by J. C. Diem
“Why didn’t you tell Reece?” He’d always be Reece to me, even if that wasn’t his real name. Mark had raised him from a toddler and he’d become his father in deed if not in name. He had a right to call them whatever he wanted as far as I was concerned.
Flynn heaved a quiet sigh. “Would you have wanted to break that news to him?” he asked. His unusual eyes were intense as he studied my face. “How would you like to hear that a shifter who has been killing humans for years is your close relative? Or that someone in your family isn’t actually a blood relative at all?”
“I see your point. That would suck.” Mark had suspected that the rogue was one of Reece’s relatives all along and he hadn’t been brave enough to say anything either. “Poor Reece,” I murmured. “He must be feeling so alone right now.”
“Can’t you sense what he’s feeling?”
“No. He’s shut me out,” I said with some bitterness. “Ever since we started hunting Gareth, things started to go bad between us.”
“I thought everything was getting better,” he said with some surprise.
“They were, but that only lasted for a couple of days. Now that he knows his family is alive, he’ll never be happy with us.” It was somehow less upsetting to include the whole team rather than just singling myself out.
“Alphas always need to rule their own kind,” Flynn agreed sadly. “It’s in their nature.”
I was supposed to be an alpha, but I didn’t feel a need to rule anyone. Unlike Reece, I didn’t crave the company of our species exclusively. I was content with our own mixed pack.
Peeking through the emotional door that was between Reece and me, I sensed him still driving away from the compound. Feeling me in his mind, he pushed me out with enough force to almost send me reeling.
The small glimpse I’d caught had been frightening. He didn’t just resent me for our bond. He now resented Mark as well. His birthright had been stolen from him and he needed someone to blame for his loss. A darkness was growing inside him. I had a sense that it was equally as dangerous as the vampirism that was slowly working its way through his veins.
Deep in the recesses of his mind, he wasn’t alone. The same entity that had tried to get him to kill first Kala and then me was still lurking around. Either that, or he was as susceptible to madness as his father and brother. Neither was a concept that I wanted to contemplate.
₪₪₪
Chapter Four
Kala returned from her shower just as Flynn finished making a gigantic plate of sandwiches. She took a few up to Mark and returned a short while later wearing a sour expression. “He shut the monitor off before I could take a look at what he was reading,” she said and sat next to me at the dining table. It was large enough to seat twelve and was far too big for just the three of us.
“We probably don’t have the clearance to see it,” Flynn surmised.
“I barely have the clearance to know the PIA exists,” I grumbled.
Kala sniggered and took a huge bite out of her sandwich. “You know more than most agents with only level one clearance.”
I eyed the half chewed wad in her mouth in resignation. “When do I get to move to the next level?” I asked.
Flynn answered me. “After a couple of years, usually. I’m not sure what’s going to happen in your case. You’ve already seen and heard more in the past few months than most agents do in their entire careers.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or alarmed by that. I’d learned some knowledge by accident and had picked up the rest during our missions. Kala had a theory that it wasn’t random chance that I’d joined the Track and Kill Squad. She thought fate had a hand in my selection. If so, then fate was cruel indeed. It had given me the man of my dreams and now it was slowly taking him away from me.
Sensing my sadness, Zeus barked to be let in. The kitchen door wasn’t as soundproofed as our bedroom doors or the cells below. He didn’t just want to come inside to console me, of course. He knew we were eating and he didn’t want to miss out on a potential meal.
Flynn motioned for me to stay seated and loped over to the door. The Rottweiler woofed his thanks and rushed over to the table. He was tall enough to reach up and snatch a sandwich from Flynn’s plate.
“Hey! You thieving wretch!”
Mark’s head swiveled to look down at us through the glass wall of the coms room at Flynn’s outraged shout. He frowned in disapproval when Kala began to laugh so hard that she choked on her food. I pounded her on the back until she coughed it out again.
Wiping away tears of mirth, she wisely guarded her plate when Zeus’ head popped up from beneath the table beside me. “I’m starting to really like that dog,” she said fondly.
“Wait till he slobbers all over your food,” Flynn said in disgust and pushed the plate over to me. “He might as well eat the rest of it.”
“No more stealing food,” I admonished Zeus. He hung his head in shame, knowing he’d done something wrong. He perked up again when I put the plate on the floor. He gobbled the sandwiches down before I could change my mind.
To make amends, I handed my plate to Flynn. He flashed me a grateful smile and split the remains in half. With his green eyes and mocha colored skin, he was unusual and striking. When he smiled, he was verging on handsome.
“Are you a virgin?” Kala asked him baldly, making him blink.
“Why do you want to know about my sex life so badly?”
“I just do,” she said with an annoyed shrug.
“You know that old saying,” I grinned. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Yeah, but satisfaction brought her back,” she returned smartly then shifted her attention back to Flynn. “Are you?”
“No.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?” Her frustration had me smothering a smile. “How many girls have you had sex with?”
“That’s really none of your business,” he said primly. “Can’t you just be happy to know once and for all that I’m not a virgin?”
“No,” she said with a furrowed brow. “I want to know all of the filthy details.”
“Does she ever pester you like this?” he asked me in exasperation.
“Only once to find out if Reece is good in bed,” I replied. She grinned unrepentantly at prying into my love life. Flynn struggled with his own curiosity and I told him what he couldn’t quite bring himself to ask. “He’s hot enough to set the sheets on fire, by the way.” That wasn’t the only thing that burned with his touch. Just thinking about him was enough to make my desire rise.
“Too much information,” Flynn complained. Mark knocked on the glass to gain our attention and crooked his finger at Flynn. “Duty calls,” he said and jogged over to the staircase. I was pretty sure he was relieved to escape from our current conversation.
“Do you feel any attraction towards Gareth?” Kala asked.
My desire disappeared like it had been doused in water. “Ugh!” I shuddered in revulsion at the memory of his hands on me.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” she said dryly.
“How could you even ask me that after what he tried to do to me?”
“It’s just that he looks so much like Reece,” she said with a disturbed look.
“Was it hard for you to torture him?”
“Harder than I thought it would be,” she replied softly. “I know he’s crazy and that he deserves to die horribly, but I kind of hope I don’t have to take things to the next level.”
I didn’t ask what the next level would entail. I suspected it would involve the hammer and chisel. While I’d been able to watch her slice him open without actually vomiting, I wasn’t so sure how I’d react to seeing her breaking his bones. My way of coping with his resemblance to Reece was to avoid looking at his face while Kala had been questioning him.
Flynn ambled back down the stairs wearing a disgruntled expression as Kala was packing our dishes into the dishwasher. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Mark wants me to give the prisoner some water.”
“We wouldn’t want him to become dehydrated,” she said with a slight sneer. “Why is he sending you instead of me?”
“He thinks you’ve been subjected to his insanity for long enough.”
“I can’t argue with that,” she said as she snagged a bottle of water from the fridge and tossed it to him.
Flynn was only gone for a few minutes, but his expression was thunderous when he returned. “There’s no way we can let this guy live,” he said as he took a seat on the couch beside Kala. We’d moved to the living room after cleaning up.
“What did he say?” Kala demanded.
“He told me in great detail what he planned to do to Lexi.”
They both turned to me and even Zeus was watching my face. “Do I even want to know?” I asked as I drew my legs up on the couch and hugged my knees.
“Hell no,” he replied adamantly. “I’m not even sure some of the things he said are anatomically possible.”
Kala looked up at the coms room with a thoughtful expression. “I bet I’d know. Maybe Mark will let me see the footage of your conversation.” Flynn stared at her incredulously. “Just kidding,” she said weakly.
“If he really has skinned another shifter, then he’s probably capable of anything,” I muttered darkly.
“He’d have been in wolf form when he did it,” Kala said. “We don’t usually have that kind of control, do we?” She aimed the question at me.
“You guys wouldn’t, but Reece and I would,” I confirmed. It took an alpha to be able to retain enough intelligence to act in a human-like manner. Gareth Carter might be Reece’s brother, but he wasn’t an alpha. He shouldn’t have been able to think clearly enough to be able to stalk me and leave me the body as a present. “Something really weird is going on here.”
“Yeah, we kind of figured that,” Flynn said in a wry tone.
Noise from above distracted us from our conversation. Mark had finished his research and was descending the stairs. “Do you want coffee?” Kala called to him.
“I do,” Flynn replied immediately as Mark nodded distractedly. I nodded as well. Out of all of us, Kala made the best coffee by far. At least she wasn’t a complete disaster in the kitchen.
“What did you learn?” Flynn queried when she returned with beverages on a tray for everyone. She placed it on the coffee table then chose one and sat down.
Mark picked up his mug while he sorted through what he’d just learned and determined what he could tell us. “I didn’t find much information in the archives,” he said. “Few PIA agents have come across the fae. The few who did had little interaction with them.” He paused to take a sip before resuming. “I’ve contacted Beatrice, hoping she would be able to tell me more.”
Beatrice had been a big help during our mission to take down the dark coven. She’d proven to be an intelligent and talented witch. She’d known straight away that Reece and I were in peril and she’d even known the cause of it. She’d cast a spell that would hopefully lead me straight to my mother when the time finally came to confront her. My gaze strayed up towards my bedroom where the gold necklace was waiting to be used.
“Did she tell you anything useful?” Flynn asked.
“Not really, but she knew a coven who’d had dealings with them.”
Kala shifted uncomfortably and I was just as unsettled as she was feeling. Our interaction with the witches of Bradbury had been far from pleasant. If we hadn’t met Beatrice, I doubted I’d ever have been able to trust a witch again.
“The coven was kind enough to tell her what they knew, which wasn’t much,” Mark went on. “Apparently, faeries can’t outright lie, but they can expertly spin the truth. If they make a promise they can’t break it and are obligated to fulfil it, but only to the exact extent of their word. Making a bargain with them is rife with pitfalls and danger.”
“Do we really want to ask Kurt Jorgen for help?” I asked. “It sounds like it’ll be more trouble than it would be worth.”
“Who?” Flynn asked.
I rolled my eyes at their identically blank expressions. “Do you even remember why you’re researching faeries?” I asked Mark.
He frowned in confusion. “Not really. Why was I again?”
I sighed, wondering if I should just give up on the idea of calling Kurt entirely. His magic made it impossible for anyone to remember him, unless he wanted them to apparently. “Say we were dealing with a half-faery. Would they be as bad to bargain with as a full blood fae?”
Mark thought about it and shrugged. “I have no idea. Why do you want to know?”
“This is getting really annoying,” I grouched and received three confused looks.
“I get the feeling something strange is going on,” Flynn said.
“Yeah, we’re talking about calling a faery for help and none of you can even remember him.”
“Why do we need a faerie’s help?” Kala asked in bewilderment.
Taking a breath, I held in the frustrated expletive I’d been about to utter. Mark wasn’t a fan of swearing and we did our best not to offend him. “I’ll be right back,” I said, giving up on discussing this with them further. Clearly, it was going to be up to me to decide whether to call the Mind Sweeper or not.
Heading up to my room, I picked up the white business card that I’d placed on the dresser. It was blank on one side and had a cell phone number on the other. I wished I could speak to Reece since this affected him, but he was too far away for me to reach out with my mind easily. Besides, he’d shut me out and he clearly didn’t want me to intrude.
If the fae’s glamor was strong enough to make people forget he even existed, then he would probably be able to get the truth out of Gareth. If it would spare Kala the unpleasantness of having to torture him for information, then it would have to be worth the risk.
I returned to the lounge and handed the card to Mark. Flipping it over, he looked at me strangely. “What’s this?”
“What does it look like?”
“A blank white business card.”
Mark held the card up for Kala and Flynn to look at. “It’s blank,” Kala confirmed and Flynn nodded.
“Is there something special about it that we don’t know?” Mark asked as he handed it back to me.
“It’s enchanted,” I said unhappily. That had to be the reason why only I could see the number.
“Does this have something to do with Gareth?”
I nodded, staring down at the number. “A Mind Sweeper can help us question him, but I’m not sure if calling him would be a good idea.”
“Yeah, there’s definitely something weird going on,” Flynn said and rubbed his arms. The hairs were standing up. Even Zeus was uneasy.
“We probably aren’t going to get anywhere with questioning him,” Mark decided. “Mind Sweepers are experts at this sort of thing. Use my cell phone to call them,” he offered and reached inside his jacket.
The number immediately disappeared from the card again. “It won’t let me,” I said in mounting annoyance. I hadn’t even spoken to the bald faery yet and he was already getting on my nerves. “It looks like I have to use my phone.”
“I’m not sure what is going on, but it seems like a really bad idea,” Flynn said as I took my phone out of my pocket.
“Tell me about it,” I agreed and dialed the number. It was answered after the first ring and I put it on speaker.
“Agent Alexis Levine, I presume,” a familiar voice said. It was accented and sounded European, possibly German. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask for my assistance.”
“Shouldn’t it have gone to voicemail by now?” Kala asked.
“Didn’t you hear him speak just then?” I whispered.
“Don’t bother, my dear,” Kurt Jorgen said, “your friends can’t hear me.”
Grimacing at being connected to faery magic that I didn’t understand, I turned the speaker off and put the phone to my ear. “
We need your help,” I said without preamble.
“I know. I can be there in five hours, but it will cost you.”
“Cost me? What do you mean?”
“Dealing with my kind always comes with a price, as I’m sure Agent Steel already informed you. Don’t worry,” he tittered. “The price won’t be anything you can’t afford to pay.”
I glanced at Mark to see him looking at me with a puzzled expression. We faced a choice of trying to wring information out of Gareth, or allowing the Mind Sweeper to do it for us. It would be easy and painless for Jorgen, but it would end up costing Kala if she were to continue. It wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’d prefer to pay a mysterious price rather than to see her suffer. “Do you need directions to our base?”
“That won’t be necessary. I know exactly where you are. I’ll see you soon, Alexis.”
“Wow, that wasn’t at all creepy,” I said after he hung up.
“What was creepy?” Kala asked.
“Never mind,” I said and all three instantly forgot that I’d just had a phone conversation with someone they couldn’t even hear.
“Do you want me to head back to the cell to question our prisoner some more?” Kala asked Mark.
Hoping the faery magic was still working, I stepped in before Mark could speak. “Why don’t you let him stew some more? Being isolated for a few hours might help us crack him.”
Mark smiled at me with only a slight hint of a frown. “You could be right. He seems to like the attention, even if it is while being tortured. Wolves tend to be sociable creatures who crave company. Maybe being forced to spend time alone will wear him down more quickly.”
Flynn seemed doubtful and he was looking at me strangely. His senses were so finely tuned that he knew I wasn’t telling them everything. The hairs on his arms were still raised and Zeus’ hackles were as well. The Rottweiler was staring around the room suspiciously, searching in vain for whatever was making him uneasy.
