by Sarah Piper
Elena’s eyes twinkled, and she winked at me over the rim of her mug. “Sounds like a pack to me.”
“In a lot of ways, it is.” Then, eager to shift the focus away from my own romantic entanglements, I flashed a teasing smirk and said, “Maybe you should try it. Get yourself a few boyfriends, do a little test run.”
“That easy, right?” Elena smiled, but the laughter quickly dimmed from her eyes. “I can’t, Gray. I’m the Alpha. We mate with one, and we mate for life.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like such a bad deal if you find the right guy though, right?”
She shrugged, noncommittal.
“What about Detective Hobb? I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
She reached for another sandwich, breaking it in half. Melty cheese dripped from the center, still warm. “I care for Aiden,” she said, taking a bite. “A lot. But he’s not my mate. Not in the true sense of the word.”
Her eyes glazed with a deep, dark sadness, the cause of which I could only begin to guess at. She set down the rest of her sandwich, and for a moment I thought that would be the end of the conversation.
But then she looked at me and said, “I already found my mate. A long time ago.”
My eyes widened in surprised. I was almost afraid to ask the next question, but she seemed to be expecting it.
“What happened?”
“Well, we married young. He was human—totally forbidden.” The mischievous sparkle in her eye told me exactly what Elena thought about that particular rule. But despite the momentary smile, it was clear she didn’t enjoy talking about this.
“I… didn’t mean to push,” I said.
“It’s not that. It’s… I haven’t talked about this in so long. I just…” She swiped a tear that had escaped down her cheek, taking a shuddering breath. “To make a long and tragic story as short as possible… Back in Argentina, our pack was betrayed. Our people were slaughtered. Emilio got me out—just barely—but our parents…” She shook her head, fresh tears gathering in her eyes. “And my… my husband and my daughter… She was only three at the time.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “At the time. I say it as if she’ll ever be any older.”
“Daughter,” I whispered. Her words punched a hole in my chest, reaching right in and grabbing my heart. “I don’t… I can’t even find the words for this.”
“That’s because there aren’t any.”
My heart was breaking for her, my mind racing with so many questions, colliding into one another and making my tongue feel fat. How had their pack been betrayed? How had she and Emilio escaped? And what had happened since that horrible tragedy to drive them so far apart? It sounded like they were the last two of their family—of their pack. And somehow, they’d become estranged. For nearly two decades, if I remembered it right.
I took a breath, trying to corral my thoughts into the right words, into a single sentence that could offer even the tiniest bit of comfort.
But when I opened my mouth to speak, Elena held up her hand.
“It’s not necessary,” she said. “I’ve read every book on grief and loss and recovering from trauma. I even went to a few support group meetings in Seattle a couple of years ago, hoping I could find a connection, another person who understood and could help me feel less alone in it.”
“It didn’t help?” I asked.
“Yes and no. It helped soothe the sting in the moment. But there’s just no balm for a wound like this. You carry the burden, and you learn to live with the pain, making room for it like another person in the house. It follows you everywhere—to the grocery store, to work, into your bed at night. You make peace with it. You make friends with it. And you survive, despite the hole in your heart.”
She held my gaze, her eyes suddenly fierce, and I nodded. I hadn’t suffered the loss of a child—I couldn’t even imagine what that would do to a person. But loss was universal, and in my own way, I understood what she was saying.
Finally breaking our gaze, Elena brushed the last of her tears away and forced out a laugh. “Goodness, what’s in this mate? Truth serum?”
I returned her laugh, glad to lighten the mood, just a little bit.
Her laughter faded, and now she looked at me with kind, honest eyes. The eyes of someone who might become a friend.
Maybe she already had.
“As long as we’re being honest, Gray…” She took a breath, searching for her words, then said, “My brother cares for you a great deal. It’s… it’s good to see him like that. Happy.”
The words seemed to stick in her throat, each one pushed out with great effort.
God, there were so many layers to her relationship with Emilio. So many sharp edges and dark corners I could only guess at. But I truly didn’t want to push, and I sensed she’d reached the absolute farthest end of her comfort zone.
Exhaustion was settling into my bones, anyway. Stretching into a yawn, I rose from the chair and cleared away the dishes, ready to give her some privacy and head back into the warm embrace of my wolf.
But when I exited the kitchen and headed toward the hallway, Emilio was already standing there, unbuttoned jeans hanging off his hips, a wrinkled T-shirt tossed over his shoulder. The sight of his massive bare chest sent a fresh pulse of desire to my core, and I ogled him openly, hoping I wasn’t actually drooling.
But the severe look in his eyes told me this was not the time for ogling.
“Get dressed,” he said to us both, just as Elena’s phone started buzzing on the table. “That’ll be Lansky. I just got off the phone with him. Gray and I have a visitor at the precinct.”
Twenty-Nine
Emilio
Nine minutes and one harrowing drive later, we stood outside the RCPD interrogation room, staring through the one-way mirror at a witch I hadn’t seen—in the flesh, anyway—since Sophie’s murder.
Reva Monroe was so pale and thin, she was practically see-through. Dark circles lined her eyes, making them stand out starkly against her china-doll complexion. Her head had been shaved, covered now with the fuzz of new growth.
One of the female officers had helped her clean up, and now she wore a set of RCPD sweats. They were two sizes too big, but she looked grateful for the warmth, sitting at the table and sipping hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup.
I could only imagine what her living conditions had been like.
“She showed up here a little while ago, asking for you and Gray,” Lansky said to me. “She won’t talk to anyone else.”
“You get one of the EMTs to check her out?” I asked.
“Yes. She’s refusing to go to the hospital,” he said, “but they said she was stable. Dehydrated and hungry, a few scrapes, but no major injuries. She did tell us she hadn’t been physically assaulted, but said that others had been… experimented on.”
“Oh my God,” Gray whispered, shaking her head. She clenched her teeth, her eyes sparking with rage. Her magic spiked—I scented it in the air between us. “Can I go talk to her?”
I put my hand on her shoulder, giving her a squeeze. “I’ll go in with you.”
Reva looked up from her hot chocolate as we entered, a smile stretching across her face when she saw us.
“I knew you’d come,” she said.
Gray knelt before her, reaching for her hands. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
Reva shook her head. “Not like that.”
“How did you even end up there?”
“Norah took me,” she said. “Delilah too. She put Delilah under some kind of spell, but not me. She said there was only one way for me to help my friends.”
“What way was that?” I asked gently, taking a seat across from her. I didn’t want her to be intimidated. The kid had been through enough already—the last thing she needed was a bunch of hulking cops standing around, staring down at her, demanding answers.
“She sold me to Jonathan. I don’t know how much she got, but probably not a lot.”
Madre María, the sa
dness in those eyes.
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth, trying to keep my emotions in check. I glanced at the mirror, knowing Elena was there on the other side, thinking the same thoughts that I was.
Our theories about Norah were correct. She had betrayed her coven. Kidnapped Reva and Delilah, maybe others we didn’t even know about. Likely she’d known about the vampire ambush at her house after Asher and Haley had been taken. Hell, she may have even sanctioned it.
“He has everyone in the cave prison,” she said, glancing up at me. “Did you get my message before?”
“I did, kiddo. You did great. We searched the beach, right where you told us to, but the prison is fae spelled. Camouflaged.” I glanced at Gray, then back to Reva. “But you’re here now, physically. How did you manage to slip out of sight?”
“I knew there was another cave system behind that one, and it wasn’t spelled. There was a shaft that led back out to the beach.”
“How did you get out of the cell?” Gray asked.
“They said they were going to move us,” she said. “Something about relocating into the city? So when they came back to get us out of the cell, Asher and Haley started a fight with the fae guards, and I did my thing.”
“Fae guards?” I asked. “Can you describe them?”
“Black uniforms, gold patches on their arms with a weird swirly kind of design. It kind of looked like tree branches, maybe?”
I shot another glance at Gray. “Darkwinter,” I mouthed.
“Did the guards say anything about where in the city they were going?” Gray asked.
“No, the fae guards didn’t say anything. The guy in charge was human—a hunter. Asher said he’s the guy who…” She swallowed hard, her eyes filling with tears as she looked at Gray. “Who killed your mother in New York.”
“Dirty Beard,” Gray whispered. She was positively ashen. “Jonathan’s father.”
Reva nodded.
“Reva,” I said, “I’m going to need you to remember as much detail as possible about the prison and everyone in it. Anything the guards or the old man said, things Jonathan might’ve mentioned before, things about what happened with Norah, anything you can think of at all. Nothing is too silly or insignificant to mention. Do you think you can do that for me?”
She nodded emphatically. “I told those guys my plan would work. I knew I could find you.”
“And I’m so glad you did.” I couldn’t help but smile. “You hungry, kiddo? How do you feel about cheeseburgers?”
She grinned, her smile lighting up the room. “I feel like I love them.”
I waved for Elena to come in.
“Did I hear something about cheeseburgers?” she asked.
“Make mine a double,” I told Elena.
“Mine too,” Reva said.
My sister rolled her eyes, but she was nodding. I even caught a smile on that grim face of hers.
Turning back to Reva with a smile of my own, I pulled out my phone and hit the voice recorder, setting it on the table between us. “Okay, Reva Monroe, stealth spelunker and master escape artist. Tell us a story, and make it a good one.”
“Story checks out,” Elena said a couple of hours later. “We’ve got them.”
“That fast?” I asked.
“All thanks to this one.” She smiled at Reva, who beamed right back at her. “I might have to make you an honorary detective, kiddo.”
Elena gave us the lowdown, pointing out the site on a map on her phone.
After hearing Reva’s account, she said, she was able to narrow down the possibilities to the most likely locations in the city—abandoned commercial buildings that had plenty of space to imprison captors and set up labs for their ongoing experimentation, all without attracting too much attention. From there, she had her guys combing through security camera footage, and apparently Hobb had hit the jackpot with a condemned three-story building down at the intersection of Granite Top Road and Spring Street, right on the seedy outskirts of the Cape’s warehouse district. The place had been on the auction block for a year, dead to all but the rodents who’d made it home. Yet earlier that night, cameras picked up on six nondescript black vans rolling into the alley adjacent to the property, right where the service entrances would be. The footage was grainy, she said, but they were able to zoom in on a partial view of one of the divers.
“Jael identified the armband insignia as Darkwinter.”
“Sounds like we’ve got our target,” I said. “So what’s our play here, Chief?”
“Surveillance. We need to gather more intel. Then?” She blew out a breath, meeting my eyes. “We’ll make our move. Together.”
Thirty
Gray
“Can you do it?” I asked.
Jael nodded, peering through the binoculars, scanning the scene below.
It was well after midnight, and Jael, Darius, and I were in position on the second floor of an empty office building adjacent to the prison site. We sat in darkness, hiding in shadow from our enemies across the alley. The operation would begin in earnest in twenty-five minutes.
Sunshine and Sparkle were here with me, as always, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. In our short time together, they’d become more like companions than guardians, and we’d finally begun to trust each other. They knew I wouldn’t bolt—wouldn’t leave them—and I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. In fact, they’d do anything to keep me safe.
Now, they were as much an integral part of the plan as the rest of us.
“Luck is on our side. Their security spell isn’t fully operational yet,” Jael said. “They believe they’ve still got time. Right now, it’s strong enough to keep the prisoners in and curious humans out of the area altogether. But there are still a lot of loose threads for me to exploit.”
“Threads?” I asked.
“Think of fae magic like a weaving,” he said. “Complex spells like this—spells that need to cover a lot of physical ground, for example—require millions of different threads, each of them precisely woven together. This spell is still in progress. I can feel its threads, so it’s essentially a matter of finding the right one and giving it a good tug.”
“Will it destroy the whole spell?” Darius asked.
“No. But it will temporarily weaken the magic—long enough to give us a window,” Jael said. “Once I give the signal, you’ll have less than two minutes to breach the physical security. The moment they see you, they’ll know the spell was compromised and they’ll go on the offensive. Killing you brutally, of course.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes playfully, desperate for a little levity to break up the heaviness. “No one ever accused you of seeing the silver lining, did they, Jael?”
“Fae don’t see silver linings. We make them.” Jael surprised me with a conspiratorial wink. Seemed he needed a little levity, too.
We fell into silence, taking turns scoping out the warehouse through the binoculars. I couldn’t see much—an occasional fae guard patrolling the entrances, a hunter stationed at the corner of the building, playing with his phone. It was quiet outside.
Inside? I could only imagine what was happening. We were assuming the prisoners were being held on the third floor—Darius and the shifters had all sensed the concentration of fear there. But we had no other clues. Reva hadn’t been able to shadow travel—not since she’d escaped the caves. I suspected she was just weakened from her ordeal, but she was understandably distraught about the loss of her powers, no matter how temporary it might’ve been.
Poor kid. Deirdre had concocted a mild sedative for her, and we’d left her home tonight, with one of Elena’s officers posted outside. When we said our goodbyes earlier, she was already camped out on the living room couch with Elena’s Netflix password and enough pizza, potato chips, and ice cream to tide her over. Emilio had expected her to protest, but I was pretty sure she was relieved to be left behind. Reva was tough, but she was also exhausted, scared, and hadn’t even begun to process the trauma she’d
endured at Norah’s hands, let alone Jonathan’s.
All of us had already lost so much. And there was still so much more darkness to come. I was certain of it. Freeing the witches tonight? Getting back to Asher? That was just the beginning of a long, bloody fight.
One I was supposed to lead.
“It’s time,” Jael said, his hand on my back. His yellow eyes glinted in the moonlight that streamed in through the windows. “We need to get down to ground level.”
“Jael…” I looked into those catlike eyes, wondering what he was thinking. He and I were connected by our love for Sophie, by the pain of her loss, but we had never spoken about her. Not really.
I hoped we’d get that chance someday.
“Doing this…” I continued, “There’s no going back. If we fail and Darkwinter takes power, you’ll be branded a traitor to your kind. They’ll banish you from the fae realms, and probably worse.”
“I am aware of the risks, and I fully accept any consequences, foreseen and unforeseen.” He stood up straight, proud. But then his face softened, his eyes sparkling with new warmth. In a gentler tone, he said, “If Sophie were here, what do you think she’d have me do?”
The sound of her name on his lips brought tears to my eyes. But for once, they weren’t tears of sadness. I felt his love for her. Felt the joy in her love for him. I was grateful she’d found that happiness, however briefly.
I smiled, blinking away the tears, and grabbed the lapels of his dark gray coat. “Well first of all, she’d probably add a little glitter to this jacket. It doesn’t take much to go from drab to fab,” I said, recalling one of her favorite lines.
