by Morgan Wylie
Everyone chuckled a bit, releasing the earlier tension.
“So they are still in town. We need to find them. Enock, we might need to call in your connection at Triumph and set up a stakeout so we can follow them back to wherever it is they’ve been hiding.” Enock nodded and pulled out his cell and immediately placed a text.
“Maybe you should ask your mate if she remembers any other places they might be,” Mai intoned as if it wasn’t meant to be a slap in the face.
Alana looked up harshly, taken aback. Rylen placed his hand on her shoulder. “We have talked at length, and there is nothing more to say on that front, Mai. Let it rest.” It sounded like casual conversation, but there was a command in the undertone of what he said.
“Shit,” Enock blurted out as he slapped the back of his neck. Everyone’s gaze swung to where he was now standing, looking around the couch. Enock pulled his hand away and studied it.
“What the fuck, man?” Mather asked. Lucius leaned back further against the wall he had been standing in front of, crossing his arms with a frown on his face, his swath of black hair falling onto one of his eyes.
“Something bit me,” he said, unnerved. “Nothing ever bites me—well except that one time,” he joked, referring to when he was turned into a vampire. Subtle laughter ensued. “Seriously, though, most things don’t understand the way my skin smells and stay away from me. I can’t remember the last time a bug bit me.” He held out his hand revealing a squished black and red blob. “I think it was a beetle or maybe a spider,” he guessed. He looked up sharply at Rylen.
Rylen’s eyes bore into the bug, now extinguished on Enock’s hand willing it to give him answers, but to no avail.
“All right. I want small teams scouting out Triumph and the surrounding area. Enock, since you have a contact there, you’re in charge of setting up the rotation. We’ll talk more in a bit. Everyone else dismissed except for Mat, Luc, and Enock. Stay close for your new assignments,” Rylen instructed.
Before she could leave, Rylen reached for Mai and pulled her in for a hug. “Spies?” he whispered into her hair.
“Everywhere,” she whispered in return.
“Shit. How?” he asked quickly as she started to pull away.
“You might want to fumigate,” Mai suggested cryptically.
Rylen’s forehead scrunched, and he looked beyond Mai to where the guys stood still leaning against the wall near the bookcases watching the interaction attentively—although, for as quietly and as closely as they had whispered, Mather and Lucius wouldn’t have been able to hear what they said, shifter hearing or not. Mai’s gaze bore intently into Rylen’s in attempt to convey a message, that much was clear to Rylen, but what the message was, he had to guess at himself.
Mai backed fully out of his embrace and left the Den with less attitude than she had before. In that moment, she seemed almost smaller than she was.
Mather approached from behind. “What was that all about?”
“Not sure yet, but we might need to do a sweep for bugs.”
“Bugs? Literally or technically?” Mather raised a brow to Rylen, but Rylen only shrugged.
“Both?”
“I hate bugs,” Mather grumbled then lumbered out of the room.
“Me too,” Rylen spoke under his breath and sighed. “All right, let’s go see what other problems we can stir up. E, I want you on Triumph. Luc, I want you on Gracie.” Mather and Enock erupted into snickers.
“Are you twelve?” Lucius asked dryly.
“Most days,” Enock laughed.
“That was my bad. Luc, I want you to continue heading up guard duty on Gracie and the Lair in general. I feel something coming but am not sure what it is yet. It may already be here.” Rylen took a breath. “Mat, I want you to continue working with Poppy on the letter. See if there are any other clues to who it is that sent them.”
Mather grumbled under his breath, yet his wolf rumbled with satisfaction.
“We are going to need everyone on point for whatever it is that’s coming.”
“Do you have any ideas, Rylen?” Lucius asked.
Rylen pursed his lips in thought. “I have something, but we need to go off campus for this.”
Mather sighed with relief at Rylen’s suggestion. After what he learned last night with Mai, he had plenty to share.
“Let’s do it!” Enock pumped his fist in the air. “We haven’t had a road trip in a while.”
Mather agreed, “Oh, man. You’re right, we do need a guy’s road trip. Maybe head down the west coast, cruise 101 by the ocean.” They fist-bumped in excitement.
“Not really what I meant, however much fun that would be. But after all the dust settles, let’s do that,” Rylen agreed with a smile.
“He meant we need to have a meeting outside the Lair,” Lucius pointed out the obvious for the twelve-year-olds who were so easily distracted.
“Run through your tasks and get whatever needs to be covered taken care of, and we will do an off-site this afternoon.”
“Where you want to meet?” Enock asked.
“I’ll let you know when we get there,” Rylen mentioned mysteriously then headed for the door.
Chapter Eleven
“Hey, man, why are we walking, Rylen?” Enock asked as the inner circle walked down the sidewalks of Seattle. At this time of the morning, few were taking up space on the sidewalk aside from business people heading to meetings or work. The sun was shining this morning, but there was a frigid breeze in the air as fall was approaching.
“Because, aside from you three, I trust no one and nothing right now,” Rylen replied matter-of-factly as he looked casually around him as if just taking in the sights.
“Fair enough,” Enock responded in kind, shrugging his shoulders as if Rylen hadn’t just told him he thought their Lair had been compromised by either member, magic, or both.
Lucius frowned, squinting as the golden rays of sunshine reflected off the surrounding mirrored glass of several buildings they passed. He slowly scanned the area, taking in everything and everyone. His fists flexed at his sides, something was bothering him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “How long will this take, Rylen?”
Rylen turned his face toward Lucius. He was slow to respond, evaluating his friend’s response.
“Do you got a hot date, Luc?” Enock slugged Mather in the shoulder as if he would appreciate the joke. They scoffed at each other until they realized no one else was laughing.
“Spit it out, Luc,” Rylen pressed.
“The Lair is guarded.” Rylen nodded, not sure he was following Luc’s line of thought—which wasn’t unusual.
“Yes, we made sure we assigned more of our guard than usual when we left,” Rylen stated. “You chose them yourself,” he added.
Luc nodded curtly in agreement. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right, that’s all.” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.
Rylen rarely saw Luc show any kind of agitation other than anger. “We’ll stay close and make this as fast as possible. Then we’ll head back.”
Lucius nodded his acceptance. It would have to be good enough.
They walked for a few more minutes so that they weren’t too far from the Lair, but also that they weren’t just talking on the sidewalk right by the hotel, either. Rylen found a small outcropping of grass with a few trees and a picnic table. It was probably one of those little urban areas created for the workforce of Seattle to take a break and breathe fresh air—too bad only a handful of people could use it at a time. Luckily for them, however, there was only one person sitting and enjoying his coffee. Conveniently, as soon as the man dressed in a tailored gray business suit saw them approach, he gathered his briefcase in one hand and his coffee and newspaper in the other. He left with a polite, “Good morning, Gentlemen,” moving swiftly as if afraid they would chase him out.
“Stuffy business type,” Enock scoffed, yet there was something in his eyes that resembled longing as his gaze foll
owed the man briefly down the side street.
The guys moved in toward the cement picnic table. Mather jumped up to sit on top of it at one end while Enock sat facing the table on one of the benches. Lucius stood stoically at the side of the table. They all faced Rylen with expectation in their expressions.
“We have a problem.” Rylen stared them each in the eye. “There have been little shifts in energy in the Lair, slight disturbances in the magic, flareups of the aggression in my magic, now this thing with Alana’s…” Rylen took a deep breath, “with Alana’s essence fading, and people complaining of bites. Too much is happening to ignore it or to call it random occurrences. The Lair has been compromised.”
Each of the guys slowly moved their heads up and down in accepting nods.
“Same source? Or separate occurrences?” Lucius asked, his arms folded tightly across his chest.
“Not sure yet. My gut says the same, but I have no proof yet,” Rylen replied. “The question is who is it?”
“And how did it or they get in the Lair? We set up boundaries, magical restrictions for something just like this,” Mather growled, infuriated.
“Also, what do they want?” Enock added to the piling questions they didn’t have answers for yet.
“I don’t know… yet,” Rylen admitted, almost growling. His frustration shown through the hard set of his eyes as he raked his fingers through the top of his short hair, the only place there was enough to grip. He paced in a tight line before turning back to face his brothers. “What can we figure out? Mather report on the job last night. Anything else you left out? There must be connections somewhere. Maybe if we follow the dots closely, we can find them.”
Mather looked slightly taken aback with the conversation switch, but he recovered quickly. Clearing his throat, he reported as he had to the group at large. “The job went smoothly. No problems. The mark, John Swanson, was pleased with how everything went and Mai’s performance as his date. He’ll work with us again. To the outward appearance, all was fan-fuckingtastic; however, a whole lot of shit was uncovered…”
“Mai?” Rylen interrupted.
“Oh yeah. I have the insight there. This is how it went down: I lost her for a total of five minutes. She excused herself to the ladies’ room, but she didn’t go there or at least not only there. She turned off comms and didn’t respond, claiming she wanted privacy in the restroom. I let it slide, but something was off. Everything else she did was flawless Mai, just as always.
“You followed her?” Lucius asked him straight forward.
Mather looked at his twin brother for a moment, considering. “Of course, I followed her, that’s what I do.” He smiled at Luc. “I thought maybe it was a meetup. Turns out, I was right.”
Rylen frowned but nodded once. “I was afraid there was more going on with Mai than her initial reactions toward my mate. They just didn’t make a lot of sense coming from her.”
Mather jumped in to finish his story. “Yep. She was meeting someone alright, but it’s not what you’re thinking.” He jumped down from his perch on top the table. “Black Widow has her brother. She’s been holding him captive and possibly torturing him for weeks now. Mai was delivering some kind of info to a guy sent by Black Widow—which by the way, the entire job was set up by her as well.”
“Fuck,” came from Rylen at the same time, “Shit,” came from Enock.
“There’s more,” Mather continued, “Widow has been having Mai stir things up between you and Alana, Rylen. She’s been blackmailing Mai with her own brother!” Mather used his hands expressively as he shared his disgust at what had been happening. “She has a way of knowing what’s going on, but Mai didn’t elaborate on that with me. She needed me to rat her out to you since there wasn’t a time she could get you alone right now.”
Rylen paced with a frown marring his face and his hand tight against his mouth, deep in thought. “I need to find a way to talk to her. This has to stop. What game is Widow playing at?” He looked out to the bustle of the morning Seattle traffic that had increased exponentially since they had arrived. “Okay, add that to the growing list of things to take care of.” Rylen dragged a hand down his tired face. “Any thoughts for me regarding my mate? Any clues or insights? I’ll take anything at this point.” Rylen sighed, his face a pinched expression of helpless vulnerability.
The boys looked from one to another, slowly shaking their heads.
“What about the Fairfax Group? E, have you heard anything from Triumph?”
Enock inhaled deeply before speaking, which was never a good sign. “All my contact said is they haven’t come back since the other night. He’ll let me know as soon as they do. He thinks they seem to be plotting something. The last couple times they were there, it looked like they were meeting various contacts for a few minutes each, then they were dismissed before the next approached them like a god-dammed lunch line. Little did they know that, in a place like that, they could be the lunch.” Enock laughed at his own joke.
“You mean they were meeting humans in that forsaken place?” Mather inquired.
“Sure were. Humans traffic in there periodically or are brought in with an invitation from a vamp—usually because they are committed donors or are about to be.” Enock looked away at the shiny buildings then back to Rylen’s eyes. “It’s not pretty, but some of the humans are there willingly as much to my dismay as anyone’s.”
“We know, E. Don’t sweat it,” Mather excused.
“Stay on top of it for me, E, please,” Rylen instructed.
“You got it, boss.” Enock sat back and closed his eyes, tilting his head toward the sun to enjoy the warm rays for a brief moment. It was a myth that vampires couldn’t be out in the sun. It could get uncomfortable for him if he was out in it too long, but he hadn’t seen anyone combust from it yet. Now, a nasty heat rash, that he had seen when vampires were out for too long in the pinnacle of a hot summer sun. But again, that was rare, especially in this part of the country. It’s why Enock liked the Pacific Northwest. There was plenty of cloud coverage in this area and the hottest times of summer were still bearable in small quantities.
“Any luck with Poppy, Mather?” Rylen asked.
Mather stiffened and frowned at Rylen, cocking his head at the question.
“With the envelopes and our mysterious sender?” Rylen added for clarification. Mather’s shoulders relaxed and his expression softened as he blew out a breath of trapped air.
“Oh yeah! I thought I told you already, sorry man.” Mather swiped a hand carelessly through his long dark locks on the top of his head. “So Poppy created a machine to read magical signatures, similar to a fingerprint machine. I don’t know the technical terms, but it was genius! She was brilliant.” He began to animatedly explain to them all about the how Poppy’s machine worked. “So she was able to detect that there was magic involved. A specific kind of magic was used to wipe all traces of who the sender is. That’s why I couldn’t get any kind of scent from it… except, I could tell there was an un-scent—if that makes any sense. It didn’t to me at first, and it was driving me crazy. I thought I was losing my touch—anyway…”
The guys watched Mather with a cross between curiosity and “I told you so” as he talked with more expression than he had in days.
“So what you’re saying is she figured out who sent the letter?” Rylen asked with suspicious hope.
“Well, no, not exactly. That’s what I was trying to say. She detected that someone with magic—strong magic—had erased all traces of the sender. But, she thought that you should be able to apply your own special touch, Rylen, to follow the magic trail back to the sender. Or, at least, to the type of magic that was used. Perhaps we could eliminate possibilities from there?” Mather ended with a suggestive question, not quite sure what he was asking was even possible, but Poppy thought it was, so he did, too.
“You are in so much trouble, bro.” Enock smiled and shook his head. Lucius stared with a slight smirk at his brother. Rylen cros
sed his arms over his chest and put a hand to his chin, deep in thought, ignoring the subtle—or not so subtle—teasing the guys were roasting Mather with. Mather glared at Enock but quickly turned back to Rylen with anticipation in his face. It made him look young and innocent again.
“It’s interesting,” Rylen mused, closing off every distraction surrounding him while he thought of the possibility. “I actually haven’t tried to follow a magic trail to discover the source to its actual person or location yet. But it just might work.” Rylen’s eyes held a spark of excitement; he relished in the hunt and that’s exactly what this would be… a hunt, and he was the hunter.
“When we get back, Mather, we’ll go see Poppy and I’ll see what part I can play. We will find the son of a bitch who is threatening our people.” Rylen was fired up and finally ready to have something to act on. It was torture waiting for answers or waiting for someone else to slip up and show their hand. He needed the upper hand in this situation, and perhaps this was his chance to gain it.
“What do you want from us, boss?” Enock asked.
“E, you are going to stay on the Triumph and Fairfax leads. Luc, I want you to use your special gifts and see if you can sense what might have eyes in our home. Do you need anything else for the Lair’s security?”
Lucius simply replied, “No.”
Rylen nodded, knowing that Luc would take care of what he needed. If he needed more guards, he’d just take them. “E, I also want you to start training with Alana. Gather some of the witches and Vi, and see if you can help her learn to not only use but also accept her magic. I need my mate to survive, or else this city might not.” Rylen willed Enock to understand what he was saying through his steely stare. Rylen’s eyes glowed slightly, revealing the danger of darkness that threatened to overtake him. He wouldn’t let it, but if something happened to his mate, he might not be able to control it. His men didn’t flinch; they were aware of the fight within Rylen to maintain control of his beast and his magic simultaneously. But they were now aware of how close to the surface the danger lurked. There was always a fight to control within him. The only times he had lost the fight was when outside magic was involved or when he had to die and begin to conquer it all over again… like he recently did to save Alana.
