Loki muttered under his breath as he climbed to his feet, stretching out his legs, back, and arms. He found Carl standing behind him and jumped in alarm, but Carl didn’t do anything. His tail did begin twitching back and forth, though.
Alucard walked up to me, holding out his phone. It was the Lullaby app, and he was shaking his head incredulously. “You fucking lunatic. You didn’t even tell us you were going there!”
I shrugged, not bothering to hide my grin. “It’s gone?”
He nodded. “It’s not even on the app anymore. It’s entirely deleted, rather than just archived or closed,” he said, showing me the other filtering options on the screen.
I let out a breath of relief. At least I didn’t have to worry about Niko or any other assassins coming after me anymore. It also meant Chateau Falco was safe.
“If I had known who was behind the assassinations earlier, we wouldn’t have had to steal that food truck, preventing us from picking up these sweet shirts,” I said, tapping on my chest.
Alucard grinned, doing the same.
I turned to Loki. “You ready to play nice? Or should I come back in another hour?”
“Yes. I’ll play nice,” he muttered.
I grunted doubtfully, but it was the best I was going to get from him—anything else would just be a lie.
War flung a balled-up shirt at Loki, hitting him in the chest. He caught it and stared down as he unfurled the matching shirt.
“Then welcome to the team,” I said. “Now, where is Fenrir?”
“The Rocky Mountains,” he said, tugging the shirt down over his head. “Ever heard of it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Cold as hell in December.”
He nodded. “It’s right in the middle of nowhere. I can get us about a mile away, but we’ll have to walk after that. Any closer and my Gateway might alert the guards.”
I sighed. “We’ll need to get some coats, first.” I knew that Dean had taken to storing all the extra winter coats and snow gear in one of the unused, third-floor bedrooms at Chateau Falco. Knowing that no one had any reason to go to that area, I opened a Gateway. “Grab a coat but be quick. Werewolves are living in the house,” I told them.
We all hopped through and began tearing through the closet and stacks of storage tubs. I immediately snapped up my black ski coat. It was light but warm, so it wouldn’t get in my way. I tugged my satchel on over it, checking the straps to make sure it wouldn’t slow me down by slapping against my hip when I ran.
After a few minutes, War and Carl still hadn’t found anything to fit them, and they were both struggling with their most recent choices. War was trying to tug off a coat that was much too small for him, and Carl had his claws stuck in the sleeves of a bright pink ski jacket that I didn’t recognize. I shuddered, wondering if it had been one of Indie’s coats. Other than the likely demonic curse on it and the eye-gouging color, it looked identical to mine.
I froze as I suddenly heard barking from the halls beyond the bedroom door. Loud, frantic barking from two different throats, and they were getting closer—entirely too close for comfort. Shit. “Guys, we have to get out of here, now!” I hissed. It seemed the pups had a better sense of smell than their parents. “Loki,” I snapped, running to the door. “Make that Gateway!”
He nodded and a ring of green sparks erupted on the wall opposite the door. I turned the lock, hoping to buy us some time. Loki and Alucard had already hopped through into what looked like a forest in a snowstorm, but I wanted to go through last to make sure Calvin and Makayla didn’t bust down the door and follow us—because they were only seconds away.
“Calvin! Makayla! Get over here!” Gunnar’s voice boomed, sounding annoyed as he chased them down—apparently hot on their heels and moving fast.
I spun, my eyes wide with panic. “Hurry!” I whispered urgently, trying to keep my voice down. But it was no use. The barks rose in pitch and volume, obviously hearing me through the door. Or smelling us. Or both.
“What do you smell, pups?” I heard Gunnar suddenly snarl, and I remembered that he thought he was playing guard dog at Chateau Falco—keeping it safe from teams of assassins.
And here we were, a team of killers behind a locked door in a room we shouldn’t be in.
Carl let out a strange rattling sound from deep in his throat as he tried to snarl through his closed mouth, and then he violently shoved his hands down to force them through the sleeves. His claws sliced through the pink elbows, ripping the sleeves entirely off at the shoulder seams in the process. I grabbed him by the stupid fur-lined hood and shoved him through the Gateway.
Calvin and Makayla were right outside, clawing at the door and biting at the handle, rattling it against the hinges and frame like a goddamned tornado.
“What is it, Calvin? What do you smell?” Gunnar growled from only paces away, his boots thumping across the wooden floors of the hall.
War began waddling awkwardly for the Gateway with his arms still stuck in the sleeves, trapped behind his back like handcuffs so that he resembled a racing goose fighting for bread at the local pond.
I spotted one of my dad’s old trench coats lying on the ground—a perfect fit for War—grabbed it, and dove for the Gateway just as the door exploded open behind me.
Two sleek forms blurred past me on either side, trailing chilling mist in their wake. Gunnar tackled me in mid-air, sending us flying through in a tumbling sprawl.
I spat out a mouthful of snow and tried to lift my head high enough to speak before he decapitated me. “It’s me, Nate!” I rasped.
He grabbed me by the coat and yanked me to my feet, looking confused as hell. Then he noticed my crew standing a safe distance away, looking ready to fight or run. Because Calvin and Makayla were hunched low and growling at them with their teeth bared, still oozing their strange, freezing mist.
“What the hell?” Gunnar growled, turning to stare at each member of my motley crew with increasing degrees of shock on his face. They settled on Loki and he narrowed his eye murderously. “You.”
Loki held up his hands. “I actually wanted you to be here, for the record.” He frowned at Gunnar’s empty hands. “But the hammer would have made this moment more meaningful.”
“Why did you want me here?” Gunnar snarled, cracking his knuckles very slowly. “Because I can make this moment as meaningful as you want, Loki.”
Loki sighed. “Because I know you’re scary as hell, but more importantly…you’re a new dad, and you have pups for kids. I was thinking I might be able to learn a thing or two,” he said, lowering his eyes. “We’re trying to save my son, Fenrir.”
It sounded sentimental, but this was Loki we were talking about, so I was running on the assumption that everything he said was probably a lie.
Gunnar just stared at him, and I couldn’t quite tell how he felt. “I’m going to shelve my feelings for later because it would jeopardize the mission. You should thank me for that.”
The silence stretched for ten seconds until Loki realized he was being literal. “Thank you.”
Gunnar nodded. “We will have a long talk later. Father-to-father, man-to-man. You won’t like that. But I will like it very much.”
Then he simply turned away, leaving Loki with a startled expression on his face. Gunnar froze to see Carl—who was still trying to tug the now-detached pink sleeves off his arms.
Gunnar opened his mouth wordlessly a few times, and then he just sat down and began to laugh, shaking his head in disbelief as he stared at the agitated Elder. “Fucking Carl,” he wheezed. “You’re back!”
My original crew were all staring at the strange pups and the mist surrounding them, not entirely sure what to make of it.
“Gunnar, this is no place for—”
A deep, basso howl tore through the snowy night—a long, piercing lament that I could feel in my chest. Fenrir.
Calvin and Makayla cocked their heads at the sound, whining in tandem as they zeroed in on the source. And then they fucking took off int
o the snowy woods.
“Motherfucker!” I hissed, pointing at Gunnar. “We have to stop them. There are a lot of bad people less than a mile in that direction!”
“Then it looks like I’m coming, too. Close the Gateway before Ashley sees us.” He pointed at Carl with a big goofy grin on his face. “That was her favorite coat!” And then he was running after them.
“Gunnar?” Ashley suddenly called from beyond the Gateway, sounding as if she was out in the halls. “What on earth happened to this door—”
The Gateway winked shut, cutting her off. I shot Loki a panicked look.
“That’s between him and his wife,” he snapped. “In a way, it’s your fault for not inviting him sooner, like I asked. You could have avoided all of this. But fate has intervened,” he grinned excitedly. And then he was running after Gunnar. Alucard and Carl took one look at each other before also joining the pursuit of puppiness.
War finally tugged off the ill-fitting coat with a triumphant sound.
I flung my dad’s old trench coat at him. “Hurry!”
And then I was running, too, imagining all the ways this could go wrong. And if we survived, someone had to explain this whole mess to Ashley. How her pups got dragged into a prison-break before they were even a year old.
Chapter 40
Gunnar had managed to catch the pups before they gave us away, but he’d had to shift into his own Alpha werewolf form to do so. It had been impressive to see. He’d been calling out their names as loud as he dared, but they hadn’t listened in the slightest.
Then he had stopped running and shifted into his Alpha werewolf form—a furry, muscular, bipedal, man-shape with claws and a wolf’s head.
He also had an even deadlier form, thanks to me taking him to Fae—a savage, seven-foot-tall, mountain of fangs and claws who went by the name Wulfric. But that must have been the form he chose to use when they were really in trouble. Like, using-their-middle-names type of trouble after their mom had resorted to calling him at work.
For this, he’d just chosen to use his dad voice.
He’d snarled.
One time.
Calvin and Makayla had skidded to an immediate halt, wilting submissively.
Gunnar had snarled again, and they had crouched down until their chins and bellies rested on the snow.
“Told you we should have had him all along,” Loki had murmured, seeming marveled by Gunnar. I had found myself wondering if he felt a kinship to Gunnar because they had both birthed actual wolves for children.
I hadn’t actually thought about that before—their similarities. Loki had a point, but I hadn’t wanted to take him away from his pups—especially not after they’d shown their strange abilities.
I’d picked up Gunnar’s phone from the pile of shredded fabric, and we were now walking side-by-side as I caught him up on everything I’d been withholding from him. He didn’t ask any questions—even though he still had the ability to speak in this form, believe it or not—and he didn’t once berate me. I even caught his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, and his big hairy tail wagging.
Calvin and Makayla now remained glued to his side, choosing not to tempt fate. Because it had turned into bring your kids to work day and mommy wasn’t supposed to know. I found it eerie how intently they seemed to listen to me talk, as if they could understand everything I was telling their father.
“I can make you a Gateway back home,” I said, deciding to take one last chance, “before Ashley freaks out about you three disappearing. At least to send them back.”
Calvin and Makayla shot me dark, accusatory looks, and Gunnar shook his head, chuckling at his pups. “She’s been begging me to take them hunting. But I should let her know we’re okay, so she doesn’t get worried. Can you text her for me? I lost my phone back there when I shifted.”
I scowled at him. “And take the blame? No way. This is your problem. I just offered a solution and you shot it down.”
“Please, Nate.”
“Fine.” I turned my shoulders as I used his phone to text her. Gone hunting with the pups. Be back tomorrow.
Then I held it in my hand, waiting for the bomb to drop.
“She’s probably going to be pissed at you, but I’ll talk her down,” Gunnar reassured me.
“What are friends for?” I said, shrugging.
We walked for another ten seconds before his personalized text notification sound went off—the Old Spice whistling jingle.
He missed a step, spinning to stare at me. I grinned, already holding out the phone he thought he’d lost when he shifted.
He snatched it away with an angry curse, and then grew silent. “Did…you read it?” he asked, sounding uneasy.
I frowned, turning to look at him. “No. Why?”
“Oh. Good. It’s nothing.” And then he promptly snapped his phone in half, tossing the pieces behind him.
I stared incredulously, but he refused to look over at me. What the hell had she texted him back to make him so embarrassed?
Alucard was grinning as he made inappropriate gestures with his hands and fingers in clear view of Gunnar—but he was also a healthy distance away, diminishing his bravery. Gunnar opened his mouth to put him in his place when Loki came to a sudden stop ahead of us.
“We need to crawl the rest of the way from here,” he said, pointing up a slight hill in front of him. “It overlooks a valley, but there are a lot of guards and the moon is at our backs. We will be easy to spot if we’re standing up. Even in this snowstorm.”
Then he followed his own suggestion and began crawling.
This was it.
As we began to crawl, the snow began to fall heavier—as if some god had shaken our little snow globe to see what might happen…
Loki pointed at the massive compound in the center of the wooded valley. “He’s in there.”
It was the only structure in sight, so I shot him a flat look. “That’s condescending.” He frowned in confusion. “That means talking down to someone,” I explained, smirking.
Alucard suppressed a cough, and Loki shot him a brief glare before turning back to me. “On this side of the building. Asshole.” The square, windowless building was easily the length and width of a football field, and maybe fifty feet tall.
I grunted. “The side with dozens of gargoyles and the huge hangar door? Gee. You sure it’s not the itty-bitty door with the keypad?” I muttered, pointing at the normal, people-sized door near the corner of the building.
He sighed, not even bothering to argue this time. Good.
The obvious door in question was actually two adjoining concrete slabs stretching all the way to the roof. Together they took up a third of the entire side of the building. The slabs obviously slid open horizontally, rather than vertically like most hangars or garage doors.
And with the valley’s limited size and too many trees for a runway, the building obviously wasn’t holding any planes. Just one big bad wolf.
The pups had gotten antsy on the climb up, so Gunnar now had a hand on the ruffs of their necks to make sure they didn’t run. I’d suggested a way to send them home and Gunnar had declined. I wasn’t their dad. But I hoped him seeing how dangerous the situation was might change his mind. He noticed me watching and turned to grin.
I sighed. We were too close for me to do anything about it now, and I’d gotten in enough trouble trying to force him into parenting decisions. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t let anything happen to them. I had given my last Tiny Balls to Alucard, but I knew Loki and War had the ability to travel in a similar manner if it came down to it. Just in case I was unable to.
I discreetly nudged Alucard, drawing his attention. I jerked my chin at the pups and murmured under my breath. “If things get hairy, get them out of here,” I whispered. He nodded firmly.
Carl looked absolutely ridiculous in his hooded, sleeveless pink coat, but I realized he needed it more than any of us, being a lizard—and obviously from a place that was hotter than
anywhere on earth.
War just looked like a down-on-his-luck private investigator with his trench coat and rough demeanor.
“Last time I was here,” Loki murmured, pointing at the concrete doors, “they were partway open as the guards used a forklift to slide a pallet heapeed with raw meat inside. They closed it as soon as the doors were clear, but I heard Fenrir’s growl all the way from here.” Loki nodded at the grim look on my face. “Kind of confirmed it all. And the moment those doors closed, they lit up with golden runes, so they’re obviously enchanted somehow. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Is that why you tried to use the side door to sneak in?”
He nodded with a haunted look on his face.
I turned back to the valley, sweeping my gaze from end to end. The gargoyles were all lined up on the roof of the building—some walking the perimeter and others dozing, making them look like nothing more than creepy statues. Evenly spaced floodlights illuminated every inch of the building’s exterior and a good distance leading up to it, making it impossible to sneak up on foot without being spotted by a gargoyle.
But the heavy snow flurries would help hide us. I could hear the wind picking up, too, serving to create brief gusts and occasionally knocking accumulated snow from the upper branches of all the trees—more visual distractions.
The compound made me think of a prison or black-ops research center. If there had been actual roads leading up to it, I would have said storage building, but there were no roads.
They must have flown the pallet of meat in on a helicopter.
About forty armed men in puffy black coats patrolled the perimeter, even walking through the thick woods further out from the building, which meant we couldn’t use that for cover either. Most of them carried machine guns, but I counted over a dozen of them carrying tall, thick staffs.
Wizards.
I counted another dozen men wearing nothing but loin cloths—despite the obvious cold—wielding futuristic, sleek, black bows and what looked like military-grade quivers that resembled compact, metal backpacks.
Ascension: Nate Temple Series Book 13 Page 24
