Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4)

by Hailey Edwards

  “I’m sorry.” Midas addressed the wall, but there was little doubt he was talking to Bishop. “I won’t make any promises, but I will try harder not to want to murder you every time I see you.”

  “Hey.” Bishop winked at me. “What else can a guy ask for?”

  “You have entire notebooks full of wish lists.” I shoved him. “However, a gal could ask for a lead on Liz.”

  “She’s in the wind.” He shook his head. “We’ve got a few ideas, but nothing’s panned out yet.”

  “Ares is our best bet.” Midas turned to face them. “She’ll know where Liz is denning.”

  “Then we need to go talk to her.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Here goes nothing.”

  Sliding my toes onto cool laminate flooring, I tested my ankle and found it held my weight without buckling. It didn’t exactly hurt so much as it was brutally tender, but I stood and walked without keeling over. That was definitely progress.

  Hunting Liz while Midas pushed me in a wheelchair with my ankle in a cast would have seriously dinged my street cred. It was hard to look intimidating with one leg elevated and a golden god steering you where you need to go.

  “How do you feel?” Midas hovered, but he didn’t swoop in to save me. “Can you manage?”

  “It hurts, but nothing like it did. I can walk on it without my eyes crossing in pain.”

  The door opened then, and like a messenger sent from biblical heaven, or a healer who eavesdropped on his patients, Abbott descended upon us with a plastic contraption in his hand that he pointed at me with the conviction of an archangel wielding his holy blade.

  Sixteen

  “You’re going to wear this.” Abbott slapped an ankle brace across my palm. “You’re going to like it.”

  “I won’t,” I countered only to be contrary, “and you can’t make me.”

  A quick trip to the storage cabinet produced my tennis shoes, one of them rather bloody.

  “These are ruined.” He clucked his tongue. “I’m throwing them away.”

  As I gaped at him, they thumped the bottom of the can. “What do you think bleach is for?”

  “You don’t have time to bleach and dry the shoes if you’re going toddling off into danger this second.”

  Toddling off made me sound like a baby, and I was in age compared to most gwyllgi, but grr.

  I bought bleach in bulk for a reason, dammit.

  “I took the precaution of having Remy procure another pair.” He returned to the cabinet. “Here we are.”

  The sneakers were still in the box and smelled overwhelmingly of new.

  “These aren’t my shoes,” I grumped. “I like my old shoes better.”

  Midas rubbed a hand across his mouth, but it didn’t smudge his grin.

  Abbott ripped out the sole in the right shoe, slid the contraption in, then replaced it with a scowl.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” He crouched in front of me. “Lift your foot, please.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the top of his head, but Midas crossed his arms over his chest.

  No help there.

  Bowling Abbott over and hobbling to the elevators, to freedom, wasn’t happening without an accomplice. I cooperated like a co-beta ought to, but I wasn’t happy about it. “What’s the deal?”

  “Be a good girl, wear the brace for the next week, and I’ll bag your old shoes for you to bleach later.”

  “Fine.” Gripping the bedrail, I lifted my foot and let him slide the shoe contraption on me. “I’ll do it.”

  “We shall see,” he muttered. “In the meantime, I’ll keep the shoes until you fulfill your end of the deal.”

  “What?” I grimaced as he Velcroed the straps into place around my tender ankle. “That’s not fair.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t trust you.” He leaned back to admire his handiwork. “I’m just saying motivation is a good thing.” He rose. “You don’t have to wear it around the house, but keep it on while you’re at work for the next seven days. Seven, Hadley. Not six. Not five and a half. Not four. Seven.”

  “Why did you become a healer when you enjoy inflicting pain on others?”

  “We all must play to our strengths.” He stood back. “Please be careful.”

  Remy had also brought me a change of clothes, which was nice. The black yoga pants were heaven and stretched over the itchy brace. The bright-pink racerback sports bra was not my favorite thing, but the white oversized Metallica tank might end up in rotation for my runs in the Active Oval.

  “This isn’t as horrendous as I feared.” I pulled my hair into a high ponytail. “Remy didn’t do too badly.”

  “It’s tame by her standards.” Midas raked his heated gaze down me. “It’s hard to go wrong with you as her model.”

  “You’re adorable.” I pinched his cheek. “Can we spare a second for me to look in on Boaz and Addie?”

  “Sure.” He took my hand. “Grier and Linus are still at our place. It’ll take them a minute to get downstairs.”

  Our place.

  Music to my ears.

  “You texted them?” I made stiff progress to the door, but my ankle was loosening. “Good deal.”

  “Grier is our best bet for getting information out of Ares without resorting to the usual methods.”

  The usual methods being torture, which no one would want to inflict on her, even a shell of her, least of all him.

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed she can work her magic then.”

  Midas stopped a few yards down from my room in front of a door with a cutout identical to mine. I pressed my face to the glass and ignored the slight hitch in my breath.

  Boaz and Addie each had a bed, as reported, but he had hauled her onto his, and she slept draped over the top of him. His arm, the one not cuffed to the bed, circled her waist, and he held on as if afraid someone might take her from him again. Her face was turned toward the window, and she was smiling even in her sleep.

  Yep.

  She was a goner.

  We might be hearing wedding bells this year after all.

  “They’re cute.” I resisted the urge to tap the glass like they were fish swimming in an aquarium. “Right?”

  “They love each other.” He rubbed my shoulders. “They might not have realized how much.”

  “Boaz is a loveaphobe, and a commitmentaphobe. She’s got her hands full with that one.”

  “Yes.” Midas twisted me away from the window before I registered the squeak of my shoes on the tile. “She does, literally.” He captured my face between his palms. “No.” He held me still. “Don’t look back.”

  “Eww, eww, eww.” I threw up a little in my mouth. “Get me out of here.”

  We hit the elevators and rode up to the lobby then crossed it to reach the enforcer’s on-site HQ.

  An uncomfortable silence fell when I entered, which I would have blamed on the intrusion of an outside authority figure in their personal space, if not for the fact I had bought their loyalty with pizza, donuts, and fried chicken over the last several months. No, the quiet wasn’t my fault. It was our fault.

  Midas and I had caged Ares. We were hunting Liz. And we couldn’t exactly make an announcement to put everyone at ease. From the outside looking in, we had done the unthinkable in turning against a packmate, and it smarted. They understood protocol better than most since they had hands-on experience dealing with gwyllgi-on-gwyllgi crimes, but it sucked all the way around.

  “She’s in A2,” a slight female told us. “We have four guards on her.”

  Midas nodded then escorted me through a reinforced steel door into a dim observation area with one-way mirrored glass overlooking a mini prison-style pod with two levels of cells that must extend into the basement and might explain the cramped underground parking deck. The facilities belonged to the Faraday, not the pack, and were rigged to hold every flavor of resident should they become a problem for the rest of the building.

  There were four cells on each floor for a total of
eight. The top row was outfitted with metal bars, two in silver and two in bronze. They were meant to accommodate shifters. Gwyllgi and wargs in particular. The bottom row were solid gray boxes of undetermined material outfitted with clear polycarbonate doors to contain vampires, humans, and fae offenders until their faction leader arranged for their release.

  The enforcers on guard duty snapped to attention at our arrival, but none of them looked at us, and not just because of the dominance factor.

  “We need a few minutes alone with the prisoner,” Midas told them. “Grier Woolworth and Linus Lawson will be joining us. Escort them back when they arrive, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” they echoed in unison then pivoted on their heels and marched out in a single file.

  “The pack isn’t happy about this,” I stated the obvious. “How do we smooth things over?”

  “When enforcers hunt one of their own, it reminds the pack what can happen if they ever step out of line.” He gazed through the door into the bright cell holding Ares. “We’re supposed to take care of our people, and we do, but the punishment for breaking trust with Mom is brutal. Often, it’s fatal too. It has to be or else there’s chaos. We are predators, and predators don’t respect weakness.”

  “I’m sorry it’s come to this.” I joined him in watching her sleep. “She is—was—a good friend to have at your back.”

  “I always thought so.” He cut his gaze to mine. “I hope I wasn’t wrong about that too.”

  His meaning sank in, that he might never have known the real Ares, and my heart pinched. The witchborn fae hadn’t made their move until I was one year into my apprenticeship, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t infiltrated the local packs well before then.

  Ares might have cozied up to me as I hit it off with Midas in the hopes she could worm her way into my confidence, which she had, and learn my weaknesses. She might have never been my friend, and that sucked. We’d had rough patches, but she always came across as genuine, and I liked her. I liked Liz, what little I knew of her, too.

  But then again, I was sure plenty of folks—my brothers included—believed Matron Pritchard was a good woman.

  They were wrong about her.

  We had been wrong about Ares.

  Watching her sleep under present conditions felt ghoulish, so Midas and I settled in against the wall to wait on Grier and Linus. I leaned my head on his shoulder, shifted the weight off my right foot, and gave myself a moment to process before things got hectic again.

  What felt like seconds later, I jolted awake, having fallen asleep standing. All that had kept me from melting onto the floor was the warm arm Midas had wrapped around my middle to keep me wedged between him and the wall. The noise that had stirred me was the outer door opening then clanging shut behind Linus and Grier.

  The couple approached, hand in hand, but neither carried their kits stocked with necromantic implements. Their low conversation echoed, and I listened in once I realized what they were discussing.

  “The guard warned she’s not restrained,” Grier was saying. “Sigil or zip tie?”

  “Sigil.” Linus awarded her his full attention. “Bind her wrists and ankles first.”

  This must be how gwyllgi felt all the time, doomed to listen in without meaning to, but it felt rude to me.

  “He’s right.” As much as I hated to be harsh on Ares, she wasn’t Ares anymore. “Take all precautions.”

  Neither of them started at my verbal intrusion, but they would have noticed the echo too.

  “Okay.” Dipping her chin, Grier shook out her hands. “Let’s do this.”

  A tad concerned by her apparent lack of preparation, I asked, “You’ve got everything you need?”

  “Yep.” She withdrew an antique pocketknife with a lethal edge. “I’m ready.”

  “I’ll go in with her,” Midas volunteered. “I’ll secure Ares until Grier restrains her.”

  “Works for me.” I checked with Linus. “You okay with that?”

  “Yes.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I trust Midas with her.”

  A greater endorsement had never been spoken, and even Midas appeared taken aback.

  “Abbott told us she was sedated.” Midas removed a card from his pocket and swiped it through the lock. “We burn through drugs in our systems quickly, so stay on your guard. She might be playing possum.”

  “Okay.” Grier pulled on her game face. “Wrists first.”

  Once the door swung open and the path cleared, a few things happened all at once.

  Ares jackknifed off the bed.

  Midas charged her.

  Grier cut her palm.

  And Ambrose stretched to wakefulness inside me, spreading dark tendrils that seeped across the floor.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched the familiar tattered cowl envelope Linus’s head and his dark cloak unfurl to his ankles. The scythe that often haunted my dreams appeared in his hand, and he strode to the door with lethal purpose.

  A braver woman might have reached out, but my fingers curled, nails biting into the meat of my palms. I would never not be afraid of him like this. I wished I could say otherwise, but it was the truth. I saw him all in black and wanted to wet my pants, run, scream, sink into the floor, vanish into thin air, or some combination of all those things.

  The crack of meat against bone jerked my head back toward the cell in time to witness Ares’s head snap to one side and her eyes roll up in her skull. She collapsed at Midas’s feet, and he flipped her onto her stomach, planted his knee on her spine, and waved Grier in.

  She rushed in, dipped a finger in her blood, then drew binding sigils at Ares’s wrists and ankles. “Done.”

  Hauling Ares up and onto the cot where she had been lying, Midas arranged her in an upright seated position. Gwyllgi can take a beating, and they heal fast. She was already coming around, her eyes twitching behind their lids.

  “The way this works is—” Grier caught sight of Linus in Grim Reaper mode and sighed. “Linus.”

  That she could watch him approach in full nightmare regalia and simply sigh at him…

  Yeah.

  That was love for you.

  The tattered edges of his cloak fluttered one last time then vanished along with his cowl and scythe.

  “Thank you.” Grier blew him a kiss. “I’ve got this.”

  Joining me, which gave me the heebie-jeebies after that display, Linus murmured, “It never gets easier.”

  Skin attempting to crawl off my body and hide, I impressed him with my ready wit. “Hmm?”

  “Watching someone you love put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of another.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I got myself under control. “I’m starting to see that.”

  A tiny smile tugged on one corner of Linus’s mouth. “I believe Midas is seeing it too.”

  “I can’t be anything other than what I am.” I spread my hands. “I tried to warn him off me.”

  Never taking his eyes off Ares, Midas rumbled, “Don’t make me come out there and bite you, Hadley.”

  I made a noise halfway between a laugh and a cry of indignation.

  “He’s very bitey,” I confided in Linus, aware Midas would overhear. “Must be a gwyllgi thing.”

  “Grier is very bitey too,” he confessed in an equally low tone. “But then, her father was a vampire.”

  “I can hear you.” Grier glowered at him. “I won’t bite you again if you go around advertising it.”

  A slight pinkness tipped his ears, and I was very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

  “So.” I clasped my hands together loud enough to ring in my ears. “Are we ready to get started?”

  Amusement bright in her eyes, Grier waved us over to them. “Yes.”

  Careful not to get too close in case Midas made good on his threat, I focused on Ares. “How does this work?”

  “This sigil loosens her tongue and guarantees she’ll talk to us.” Grier pointed to Ares’s forehead and then her chin. “This one in
dicates whether she’s telling the truth.” She shrugged. “Sadly, they’re not mutually exclusive. I haven’t worked out the quirks combining the two yet.”

  “Does it hurt when she lies?”

  “There’s a slight twinge, but it’s no worse than a bee sting.” She glanced at Linus. “Or so I’m told.”

  Since I didn’t want to know why she would have interrogated Linus, or what it led to, I erased it from my memory. I’d had no idea Linus was so kinky, and I wish I had stayed ignorant. It was called bliss for a reason.

  “Would you like to handle the interrogation?” Grier watched me. “She can answer anyone.”

  No, I didn’t want to hammer away at her façade and watch it crack, but it was my job.

  “Where can we find Liz?”

  “The old meat packing plant.”

  A red sheen, brighter than gwyllgi crimson, rolled across her eyes.

  “She’s lying,” Grier interpreted. “Try again now that you know what you’re looking for in a response.”

  “Where is Liz?”

  “She’s my mate.”

  Green.

  “That doesn’t change the fact she’s killed a lot of innocent people.”

  “It changes everything,” she said tiredly. “I can’t let you hurt her.”

  Green.

  As much as I hated the certain knowledge bubbling in my brain, I had no choice but to ask. “You’re not coven, are you? Not a host either.”

  The dark circles under her eyes creased when she smiled at me. “I’m a worse monster than that.”

  Green.

  The test hadn’t failed. The results weren’t flawed. Abbott hadn’t given himself enough credit.

  Midas couldn’t keep his silence. “You’re helping Liz of your own free will?”

  “Free will?” Ares’s misery was palpable. “She’s my mate.”

  Green.

  “We’re your pack.” Midas curbed his growl. “Your family.” He glanced at me. “Hadley is your friend.”