by JL Madore
“Are the people inside all his or does he have a floor?”
“All his,” Yarko says.
“How can you know that for sure?”
The kid shrugs. “I read the directory in the foyer.”
Brant stretches his neck and cracks his knuckles. “Pitter-patter let’s bring down this house of cards.”
Hawk checks the skyline and looks up the side of the building. “Rowan, portal to the roof with Kotah, and Lukas. The three of you sweep each floor and work your way down. Calli, Brant, and I will take my father’s head and go in from the ground. We’ll work our way up and meet you in the middle. Yarko, you stay here and when my teams arrive, fill them in and have them secure anyone trying to leave the building.”
The kid frowns. “No. I want to fight. I was more affected by what they did than all of you.”
“Which is why you sit this out, sorry. I need you here to direct our backup and handle the scene. We’ve got fae exposure and that takes priority.”
The kid’s not happy about the answer but seems to accept that it’s a done deal.
Kotah kisses Calli and then he, Lukas, and Rowan flash out. Brant and I flank Calli. I know Hawk’s choice of putting the two most violently protective mates at her side isn’t a coincidence. There is thought behind everything he does.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hawk
The four of us cross the vast concrete pad in front of the building and Calli and Brant walk beside me, shielding the fact that we’re carrying a severed head. My stride falters at the site of where Rowan caught up with him. There’s a massive pool of blood darkening the concrete and it’s splattered up the side of the building. It’s good they moved the body into the smoking area because this looks like a scene from a slasher flick.
My father is dead.
The reality of that hasn’t set in yet.
I should be horrified or rocked to some degree. I think I am… but I’m numb. Am I glad to be rid of him or sad because now I’ll never prove to him how wrong he was about me?
“Hey there. Are you okay?”
I meet the sympathetic gaze of Calli and swallow. “No. I don’t think I am. Stupid, eh?”
“Not stupid at all, hotness,” Jaxx says, squeezing my shoulder. “Unfortunately, you need to store your conflict away until this is over. We need focus so no one gets hurt.”
The look he shoots me makes it clear who the ‘no one’ he’s worried about getting hurt is.
“Baggage about your father is yet another issue to deal with when we have our little private time chat,” Calli says. “Things are piling up.”
Brant pulls the handle on the glass door and we step inside. I hand Jaxx the head and Brant pulls out the key cards. “This is easy enough. The logo matches.” He swipes the card and then Jaxx positions things so the retinal scanner reads my father’s eye.
The inner door latch clicks and we’re in.
“Jaxx, hold the door. Brant, grab that chair and prop the entrance open so our backup can get in.”
Brant makes quick work of that and then we fan out and cross the polished floor of the entrance.
“I’m surprised there isn’t anyone working the front door,” Calli says.”
“There will be guards watching monitors somewhere close by. Keep your eyes open. We want one of them to talk to.”
“Hey, stop! What are you doing here?” The male voice echoes in the marble and glass lobby and we turn to find two men rushing at us. “Who gave you authorization to be here?”
Brant swaggers up to them and then when he gets close, he bursts into flying fists. In a split-second, one’s unconscious and the other is in a sleeper hold.
“Damn, our offensive moves have leveled up,” I say.
Calli grins. “Did anyone else find that super sexy?”
Jaxx raises a hand.
I adjust the partial filling out my fly. “Yeah, insta-horny over here but yeah-no, not the time.”
Brant chuckles and waggles his brow. “Who says being sexually objectified is a bad thing? Okay, boss, now what?”
I pull out my phone and make a call. “All clear, Mallory. Please step inside the entrance.”
A moment later my night guard from headquarters steps through the front door with four FCO Enforcers. “Sir Barron, always a pleasure. How may I help you, sir?”
I meet the male with an extended palm. “Thank you for coming, Mallory. I’m hoping you can save us time and energy. The Black Knight is working out of this location and has taken innocents hostage. I wonder if you can find out where they’re being held and with what security precautions?”
“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to help.”
I step back as the man’s tail extends and uncoils, encircling the guard several times around.
“Go ahead and ask your questions, sir. He should be willing to speak freely to you.”
I repeat my questions and although the guard doesn’t seem to want to comply with my request for information, as a member of the hulderfolk, Mallory’s powers for drawing the truth out of people is impossible to fight.
“Fourth floor. Retinal scan and key card to open the door of the elevator and a keypad to access the detainment floor.”
“And what’s the punch code for the keypad?”
“I don’t know. Only Mr. Whitehouse and his son know.”
Awesome. Hunter, my half-brother douche, is the only person alive who knows the code. “That’s fine. Lukas can bypass it, I’m sure.”
I nod to the men who came in with Mallory. “Secure these two and anyone who tries to leave. No one gets out of here until we have the hostages freed and go through this building top to bottom. One team is on sweep, the other will detain. Any questions?”
“No sir,” the team leader says.
When they’re set on their tasks, I turn back and rest my hand on Mallory’s shoulder so he can read my sincerity. “Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. If you don’t mind staying, I’d like to talk to you about another matter when we’re finished.”
Mallory beams, as always, with any amount of genuine praise. “Yes, sir. Happy to be of service, sir. Nice to see you again, Mr. Robbins.”
Brant pats Mallory on the shoulder as he passes. “Nice to see you too, buddy. Thanks for the shortcut.”
Brant, Jaxx, Calli, and I jog toward the elevator and I activate my earpiece. “Hostages are being held on the fourth floor. We’re headed there now. Clear each floor as you come down. You’ve got friendlies coming up to relieve you.”
In the elevator, I stick the keycard into the slot and point to the retinal scanner. Jaxx does his part with my father’s noggin and the elevator gets moving.
“What species is Mallory?” Calli asks.
“Hulderfolk. They’re like a walking lie detector race. They can’t lie and they can force truths from others. Perfect for security. Not to mention he’s a helluva solid male.”
The elevator doors open on the fourth floor and we’re sucked into a storm of fighting soldiers. Rowan and a dozen men are clashing hard, my father’s men hell-bent on keeping us out of the detainment area.
“Shit. How’d he get here before us?”
Sizing up our surroundings, Jaxx mutters a low oath and shifts to jaguar. Brant drops to all fours and his bear joins the party. The quarters are too close for guns, so I draw my knife from my thigh-sheath and engage in the melee.
Calli strips quickly and dives in beside me. She heats up to her female on fire form and faces off like the fiery fury she is. Within seconds she’s sending a scalding swath of flames through security men and they’re doing their best to stay out of her way.
We don’t feel her molten heat the way others do, but by their hasty retreats, I imagine she’s a living wall of scalding heat. I duck the swipe of a blade coming in from the side, narrowly escaping decapitation by a sickening few inches.
How’s that for life’s ironies—my father and I both losing our heads on the same night after not seeing one another f
or almost twenty years?
Crazy.
The guy who came at me is the size of a giant redwood. He is a roid-droid, unnatural mass of muscle and brawn—and that’s his most attractive quality. “Has anyone ever told you that your face looks like a scrotum?”
On a roar, he thrusts forward, swinging that machete blade at me again. A solid elbow coming down on his wrist knocks the weapon out of the fight and then it’s fists against fists.
He’s big but clunky. I bend backward when his right hook whistles past my face. He comes at me again.
The whoosh of flames hiss in my ear as a fireball zings past me and takes the guy to the floor in a fiery blaze.
“Hey, I had him.”
Calli
I chuckle at Hawk’s indignation that I fireballed his opponent. “I know, surly. I just think fireballs are badass and ran out of guys to throw them at.”
Adrenaline burns through my veins, and my next flaming projectile comes off like a crack of lightning. It barrels across the room, exploding against the back of some unsuspecting brute. Too soon, we’ve taken control of the fight and the bad guys are either dead or giving up.
Quitters.
“Where are Lukas and Kotah?” Hawk snaps the moment the fighting falls silent.
Rowan straightens the horn around his neck and rises to his full height. “I left them when you said the prisoners are on four. This is the reason I’m here. To rescue my family.”
The shriek of a captive inside the detainment area has us focusing on how to get through to the other side.
“Yeah, to rescue our families. I get that you’re not much of a team player, but we’ve got missing people too.”
Rowan doesn’t seem to care.
“Can you transport us inside there?” I ask.
He shakes his massive elk rack, and dagger-sharp horns swing in the air. “See those globes in the corners in there? Those are magic suppressors. Nothing magical will work in there.”
“Lukas, I need you on four,” Hawk says.
“Almost there. Our ride ditched us.”
“Yeah, we know. He’s here.”
Brant drags a few men out of the doorway and lines them up against the wall. When he straightens, he catches my glance and flashes me a sexy smile. The gleam on his face darkens at the same time the hair on my neck stands on end.
I spin and call my fire as the hiss of steel cuts through the air. In a slow-motion moment like on TV, I see the dagger fly straight at my stomach. End over end, it glints in the stark white light of the fluorescents.
Just before it impales me, my majestic jungle cat leaps through the air and takes me to the ground. Stunned, I struggle under the crush of the weight of Jaxx’s cat.
Brant’s bear lets off an enraged roar and then there’s a snap so loud I don’t want to look at what he did to whoever threw that knife.
“Jaxx!” Hawk is there in an instant, rolling our jaguar off me and checking the wound. “The blade is lodged in his side, between his ribs. It could’ve punctured a lung or nicked any number of vital organs including his heart. Calli, you need to do your thing.”
I raise a shaky hand to his round, velvety cheek.
Crying won’t be a problem. Seeing him like this breaks my heart. We’ve come full circle. In those first hours when I didn’t understand this world and thought I was their prisoner, I hurt him. It was a desperate attempt for survival. I didn’t realize how badly he was hurt, but it still haunts me how close we came to losing him.
I can’t imagine losing any one of them now. I can’t. Kotah, Brant, Hawk, and Jaxx are my life. “Jaxx, I’ve got you.”
Lukas and Kotah rush through the door beside the elevator and join the chaos. Hawk rises to tackle the door lock while I work myself to tears for Jaxx.
“What happened?” Kotah drops to his knees beside me.
I looked from the emotion in our wolf’s eyes to our fallen mate and embrace the sting of oncoming tears. “One of the men threw a knife. He shouldn’t have jumped in the way. Now he’s suffering. I hate it when you boys suffer.”
As the tears start to flow, I curl my body around my jungle cat. “You should’ve let the blade hit my stomach. It would’ve hurt, but I heal faster.”
“No, he shouldn’t,” Kotah says, stroking a gentle caress over Jaxx’s coat. “He was right to protect you from harm. It’s our job as your guardians, your mates, and the fathers of our baby. That’s what we wanted to tell you in private. Five become one. You’re pregnant. If that knife went through your belly….”
I swipe the tears blurring my vision and wipe the moisture on his wound. “What? Pregnant?”
He nods. “That’s why you’ve been so tired and hungry.”
“How can you possibly know that before me?” Tears roll down my cheek and drip off my chin and onto Jaxx’s wound.
“It’s in your scent, Chigua. I smelled it this afternoon in the forest.”
“When you goobed me?”
He smiles. “It’s faint but unmistakable.”
A baby? I gather more moisture off my cheeks and point to the hilt of the knife still embedded in Jaxx’s side. “I can’t deal with this right now. Let me focus on healing Jaxx.”
With our gazes locked, Kotah pulls the knife. Jaxx lets off a hideous sound and my gut twists. I press my damp fingers over the wound and my heart breaks a little more.
Tears fall in a torrent and I set them free.
Crying isn’t even an effort this time.
Hawk and Lukas break the lock down and move to rescue the innocent people. When Lukas pushes the door open, he’s nearly flattened by Rowan as the Forest Lord races ahead.
The heavy thunk, thunk, thunk as the tree man runs down the corridor shakes the floor beneath my knees. Hawk helps Lukas to his feet and then the two of them head in to search the prison cells.
“Go help them, sweet prince. I’ve got Jaxx.” I bend over Jaxx and give him another dousing in magical healing.
Kotah
I race into the detainment area of the fourth floor in the wake of Rowan, Lukas, and Hawk. The building is set up with one main corridor running the length of the floor and off-shoot corridors branching left and right every fifty feet or so.
Hawk waves me down the first corridor on the left and I change course. I’m eager to find Mother and Raven if they’re here, but if not, get back to Jaxx and Calli. Logic tells me Jaxx will be fine and Brant will never let anything happen to them but leaving them feels wrong on all fronts.
Still, it is my mother we’re searching for.
Despite our contentious relationship, I never wanted anything like this to happen to her. Maybe in a convoluted way, fate stepped in to teach me a hard truth because her abduction has made me realize I still care.
“Kotah,” Hawk says, up ahead. “We have your mother. She looks unharmed.”
I jog up the hall and peer past where Lukas is working on the door’s locking mechanisms. Leaning in, I wave and offer my mother what I hope is a comforting smile. “I’d say she looks more pissed than unharmed.”
Hawk chuckles, his back to her cell. “She is a delight to deal with at the best of times.”
“And this won’t be one of those.”
“No. I don’t expect it will.”
Absently, I wander across the hall and look inside the opposite containment room. There’s an old man with birchbark skin and mossy hair sleeping on a single bed. Glancing down the hallway, I count the glass windows and start doing the math. “Are there fae prisoners in all of them?”
Hawk runs a rough hand over his face and frowns. “No idea. A lot of them, anyway. What the fuck were my father and Hunter up to?”
“I have no idea, but I think it goes deeper than screwing you over and keeping the two realms from uniting.”
I wander up the hall a little and calculate the scope of what we’re dealing with. There are three doors on each side of the hall, so six prison cubicles on this branch and another six on the right, and another three branch
es. I do some quick math and frown. “If all the cubicles are prisons of the same size, there are forty-eight cells on this floor.”
“Fuck me,” Hawk pulls out his cell and makes another call. “Me again. I need you down here to assess the impact of what we’re dealing with. This is much bigger than we thought. Fourth floor. Bring medical response, a couple of event recovery people, and a few extra bodies to document and collect names and personal accounts of what happened.”
He hangs up and I see the weight of this pressing down on him. I move in tight and press my hand on the side of his throat, easing his turmoil. “This isn’t your fault. None of this is your doing. Leave the blame squarely where it belongs—on your father’s head.”
“Literally or figuratively because it just so happens, I’m now in possession of his head.”
I don’t know whether to chuckle or hug him. Opting for the latter, I wrap my arms around his ribs and nuzzle against his throat. “I’m sorry you’re so twisted up about this mess. I wish we were still on the couch shutting out the world.”
He eases back and cups my jaw, teasing the seam of my lips with his tongue. “So, do I, Wolf. Let’s do that again, first chance we get.”
“It’s a date.”
“We’re ready here,” Lukas says.
We break it up and head back to the cubicle where my mother’s been held prisoner.
Lukas gets the door open and my mother shrugs on her wrap. “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m pleased to see you got around to finding me. I admit I wondered how much of a priority the past Prima would be.”
I take a deep breath and step into the line of fire. “Of course, you’re a priority, Mother. You are a beloved figure of the realm. And you have only been the Past Prima for one day, so you’re hardly obsolete and forgotten.”
I escort her out of the prison cubicle and give her my elbow as we head down the hallway.
“Where is Raven? Have you found her?”
“Not yet, Prima,” Hawk says. “There are dozens of cells to search and unlock. Your safety was our primary concern. If she’s here, we’ll find her.”
