge, little green men from Mars do not actually exist.” It was a roundabout way of answering the question, but he didn’t want to speak a lie.
“Well, that’s something,” she said, head bent over.
Risking a quick glance at his Queen, he caught the relief in her eyes as well, before they all returned to the subject at hand.
“What do mages have to do with this?” Haley asked, at last, looking up. “Because why wouldn’t this get any more complicated.”
“Well, for starters, you should know that magic users and shifters, they mostly do not get along. At all. There are very few crossovers as well. We tend to stick to our own.”
Kincaid wasn’t sure how best to phrase what he had to say next, and his pause gave Haley a chance to speak up.
“Right. I’m starting to realize that you don’t like to admit the truth. How badly do you not get along?”
The Queen spoke up now, relieving Kincaid of his decision of how much to reveal. “We were at war for nearly fifteen hundred years.”
“Oh,” Haley said in a slightly strangled voice. “Okay. Is that all?”
“We won,” Kincaid said. “Sanctions were imposed on the magic users, and we now enforce those. If a mage gets too powerful or practices spells that are forbidden, they are...”
“You kill them,” Haley said dully. “That’s what you’re saying. You hunt them down.”
“Yes.”
“My last mission in Europe before I was recalled, Kvoss and I hunted down a mage. A particularly powerful one who had come to our attention, though we didn’t realize at the time just how strong he’d become.”
“Right. What the hell does that have to do with a little restaurant all the way back here?”
“The mages name was Samuel. Samuel Girard,” he said quietly.
Haley sat upright. “Girard? Like the restaurant?” She whistled. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe it to be one at all,” he said.
“Nor I,” Kaelyn agreed. “This smacks of revenge, and now we know why. Though we are still lacking who.”
“Could it be the Canis still?” Haley asked as the room fell into silence.
“It could be. We need to figure out how it ties together. The idea of any of the Canim working with magic users is…”
“Unsettling,” the Queen finished. “You must go find out more. Unravel the mystery, the two of you. Together. Before it tears us apart even more.”
Kincaid looked at Haley, but she was staring at the Queen.
“It’s going to be difficult. We’re trapped in prison cells after all.”
The Queen shrugged, and as she did, something clattered to the ground and bounced into his cell.
A key.
Kincaid stared. Kaelyn was taking a major risk with this, one he wasn’t entirely sure she could afford. If it was discovered that she’d aided them in their escape, he doubted that even the most ruthless of her tactics could keep her in power. Her enemies would see her ousted for conspiring with known traitors.
He almost asked her if she was sure about this move. Almost. But Kincaid knew his Queen, and he knew how she would respond to having her judgment questioned. This was her decision, and her decision alone to make. He would not do her injustice by hesitating.
Getting up, he reluctantly let go of Haley’s hand. Kincaid had been holding it, assuming he was helping keep her calm, that she would need his support. Now though, he couldn’t help but realize that he’d taken comfort from it as well. A lot of comfort.
There would be time for that later though. For now, he had to do as his Queen ordered, and free himself from the jail. It was time to track down whoever was after him and expose their plot so that proper justice could be done.
“Even if the prisoners did escape,” the Queen said as he took the key. “It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed. I would assume the Assassin of the House would be on their trail before long. Perhaps twenty-four hours at most.”
He nodded, inserting the key into the lock.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go yell at one of my guards for leaving his SUV parked in the northeast of the manor. The silly man got out and decided to test the perimeter security but left the vehicle with the keys in it on the other side of the fence. I just can’t believe he would be so careless and not return it.”
Kincaid exchanged smiles with his Queen, dipping his head low in thanks. He wasn’t going to fail her. Or himself. Not this time. She departed, leaving the two of them to effect their escape. He pushed the key in all the way and turned it. With a click, the bolts unlocked and he was a free man.
But for how long?
24
Getting to her feet, she met Kincaid at the cell door as he slipped out from his own. Coming over to her, he flashed a smile and went to put the key in the lock.
Haley’s hand beat him to it, her palm pressing against the smooth steel, blocking the keyhole.
“What are you doing?” Kincaid asked with a frown. “We need to go.”
“They’ll come after you if you do this,” she protested. �
�They won’t be as nice next time. You’re already hurt.”
Shaking his head, he motioned for her to move her hand, but she didn’t.
“I have to go, Haley. Can’t you see that? I need to clear my name. To prove to everyone that I’m not a traitor.” His voice dropped. “To prove to you.”
“Kincaid…”
He shook his head, cutting her off. “I know you might not understand. After everything my House has gone through though, they’re hurting. They need to know they can trust me. That I am loyal. More betrayals. The House will fracture if it keeps this up. I can’t let that happen. I just can’t.”
Haley sighed. She could hear the pain in his voice, but beneath that, also the need, the drive that kept him going. It was a powerful thing, and she felt bad fighting him on it, but they couldn’t keep breaking the rules. Not if they ever expected to come out clean from this whole thing.
The more you broke them, the easier it became in the future. Then, before you knew it, you’d be on the wrong side of everything, and you are the criminal, without even knowing it. She couldn’t let that happen. Not to her, and not to him. She didn’t want to see him hurt. Not again.
Kincaid seemed to slump as she still didn’t move her hand. “I…I understand. I won’t ask you to come with me. That’s fair. But you should still go. Don’t stay here. They’ll never let you go. Your life could be in danger. Go back home. You’ll lose your job, but you’ll still have your freedom. Your life. Let me take you back to the city at least, then we can go our separate ways.”
She thought about it. What he was saying did make some sense. Leaving probably would be her best bet, but the concept of breaking the law to escape was so fundamentally against who she was, that she didn’t think she could bring herself to do it.
“What will happen to you?”
Kincaid shrugged. “I’ll succeed. Or I won’t.”
Haley was silent. “I need my boring life back, Kincaid. I don’t think I can do this. You’re a nice person, and I wish this hadn’t happened to you, but I can’t live this life. I can’t be a part of your world. It’s too chaotic.” She screwed her eyes shut. “I just can’t.”
“You won’t get your life back by staying here, Haley. If they come to find me gone, they’ll take it out on you. Trust me, nobody will ever find you here. They’ll leave you alone if you go back to town, keep your mouth shut and try to forget about all this. That’s the only way.”
She couldn’t bring herself to do it. That would be too much like breaking the law and living on the run. Haley would live every day in fear that they would come after her. In the middle of the night, if she heard a sound, she’d never know if it was just the house creaking, or Kvoss coming to snatch her away and bring her back here.
Kincaid looked over his shoulder. “I can’t stay for much longer, Haley. At some point, someone will be back to check on us, and I need as much of a head start as possible before then. You need to make up your mind.”
She hung her head, resting it against the bars, hand still covering the lock. “Would it be easier if I came with you?”
“Honestly?” he said awkwardly. “No, probably not at first. Escaping with the two of us is going to be a lot tougher than just me doing it. I can move faster and quieter than you, and I know my way around. Plus, I have…senses, that you don’t.”
It wasn’t the answer she’d expected, but it made complete sense. “Why are you so adamant that I come with you then? It has to be more than just fear for my own life.”
Kincaid hesitated now. In fact, he looked away and shifted his weight from side to side. “I just don’t want to see you hurt for something you didn’t do. I forced you to come with me, and now you’re all caught up in this.”
“Actually, your Queen did that,” she pointed out. “Why, Kincaid? What do you want with me coming with you?”
“I enjoy and value your company,” he said tightly, glancing at her, then away, then back at her. “I…I don’t want to leave you. I want you with me. To come with me, I mean.”
Now Haley was truly torn. She’d felt something when he’d kissed her, and now she had confirmation that he had too. Somehow, the big jerk was showing a side of himself he hadn’t before, and she was becoming interested in him.
This isn’t good.
“Haley,” he pressed. “I need you to move your hand now.”
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. There had to be another way. A way that didn’t involve them breaking the rules yet again. It was doing that which had landed them in their spot, and if she—
“I need to go,” he repeated, his voice more pained than ever. “I’m sorry.”
He laid the key on the horizontal bar. “I’m so sorry Haley. I never wanted this. I should have listened to you, and never let you get involved at all. This is all my fault, and I can never make that up to you. I…”
Haunted blue eyes stared at her, filling with emotions that she could barely process. One above them all won out, and her heart nearly shattered as she saw the hurt in them. The hurt from her rejection of him. That was what she was doing, essentially, saying no to him on every level by staying there.
There was the ghost of a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness as well, moving so quietly she didn’t hear him go as he fled down the tunnel to the right.
Almost immediately, the silence closed in around her. Haley retreated to the back of her cell, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes, however, were still locked on to the key that Kincaid had left. It wouldn’t do her much good on her own. There was no way she could escape the maze of Ursidae Manor alone.
If she was going to go, if she was going to make a break for it, it would have to be now, before Kincaid got too far ahead of her. It might even be too late already.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she stayed huddled there, trying to figure out what to do. Did she stick with what years of her life were screaming at her to do?
Or did she take a risk?
25
He crept down the hallway, trying to keep his mind there in the moment with him, and not back in his cell.
Not once had Kincaid expected that Haley would refuse to come with him. In his mind, he’d seen the two of them together, making good their escape from the manor and racing off into the night to prove their innocence. Then, when nobody was after them, and only then, could he figure out just what the hell he’d been thinking when he’d kissed her.
Approaching an intersection of hallways, he slowed his pace, so he wasn’t even making the slightest of sounds. The first step would be getting out of the building itself. Then he would have to get across the nearby grounds, and finally the outer perimeter of forest and bush.
Not for the first time he cursed himself, wishing he’d been born as anything but a polar bear. They weren’t all that uncommon, but they were enough in number that if one was seen wandering around at night, they would probably be stopped and questioned. If he’d been born with black or brown fur, in all likelihood he could simply waltz out into the darkness of the night without being stopped.
Assuming he got that far before the alarms went up. The Queen had stayed for a long time, and then his chat with Haley on top of that had created quite a length of time without a guard coming by.
Perhaps Kaelyn saw to that as well?
It didn’t matter. He had an opening, and he had to make it. Any second now, someone could come chasing down the hallway after him, and then Kincaid would have to make a decision. If he could stop them quietly, without alerting anyone, he would be forced to do so.
He desperately hoped he wouldn’t be put into the position of having to fight one of his own.
Peeking around the corner, Kincaid scanned the corridor beyond. It was much more well-lit, and if anyone saw him, he’d be toast, but it appeared to be empty, much to his relief. At this hour, most of the House would be in bed, which meant he could hopefully get to the hidden passages before anyone saw him.
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Guards monitored the passages as well as the main hallway, but few of them were monitoring for people trying to escape. Their primary purpose was to prevent anyone from getting in to Ursidae Manor. Kincaid was going to use that against them. Hopefully.
He darted across the intersection and into a darkened alcove, pressing softly against the bottom corner of the picture frame mounted to the wall. He held his breath as the wall panel clicked open. It wasn’t a loud noise, but it was very telltale, and this close to the prison area it would certainly arouse suspicion.
He was just about to close the panel behind him when he heard someone approaching.
Shit.
He’d been so close, but there was no way it could close now without alerting anyone. Cursing in frustration, Kincaid slipped back out of the hidden passage and pushed the panel until it was almost closed. Then he waited in the alcove for the guard to catch up with him.
He would have to be swift about it. There wasn’t time for niceties. This would be dirty and ugly. Any noise would bring more guards in a hurry. Kincaid couldn’t afford to get bogged down in a protracted fight. He had to go for an ending-strike immediately.
Regretting what he was about to do, he readied his leg for a hard kick directly into the guard’s most vulnerable region. Shifters were tough, but every man had the same weak spot.
He spied someone coming down the corridor from the prison area, only their shadow visible as they moved quickly. Counting down two more seconds, he raced across the larger hallway and drove his knee upward even as his forearm went for where he expected the neck to be.
“Kincaid?”
“Haley?” he hissed, turning himself to the side as the light from the hallway revealed her much more diminutive form. Kincaid went down hard, bouncing off the wall and rolling over his head before coming to a halt.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, bending over him, her chestnut hair falling past her shoulder as she looked at him with concern.
“I thought you were a guard,” he hissed, too worried about someone having heard him to be excited over her arrival and her decision to come with him. There would be time for that later if they made it out. “Come on!”
