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Her hands lowered, and her thin shoulders quivered, but no tears fell. No, not Pamela, she was turning out to be tough as nails, if still somewhat ruled by teenager angst and hormones.
“The trick is to make it look like you were never here.” I pushed the door open. “Unlike this B&E, where Jack will know that I was here the second he goes to open his door.” She bobbed her head, taking my words in like a sponge. Scary.
Doran couldn’t move, held as he was by Pamela’s spell. I turned to face her. “You let him go when I tell you to, okay?” “Are you sure?” Her fingers clutched Alex’s collar, the werewolf having crept in without me noticing. Both of them had eyes the size of silver dollars. Children, I had children for allies. Fuck, I needed Doran to snap out of this binding he was under so I had at least one able-bodied adult backing me up.
“Be careful. I may not be able to read you, but everyone around you has a lot of shit coming down the pipeline. Very little of it good.”
A Guardian coming after me? Shit, I was never going to be on Faris’ team, not if this was what I got when people just thought I was working with him.
I rapped my knuckles on the desk. “William, we need to talk.” He’d planned to take time off after our last case, and he had. For about three days. It seemed that, like me, he couldn’t, or maybe didn’t want to, escape his work. He didn’t lift his head; no doubt he’d smelled me long before I reached him. “Busy right now.” “Oh, pardon me while you’re being busy and I deal with the big fucking beast of a Guardian that Daniels has called out on me. Here, let me sit down and wait for him to show up while you be busy.” I dropped into the chair across from him. His hands stilled on the paperwork he
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“I’m bringing him back,” I said, my voice firm as I tightened the straps holding my weapons. “You don’t know that. He might not be the man you knew. He’s been a wolf for a long time now.” Oh, that’s a good kitty, piss off the Tracker.
“Well, Agent Valley, I thought you would have gone home by now.” Our last meeting hadn’t gone so well. A screaming match, a barking werewolf, a young girl ready to light the whole place on fire with her magic. Yeah, not so well at all. “No, I’m waiting on my best agent.” I cringed and he let out a barking laugh. “Not you, Adamson. O’Shea. You’re going after him, aren’t you?”
I lifted the phone and dialed Jack’s number. He picked up on the first ring. “Got to be you, Rylee, feels like I’m picking up the phone with no one on the other end,” he grumbled.
I jogged back to my three wards. Three, how the hell had this happened? Jack was right. I had to start saying no. If I didn’t, there wouldn’t be much time before I was stringing along a gods be damned circus behind me on every salvage I went after.
“I can help,” she said, her eyes wet with tears. Eve answered her. “Your magic will fail on the dragon. They are Immune like Rylee. You cannot help us; do as your mentor says.” Oh, fuck, Immune? We were done, toast. Maybe in the most literal of senses.
“I’m sorry, Rylee,” Eve said, her voice trembling, the fear leaking out with her words. “Don’t be sorry yet, Harpy. We aren’t done until the blood spills and we aren’t breathing anymore,” I said, trying to figure out a way to get our asses out of this mess.
I had no other choice but to fight to win. To kill him or at the least make him beg for mercy. Right. I lifted the crossbow and aimed at the dragon’s head, aimed for the glittering eye. I hit the trigger, watched the bolt bounce off the side of its head. Unfortunately for me, it not only didn’t do any damage, it reminded the big fucker I was still there. Oops.
Blood ran from a gash over my eye, partially blinding me, but I barely noticed it. Tomorrow I’d be sore, bruised and battered. I just had to get to tomorrow. No problem, right?
Fighting the dragon really wasn’t as scary as my brain was telling me it should be. And believe me, my brain was screaming at me that this thing below me was a big fucking monster and I should end it as fast as possible. But, if I was being honest with myself, as he spun and bucked in the air, scales sparkling when random beams of sunlight hit him, I was kinda having fun. Fun. Fighting with a dragon shouldn’t be fun. What the hell was wrong with me?
On a brief respite between rolls, I slid my sword back into my sheath. “This isn’t going to end well for either of us. I don’t suppose you want to call a truce?” Fuck off, Tracker.
Eve bobbed her head in agreement with me. “Rylee is right. My mentor, Eagle, he told me much the same. We are young yet, we will not always be in the midst of the battles. Not until we are ready. If we try too soon, we put not only ourselves in danger, but those that are there to teach and protect us.”
“Old news,” I said, wishing I could get to the light switch. Alex snored lightly, rolled over and burrowed his face into the pillows. “Quiet, Alex sleeping,” he grumbled. What a guard wolf he was.
“Rylee, you are my sister, and you will save me yet. Of that, I have no doubt. Do not grieve me, for death is never the end, not with us. I know you will save me; you will save us all. Things are not as they seem, not in our world. Do not believe your eyes, believe your heart.”
I flicked my fingers at Faris. “Are we going?” “Now?” “Yes, now. Seriously, we have people to kill, a war to start. A rescue to make happen.” I shook my head at him. “All those things aren’t going to go on by themselves.” Faris’ lips twitched. “Good to see you have some of your old self back.”
“The devil will tell you nine truths, so that you’ll believe one lie. Lots of supernaturals like that too.”
A chunk landed on the hood, bounced into the back of the truck. Alex gave a yelp. I assumed he’d been smacked by the block. He started mouthing off at the top of his lungs. “Sons of bitches, stupid witches!” I wanted to laugh, it was his best rhyme yet, but I was too busy focusing on the road as it continued to explode, and I fought to keep the truck from doing a header into one of the magic-made craters.
But the bird seemed to belong to his mate too. Perhaps this was her pack? Yes, that much was clear. This was her pack. The thought stalled him, made his head tip to one side. Her pack. Could he accept them, accept even the witch child? Because if they belonged to his mate, and were hers to protect, then they were his to protect as well. They were his pack by rights too.
The wolf barked again, a deeper, commanding call. The time to hunt had come. And even though this was surely the strangest pack he’d ever seen, it was his. And he would care for every part of it. His eyes narrowed. Even the witch child.
It is a Harpy. Seems that when you flew through with your nestling, you stirred up the whole fucking continent of them. Which is just fine by me. Maybe not so good. Crap, I swallowed hard. “Don’t tell Eve.” Pamela shook her head, eyes wide. “I won’t.” We sat for a few minutes, stuffing ourselves with Harpy. I tried very hard not to think about how good it tasted, but by the look on Blaz’s face, he knew. Best thing you ever ate, isn’t it?
“I need a hand with something. I’m hoping you would consider a trade.” You have nothing I want. No, that’s not true. I would take Harpy off your hands; she’s young and tender. He gave an evil grin that Pamela reacted to. “I’ll smash you with those boulders if you even touch Eve,” she said, popping another piece of meat in her mouth. Blaz’s head snaked forward. Little witch, you perhaps do not realize that I could eat you quite easily. One bite would do it. She put her hands on her hips and I just watched, wanting to see how much piss and vinegar the kid had. “I’ll crush you with boulders, you
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I settled in behind Pamela, then flicked my whip out and around Blaz’s neck for a handhold. He turned around to stare at me, arching his darkly scaled eyebrow. I’m not going to try and dump your ass this time. “You say that now. I know how fast I can piss people off. I’d rather have something to hang onto.”
“Rylee, the end game is going to be played out, and you are central to it. Many of your friends are central to it.” “How the hell am I supposed to take this, Jack?” I shouted, feeling an unfamiliar wash of anxiety sweeping over me. “Like a fucking Tracker,” he shouted back. “You do what you must, you keep your oaths, you save the goddamn world. Stop whining. This is your life, learn to fucking deal with it.”
“You mock what you know not.” “I mock everything, Yoda. Get used to it.”
“Anything else you’d like to add?” “You are afraid.” I arched an eyebrow at her. “Well done, Lady Obvious. You want a fucking medal?”
The Child Empress had sent Doran to kill Pamela. Berget was the Child Empress. Clusterfuck didn’t even come close to what was happening.
Gods, could nothing be simple anymore. “Play nice boys or I’ll kill you both.”
“I’m here. I’m here.” I sobbed into his shoulder, clung to him and didn’t care how needy I might seem. For once, I couldn’t be the strong one. For once, I had someone to hold me.
I think … I needed to know that I wasn’t just another one of your wards, someone who needed you—I needed to know that you needed me too. My wolf needed you to want him as an equal, not a dependent.”
A moment of understanding hit me. We’d been waiting for each other all along, waiting for this moment of rightness. That was why he’d not been able to let Berget’s case go. Why I couldn’t just kill him even when there had been moments I could have, why I’d tried to help him when his eyes had been opened to the supernatural. Why even the mere thought of losing him completely had made me more than a little bit crazy. Why I’d chosen him over Berget. And would choose him over Berget again if I had to. With Liam, there was no choice, he would always come first.
With a sigh, I lifted my face to his without opening my eyes and kissed him softly. “You are the best thing in my life.” He kissed me back, murmuring against my lips. “Love, go to sleep. Because I have no doubt that tomorrow, something will crawl up and into your life that you or I will have to kill.” I chuckled against his skin. “You know me too well.” “That I do. That I do.”
Milly was bent over several of the tomes that Jack had hidden from me. In particular, the black demon book, and the violet skinned blood of the lost. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Her head jerked up. “I needed the information in these. I need to borrow them.” I couldn’t stop my mouth from dropping open. “Are you bat shit crazy? This isn’t a fucking library and we aren’t friends anymore.”
“If you don’t quit making googly eyes at him, I’m going to puke,” Doran said, but he was smiling, his eyes laughing. “You shut up over there or I’ll ship you back to Berget.” The room went very still and I let took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Let it go, I can freaking well crack a joke about my psycho sister if I want to.” Doran just shook his head. “Don’t joke about that. I am eternally in your debt, which is a long time for someone like me. She carries not only her own memories, but the abilities and powers of both her adoptive parents. Which is part of the problem. She cannot
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