Rayne rolled her eyes. “Oh, great, let’s just give all our enemies a map and a checklist.” She muttered something about lamebrained politicians. Arvik had to agree.
“Anyway,” said Brooker, “We’ve been monitoring Lingram for close to two years. He’s an investment manager for the Tribunal by day, but spends nights on the darker forums under half a dozen aliases, spewing hate and code phrases about disinfectants and cleanups. Surveilling him led us to others of his ilk. He kept a very low profile until recently. When he found out about the planned auction-house raid, he worked all his contacts to get on the team.”
Rayne pointed her fork at Brooker. “And you wanted to know why, so you let him.”
He nodded. “Myelle’s job was to watch him. We should have checked for the weapon.” Brooker’s mouth twitched a frown. “We still don’t know why Lerro attacked him.”
“I wonder what set Lingram…” Her words trailed off as she looked at Arvik. “You said the financial records were coming. He tried to shoot you within a minute.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Could be coincidence.”
Arvik met her gaze. “Or he could be an investor.” Both he and Rayne turned to Brooker.
“That’s what we planned to ask him, but Lerro got to him first.” He blew out a noisy breath. “We don’t have time to get a specialist for Lingram, and Lerro is in the wind with the other shifters that escaped.”
“Let’s cut to the chase.” Rayne held up two fingers. “One, the auction house is too dangerous right now. Two, only Díaz knows what I did in the auction house after Myelle left, so maybe I found all the records and haven’t turned them in yet. You want to use me as bait to draw out Lingram’s pals.”
The wine glass in Arvik’s hand shattered. He only barely managed to cover his instinctive angry reaction with a look of surprise. “My apologies.”
He cleared off a small plate for collecting the larger pieces of broken glass. The cut on his palm stung until he whispered a brief healing spell. It would have healed anyway, but he was supposed to be wizard, not a shifter.
Brooker waved it off, but Arvik didn’t miss the speculative look that flashed across his face. Nor did he miss Rayne’s tiny hesitation as her fingers deftly pried meat out of the lobster tail and dipped it in butter sauce. He’d better find his lost control quickly, or he’d make a bad mate for her.
That startled him. Since when had he been contemplating a future with her? That was all sorts of impossible.
He shoved the thought aside for later. Right now, he needed his head in the game.
He dampened a paper napkin to pick up the tiny glass shards. “What if I have the records and hold a quick, invitation-only auction for them? You supply the bidder list.” Then he could go off the grid and not be distracted by a gorgeous brown-skinned woman and his pushy animals.
Rayne’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Smart women were dangerous. And sexy as hell. He wanted to lick the butter off her generous mouth. His animals approved and suggested more things he could lick. This was not helping at all.
Brooker’s head tilted. “No offense intended, but what’s in it for you or the Wizard Imperium?”
“We still don’t know who owns the business. The Imperium can’t let them go unpunished, or every corporate cabal will think it’s a license to do anything for money, just like the eighties.”
He let them think he meant the nineteen eighties, but the worst abuses happened in the eighteen-eighties, when technology and modern magic flourished and lives were cheap. Dark elves who invented hellfrogs and blood-twisted vampires who created zombies had nothing on the obsessive wizard cabals of northern Europe.
He took a deep breath and let it out before his frustration ran away with him. Exhaustion undermined his self-control. “The Imperium can send invitations to their suspects, too. Maybe sweeten the honeypot by saying the records include all bank transactions, to motivate the owners to move their profits before someone comes looking. Big transfers are easier to trace.”
Brooker frowned. “Why would they believe you’re selling?”
“Wizards are greedy. The assault team thought Ice Age shifters didn’t exist until they saw Rayne’s dire wolf.” He smiled wryly. “They already think I kept her as my prize.” We did, declared his possessive inner animals with smug satisfaction. He shushed them. “They’d easily believe I’ve got more to sell.”
“We can’t stay here.” Rayne circled a finger. “The casino is too public, and Kotoyeesinay is a family town. We need a more secure setup location.”
Arvik shook his head. “With a satellite uplink, I can be anywhere. Can you lie low for a week?”
Rayne made a dismissive noise. “I’m going with you.” She pushed untouched asparagus off her plate onto a side plate, then stood and took it to the trays of food. “You’re probably on a mountain-fairy vengeance list.”
Brooker’s fingers drummed on the table. “She’s right. I can supply equipment and transportation, but you need backup. To be brutally frank, we wouldn’t trust you on your own. And I’m guessing you wouldn’t trust any other agent of ours.”
“True.” He’d worked alone for centuries because he couldn’t trust anyone. Not if he wanted to live.
Rayne knew more about him than anyone and had kept his secrets, which delighted his animals and worried him. He had to consider that mating instincts were warping his judgment. Hers, too, if she felt the mating call. Maybe she was as muddled by all this as he was.
She sat back down with a plate full of fruits and a ramekin of custard. “Where would you go if you were selling?”
He started to answer, then closed his mouth. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering this. His offer had been meant to keep her safely away, not temptingly close. He’d once secretly dreamed of a life where even monsters had true mates. Over the centuries, he’d put it aside as youthful yearning to avoid his people’s lonely fate, but Rayne’s effect on him had him questioning the teachings of the tribe leaders. He needed time to think, but as usual, the fates had other plans for him.
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Random locations, random intervals. It’s the best way to beat any hired oracles.”
Rayne looked to Brooker. “If you’re greenlighting this, we need charm-protected tech. I need a nap and Díaz needs a shower and a new wardrobe.” She gave him a teasing wink, then turned to her boss with mock ire.
“And for heaven’s sake, bring the man some cookies. What kind of luxury hotel doesn’t have cookies?”
11
Rayne brushed the snow off the low, flat rock, then slid the heavy backpack off her shoulders and sat. She’d never been to Montana’s section of the Rocky Mountains, but they weren’t much different from the southern Wyoming mountain she and Díaz had bounced onto four days ago.
He was scouting ahead on four paws, looking for a half-remembered cabin to shelter in for the night, before the coming storm arrived. She usually loved deep wilderness exploration, but she still tired easily, and too many real-world thoughts clamored for her attention.
She worried about how the auction-house cleanup was going, if the shifters who had escaped were safe, including her sister, and whether the honeypot sale of records had attracted the right buyers. The scheduled satellite call to Brooker might be delayed if the storm moved faster than the forecasters thought.
Guilt needled her for not telling her boss about all the files on the auctioneer’s tablet. She’d made progress in organizing the jumbled mess of spreadsheets and documents, but she wasn’t patient and clever like her sister, so it was slow going.
She’d hoped to get to know Díaz better, but he’d shut her out. Her wolf insisted they were in the mating dance. It felt more like a haphazard tumble down the stairs.
Second-guessing and regrets weren’t usually her style, but she wished she’d continued walking out of the sheriff’s office. Instead, she’d let her boss talk her into continuing with this phase of the operation. And she’d kept her wolf happy by insi
sting on staying close to Díaz.
After a too-short nap, she’d met Brooker and Díaz in a hotel conference room to collect gear and a flurry of instructions.
An obliging fairy had opened a portal to an alley in Taipei, and she and Díaz had stepped through, where it was dawn the next day.
They’d found a large hotel lobby and ordered tea while they communed with their respective tech toys. While he set up the auction, she surfed the American media outlets for unusual animal sightings in California. She didn’t know if it was good news or bad when she didn’t find anything. She spent the rest of the time organizing the messy sales records.
After an hour or so, they wandered out onto the street. With their ballcaps and loose, casual clothes, in addition to the large hiking pack on Díaz’s back, they looked enough like jet-lagged American tourists that no one bothered them. His light jacket hid his wide, jeweled wristbands. She bought a new, less glittery tablet cover from a street vendor and ditched Costigan’s. He led them to another alley, where he created a narrow portal.
After they stepped through, he looked up and worked a strong spell. From the slightly brighter sky to the west, she guessed they were now in early evening, somewhere in the western hemisphere.
She followed him to wider streets and into a tiny restaurant. It took her a few minutes to realize they were, amazingly, in a small town she knew.
She’d have recognized Cotacachi, Ecuador, sooner if she could have seen the distinctive dormant volcano to the northwest. She’d wondered why Díaz knew it, then wondered if he’d plucked it from her memories, like he’d done before. She’d visited friends the previous year to help build a public veterinary and very private shifter clinic.
No point in asking, because he was back to being Mr. Stoneface McGargoyle. He’d barely said ten words to her, and his selective deafness was better than most felines. She knew how to work with surly, taciturn partners, but she’d expected better from him.
The romantic stories of true mates must have affected her more profoundly than she’d known. Her martial arts training had given her the tools to manage her body’s reactions, so it was easier to deal with constantly simmering arousal than her hope.
Instead of looking for a hotel for the night, he led her into a darkened courtyard. After pulling both their parkas out of the backpack and handing hers to her, he opened another portal, this time to a small mountain town, and once again, at twilight. Díaz apparently knew alleys the world over.
They’d walked to a brightly lit convenience store, where she figured out they were in Little Fork, Montana, and listened to the weather report on the loud TV as she shopped.
The clerk came out from behind the counter to watch as she went down the candy and salty snacks aisle.
She put her hands in her pockets and turned to face the pale, weedy man. “Can I help you?”
His chin jutted out as he looked her up and down. “Haven’t seen you here before.”
She gave him a wide, toothy smile. “Your loss.”
He probably would have continued following her around the store, except another customer came in to pay for gas.
Rural towns could be charming, like Kotoyeesinay, but in her experience, they mostly weren’t.
Díaz came up behind her, holding a handful of packaged meats and cheeses. “Trouble?”
She turned and shrugged. “Just the usual—shopping while black.” Just like visiting some traditional shifter packs, where the crime was breathing while dire wolf.
“Hmm.” His face gave nothing away, but his magic flared briefly, like warm fingers caressing her neck. “I think one of the top-ten-best modern advances is electrical power.”
A moment later, the clerk cried out in pain. “Son of a bitch! Goddamn thing shocked me.”
She smiled. “I love progress.”
Outside the store, he opened the map he’d bought and told her to pick a direction. Remembering the oracle problem, she looked away and randomly stabbed a finger at it. Unfortunately, she’d pointed to a rugged mountain top instead of a relaxing hot-spring spa. As soon as they cleared town, he’d handed her the pack and shifted.
That was the last conversation they had for two days, because he spent all but a few moments in wolf form. She followed his path; sometimes, just his scent.
The first night, she’d set up one of the compact tents, ate two packages of ham, and slept as a dire wolf. She was so annoyed with him that she didn’t care what he did.
Last night, they’d lucked into a shallow cave to share. He refused to shift, so she ate the last of the roast beef and cheese, then shifted. He refused to share warmth or even sleep near her. It hurt, but so did a lot of things in life. It was better than being led on with the false hope that he felt anything more than shifter lust.
They’d awakened to a light dusting of snow.
She shifted to human and used her laptop and the satellite uplink to check the weather while she drank a cup of hot tea. An autumn storm was barreling down from the north.
Díaz shifted just long enough to eat a package of tuna and tell her about the high-country cabin that might still be there and the scheduled call with Brooker. Then he’d shifted back to wolf and took off running like his tail was on fire.
She’d decided then and there that out of self-preservation, she had to quit caring what he did or thinking it had anything to do with her. It had been a hard lesson to learn with her father, and it looked like she needed to remember it. It took two willing partners to form a mate bond.
And that didn’t even touch on the problem of how such a bond would affect their public and professional lives. Her optimistic inner wolf counseled her to be patient. She smiled sourly. At least they weren’t from rival traditional clans, where a cross-species true-mate pairing could break an alliance or start a war. She used to think those were history, until she was sent with a team to Brazil to quell a skirmish that threatened to reveal the existence of shifters. It all started because a jaguar true-mated with a river otter.
Now she sat, sipping from a pouch of water, enjoying the freedom of the high country in the early afternoon light. After weeks of forced inaction in the underground cells, her legs and back felt the strain of nonstop hiking. Thanks to inherent shifter magic, her stamina had improved in the last couple of days, but she needed more healing time to fully recover. She admired full humans who did the same kind of hiking without the benefit of shifter strength or rapid recuperation.
A distant gunshot echoed off the mountain. She’d been listening for hunters ever since she’d noticed that the convenience store sold licenses. Other than hearing the occasional gunshot, they hadn’t encountered any close by. She liked guns and approved of hunting to feed a family, but sport and trophy hunting struck her as wanton abuse of the food chain.
Wispy clouds sailed in the dull gray sky over the tops of the scraggly trees. She was out of practice using superior senses and the character of the wind to judge the changing weather.
When she’d been younger, she and her father had been a medal-winning wilderness survival team in the biannual North American shifter games. Then his true mate had died, and in his grief, he’d abandoned both his daughters and thrown himself into long-distance and undercover work for the Shifter Tribunal. Two years ago, he vanished.
A loud canine screech of pain sent ice through her veins. She pulled the backpack onto her shoulders and launched into a fast trot up the divide toward the sound. Her worried inner dire wolf steadied her feet and guided her path.
Another pain-filled whimper made her pick up her pace, leaping over rocks and blazing past the sparse low shrubs.
She rounded the side of a giant, jutting rock and skidded to a halt in a small, flatter clearing.
A natural gray wolf, male from the scent, was caught in a cruel, black iron leg-hold trap. A black chain led from it to a stake that appeared to be drilled into the ground.
She swore in every language she knew and made up new curses to go with them.
The animal saw her and whined in fear as it tried to get away, but the clamp held fast. Blood splattered the snow.
She backed up around the corner of the rock out of his sight. Motherfucking, lazy, greedy, amoral trappers deserved to be caught in their own devices and die painfully of shock or thirst. She’d gleefully help them into the traps.
From the northeast, she felt Díaz’s presence coming as fast as a timber wolf could run. He probably thought she’d gotten hurt, the same way she’d worried about him. Her agitated wolf paced inside her mind.
She knew the moment Díaz arrived because the injured gray wolf began growling.
“I’m back here!” No sense assuming he could feel her presence like she could his.
His timber-wolf form rounded the rock and slowed, nose working diligently.
“I’m not hurt. We can talk if you shift.”
He looked back toward the clearing, then up to the sky, then at her. The only thing shifting was his fur, ruffled by the wind.
She drilled him with a steely gaze.
“I’m not asking for me. Shift so we can free and heal our little brother. My dire wolf will scare him to death if I go near him.”
He sat on his haunches. Several long moments later, the man stood, handsome and infuriating as ever. She couldn’t read the flurry of emotions that crossed his face.
“That trap is more dangerous to you than to him.” He pointed his thumb back toward the injured gray wolf. “There’s a whole string of traps like that between here and the Arctic Circle. They use magic to attract shifters.” His expression hardened. “They also count on compassionate shifters to save any natural animal that gets caught, so you get caught yourself.”
Rayna swore a vicious oath. “Auction-house wizards?”
He shook his head. “Independent sorcerer-hunters out of Canada. They’ll sell to whoever is buying.” Distaste crossed his face. “I got a whiff of their magic while we were looking at the weather forecast. I’ve been tracking it all morning, looking for the trap.” He pointed behind him. “Your little brother found it first.”
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