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Adrian opened the heavy wooden door and stepped in quickly to avoid pissing off the shifters inside Twilight John’s bar. Even a human sitting in this dark interior would squint at the blast of late afternoon sunlight, but shifter eyesight was even more sensitive.
Rain had been predicted. Bloated dark clouds were bunching in the west to roll in soon.
While his eyes adjusted during the sudden silence, he kept his back to the door in case anyone decided to test his reflexes.
Red showed up again. He snarled and bumped around inside Adrian but made no fast press to break free.
That was a new and welcome change.
But would it last?
When his vision cleared, he took in the groups of two, three, and four shifters around tables and at the bar. That burly bartender with a no-bullshit composure slowly dried a glass and set it aside before starting on another one.
Scarlett had called him Big John the first, and only, time Adrian had stepped in this place.
“Over here,” Scarlett called quietly from the far corner. She stood from her seat at a table in the corner where Gan sat next to her. That left two empty chairs across from them.
Her acknowledgement that Adrian was there to see her must have been the all-clear signal.
Every shifter returned to his or her conversation, but these predators would keep tabs on him.
That was understood.
Moving between tables, he took care not to bump anyone. He feared none of them, but with his wolf behaving, Adrian had to do his part not to set Red off.
Red growled low and said, You start fights. Not me.
I’m not the one who broke free in the woods yesterday and attacked the wolves, Adrian snapped in reply, then wanted to suck the words back in.
How was that being patient on his part?
This is where Adrian needed to avoid a knee jerk reaction. Before leaving that between them to start a new verbal battle, Adrian added, To be honest, that’s true. I’ve started a few fights in my life. I’ll probably jump into more, but only if we’re in agreement.
Red said nothing and withdrew a bit.
That was fine. In fact, he’d take it as encouraging since Red wasn’t yelling in his head.
Adrian would keep reaching over the halfway mark in anticipation his wolf would take one step closer, then another. He might never see the day peace reigned between them, but with a new desire to not submit to the Guardian, Adrian embraced the hope he could repair the bond.
He wanted to show his wolf he really wanted to live and for both of them to survive. To have his wolf back and maybe ... a woman who understood him. A woman with an iron backbone and an unbridled desire to be with him.
Before any of that could happen, he needed Red to be happy to share this body with Adrian. He needed the two of them to be whole again.
Being with Jaz had made him take a hard look at who he’d been and how he’d lost that person.
Red had made it clear that he’d chosen Tarski as his mate. How did his wolf think that worked unless Adrian and Jaz mated, or did Red even care? Adrian’s wolf had found a wolf important to him. A wolf Red made priority one.
His wolf had it right.
Adrian tried the words in his head. My mate Jaz. That sounded right. Sounded perfect.
She could handle the power of bonding with Adrian without question. She might have more power than him. He’d never raced ahead to make an emotional decision, but this didn’t feel reckless.
After living on the edge of death for so long, this idea settled in his mind and heart as if he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment.
Would Red come back to him if a mate was on the line?
Time for Adrian to make a choice and step off that precarious knife’s edge between dark and light to take a stand on the side of living.
Jaz wouldn’t be ready yet. She cared for him. He felt it in everything she did, but she’d need time. She’d been through a lot. He could wait, and hope, for the day she’d pictured him worthy to be her mate.
Nothing would happen until they cleared her of murder charges.
She’d promised to contact Scarlett.
After navigating a room clouded with aggression, Adrian took a chair across from where Scarlett had settled next to Gan. He noted how two tables separated theirs from the others sitting closer to the bar.
He doubted the spacing had happened by accident.
Add that to the low rumble of noise in a place with wood floors and they could speak privately. They’d have to keep their voices down and be careful not to mention Jaz’s name.
A waitress delivered two mega-hamburgers, hot wings, a large plate of French fries and a raw fish filet.
With a complicated pile of small braids pulled back in one thick ponytail that fell across her shoulder, Scarlett gazed at the food with dark-green eyes. She shared that taut body with a cougar and managed a pile of energy thanks to her Power Baron father, who she hoped to never face again.
Adrian didn’t blame her. He’d almost died in her father’s maniacal scheme.
Gan rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Not as good as catch fresh, but not so bad. Good to be here,” he said in his Slavic-influenced English. He looked at Scarlett as if she were the queen of his world.
Which she was.
Adrian felt a pinch of envy, but only to have what Gan had found. That tiger had never lived free or happy until the Guardian found him and allowed Gan to support Scarlett on one of her missions.
This tiger shifter was a man of simple needs. Everything he required in life sat next to him.
Adrian intended to take a note from Gan’s book.
Scarlett leaned in and whispered, “I heard SC, uh ... Tess’s office called your boss for help. Are you hunting my friend?”
She stopped short of referencing SCIS or calling his boss the Guardian.
Adrian hesitated with his reply but answered honestly since even Gan had learned how to detect a lie. “Yes.”
Scarlett didn’t hide her flash of anger when she cursed.
Gan sat forward and leaned his arms on the table. His English had improved since the last time they spoke, but black curly hair still had a wild look as did the blue eyes glaring at Adrian. Gan had no trouble making his disappointment clear.
“Why, wolf? You should know friend is innocent. She stay with you to fight when we leave to protect Faith’s baby.”
“Hold on,” Adrian said, pinching the bridge above his nose. Jaz hadn’t just stayed to fight with him, she’d saved his life when he lost touch with reality. “I’m not hunting her for who you think. I’m trying to help her, but I can’t find her. I thought you’d know where she is right now, Scarlett.”
Gan frowned at Scarlett, who appeared just as confused. She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
Now Adrian cursed. That was not what he’d hoped to hear.
“Watch mouth,” Gan warned.
Scarlett’s face relaxed with a sweet smile for her new mate. “It’s fine, Gan.”
“No. Is not fine. He must show respect.”
Adrian lifted an eyebrow at the possessive tiger shifter. It appeared that Gan had more control of his beast to be out in a public place, which he’d been unable to do a few weeks back when he’d been with Adrian in Wyoming. Good for Gan.
Red piped up inside Adrian. Tiger is not me. I am better.
Adrian managed to not smile at that, but his heart warmed at his wolf showing interest in Adrian’s surroundings. He told Red, We both know how there is no comparison between you and Gan’s tiger. I was being charitable to Gan and his animal with my thoughts.
Red remained near the surface for a bit longer this time before drifting away.
“Can you two chill for a moment and let me get some answers?” Scarlett implored.
Gan sat back and told Adrian. “Yes. Mate is worried about friend. You must give answers.”
“Careful, tiger. No one is giving me orders except the boss.”
Gan opened his mouth to argue, and Scarlett put the kybosh on that when she placed her hand on his arm. Her mate gave her a nod that must mean no problem because he dropped it.
Adrian explained about tracking Jaz to a bar in Clarenceville, but Scarlett stopped him with sharp words. “Why were you even tracking her at all?”
Ah, hell. He was in this neck deep. “I found out why Ja .. your friend was on the run. She killed a wolf who was a sibling to a wolf shifter I fought beside overseas. My best friend. He died on a mission with me. He’d told his sister if she ever needed help, to call me.”
Scarlett’s attractive face creased with unhappy lines.
Adrian quickly explained his initial intentions to get Jaz’s side of the story and that once he heard it, he believed her.
Not much happier, Scarlett said, “Go on.”
After explaining what happened with Thea and the jackal shifters last night, Adrian omitted details of spending the night with Jaz, then finished by saying, “When I left her apartment this morning, she intended to return to the bar. She might have gone to check on Thea, too. I called the bar when I left the meeting at headquarters and the woman who answered said neither Thea nor your friend ever showed up.” His chest still tightened at recalling those words. “She promised me she would call you with her next location if she left. I didn’t want her calling my number. It might have put her at risk of being found by accident if our people came looking for me.”
“Would your people track you?” Scarlett asked, also careful to not use the word Gallize around strangers. “Your boss can call you home, right?”
Adrian clarified, “Yes, he can, but he knew I was handling something personal and wouldn’t do that without knowing what I was in the middle of. As for electronically tracking me, they wouldn’t do it intentionally without my knowledge, but my status has been up in the air since Gan and I left Wyoming. I’m just being careful to shield her. I thought at first when the boss called me back to headquarters today it might have had to do with ... her. It doesn’t seem to be. Even if it had, I would submit to the Guardian before I would send anyone to capture our friend, we’ll call J.”
He had yet to see Scarlett shocked by anything, but that admission must have done it based on her asking, “You left her apartment this morning? What is going on with you two?”
Gan smiled as if he knew all the answers. He did sometimes, but other times he had no clear understanding of what was being discussed. The tiger shifter tapped Scarlett’s arm and said, “Is no problem. Wolf likes her.” Gan shot a sly look Adrian’s way when he added, “Maybe more than like.”
Adrian would not deny Gan’s guess.
Running her fingers across her braided hair, Scarlett said, “J won’t call me. She doesn’t want me pulled into her problems even though she knows I am ready and willing to help. My father could have killed all of us that day at Lincoln’s compound. If not for her support and Gan showing up with you on his tail, I would have lost my sister and her baby. I will help you—”
“We will help him,” Gan corrected.
Gifting her mate with a quick smile, she amended, “We will do anything necessary to help you protect my very dear friend. That’s what J is to me. I’m not sure what she is to you, Adrian, but promise me you won’t let Tess’s group take her in.”
Adrian shouldn’t promise to keep Jaz safe from SCIS, but he nodded in reply. He’d stand between Jaz and the world if that’s what it took to keep her safe.
Then Scarlett put voice to the words that had been churning in his head. “If J could have proven her innocence by now, she would have. Something has gone wrong. She needs us.”
Adrian held his hands up in a pleading way. “I can’t do anything for her if I can’t find her. She promised she’d call you if she had to leave that town. If you haven’t heard from her, where do I start to find her? I’m desperate.” He sat back and used two fingers to grasp his chin as the three of them were silent with their own thoughts.
Recalling part of the meeting, Adrian had something else to ask about. “Before Gan came to Wyoming, Justin brought his future mate there to keep safe from someone hunting her. My wolf was ... out of his mind. He even went after our boss.”
“What?” Scarlett said with disbelief.
“Those were the early days when Red and I battled each other nonstop. The point is that the Guardian spared me even when I was ready to submit to my destiny, because Eli stopped him.”
Scarlett’s eyebrows climbed higher at that. “I’ve met her, and she’s powerful for sure, but I wouldn’t go up against your boss.”
Adrian had been too out of his mind to have been surprised by her actions. “Eli didn’t challenge our boss so much as inform everyone that they had to save me, as in no choice but to do it,” Adrian explained. “When she touched my wolf, she had a vision she translated to mean I had to live to save someone important to the, uh ... ” Adrian looked around then back to Scarlett and Gan. “Important to the whole group. Me, Gan, the boss, all of us.”
They nodded, both understanding he meant the Gallize.
Adrian kept moving to get this done before Vic and Hawk showed up. “Eli didn’t say anything about that this time, which makes me wonder if J could be that person and I’m supposed to save her, or if ... I’m supposed to save someone from her.”
Scarlett crossed her arms and leaned back at that.
Gan announced, “You make mate mad.”
“It’s okay, Gan,” Scarlett consoled him.
“Before either of you leap to the wrong conclusion, I’m not saying I will fight J or her wolf for any reason. I just wish I knew more about the person our people need that I’m supposed to save or keep alive. I’d forgotten about Eli’s first vision involving me until they brought me in to hear her latest one. Then they dumped this tracking job on me.”
“I thought you were going to find J,” Scarlett persisted.
“First, I have to find this wolf shifter kidnapping females, hand him over to the boss, then ask to return to my personal commitment.” Adrian would struggle with guilt no matter what he did next.
He should be hunting Jaz for law enforcement, to convince her to come in and tell her side. That wouldn’t happen until she had ironclad evidence to support her story. He should have asked Jaz what she searched for, because she’d gone to Clarenceville for a reason.
With a murder charge hanging over her head, she’d be hunting a way to corroborate her story. Daisy!
Had she gone to Clarenceville to somehow find Daisy?
Leonard would expect Adrian to do the right thing. He hoped to show Tanza how she had not understood what she saw. The woman had lost her two brothers and only siblings. How could Adrian tell her Kaiser had been abusing and kidnapping women? What about her father being Jaz and Kaiser’s father by another woman while he had still been mated to Tanza’s mother?
That would destroy the young woman.
Then there was Jaz.
At wit’s end, he vented, “If I could just get J to come in and tell her side, she would not be hunted. We’re shifters. Everyone would hear the truth, but she refused to speak to our ... boss. Why?”
Scarlett glanced away, chewing on her lip. When her gaze returned to Adrian, she admitted, “J has a way to get a lie past shifters.”
“What?” He sat up, not believing his ears.
Even Gan lifted his eyebrows at that, but he supported his mate without question.
Holding her head, Scarlett said, “She told me about it when we were together arranging for my sister to receive a fertilized egg. J was the only person who could make that happen for my sister. She told me she’d let me know if she had to lie to pull it off so I would know she was not keeping anything from me. It takes energy to convince a shifter if she isn’t telling the truth. People like her clan and mother know she has this ability. If she came in and someone later proved she could do that, they’d bring her in and never believe a word she said.”
Adrian sat there, trying to figure out if Jaz had lied to him. He thought back to the first time he’d asked her if the trip to Clarenceville had to do with Kaiser and she’d denied it. He hadn’t been surprised at her refusal to give up any detail, but she had been surprised when he called her out for the lie.
Then she tried it again over something after they went to the apartment. He’d laughed when he called her a liar, taking it as joking banter with them.
She’d been testing him.
Shit fire. She couldn’t lie to him.
That wouldn’t help her with others, not yet, but he liked that he could trust her words.
Slumping back in the chair with a little sense of relief, Adrian shook his head and got back to his next hurdle. “I spent years working with intel I could depend upon. Now, I’m working off a vision I don’t understand and expected to save someone our entire group needs for our future.”
Gan said, “Is hard to carry much weight on shoulders, but you are chosen for reason. You must find out reason.”
“He’s got a point,” Scarlett agreed. “I know it sounds obvious, but no one seems to be putting any attention on why you? What is key about you being the one to make this happen?”
Adrian studied on that and had no answer. “I’ve asked that, too. All they know is Eli said I have to do this. I’m not special. I was valuable in the military, but I have no gift for finding some elusive person with no more information than I’ve been given. Also, if she had envisioned J as the woman I’m supposed to find, I think Eli would have identified her by the facial marking.” He wouldn’t say scar.
His phone buzzed with a message. He read it and said, “The guys are waiting outside for me. A little sooner than I expected, but I need to get moving anyhow.” Shoving the phone back in his pocket, he stood and rattled off his mobile number. “If you hear from her, either call me or please convince her to call.”
Scarlett said, “We will, but I’m not holding my breath. J is a protector at heart. She’s fought alone for many years.”
“Not anymore,” Adrian declared flatly. “I’ll call if I need you.”
He strode out of the bar, shutting the door quickly again, then paused to scan the gravel parking lot for Vic and Hawk. They’d parked two spots down from Adrian’s ride. He headed their way.
A large sport utility pulled up before he reached his team.
When the window rolled down, Justin leaned an elbow on the door frame. “We need to talk to you.”
Adrian looked past Justin to the pretty Russian-born woman he vaguely recalled meeting in Wyoming. Where Justin’s dark brown eyes fit him and his grizzly, Elianna’s pale blue orbs attested to her being a grolar. He’d never met a part polar bear and part grizzly shifter until her, but he would never forget the few minutes of peace she’d given him.
Smiling at Justin’s mate, Adrian said, “Hello, Elianna.”
“Hello, Adrian. Is good to see you.”
If that was the case, why did she look worried?
Justin sighed heavily, sounding like a weary grizzly. “Let me pull in.”
As Justin wheeled his big vehicle around, Adrian caught Vic’s eye and gave him a finger signal that he needed a minute. When he reached Justin’s parked truck, he climbed in the backseat.
Justin and Elianna shifted around so they both faced Adrian. She spoke first. “I have more vision.”
Hell. Every time that woman had a vision, Adrian’s life got more complicated. He would not insult her by sounding short tempered, nor did he want to call up Herc, Justin’s grizzly, to the surface.
But maybe Elianna could help Adrian with what Scarlett and Gan brought up. “First, can I ask you something, Eli?”
She nodded. “Yes, okay.”
Adrian slashed a look at Justin who was smiling. Evidently her mate enjoyed her cute way of agreeing. Adrian asked, “In these visions, do you have any idea why I’m the one to find this important person for the Gallize?”
Nodding again, she said, “You are only one.”
That didn’t really answer his question.
Justin sent him a warning look.
Adrian tried again. “What I mean is why am I the only one?”
“That is why I have new vision to tell you. You must find woman with scar. She knows important key for Gallize. You will all know who important person is, but ... “
Elianna looked at Justin who told her in a calm voice, “It’s okay, Eli. Tell Adrian what you saw. Nothing in a vision is your fault.”
What the hell was Justin talking about? Adrian had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to like her next words even if he did need to know everything.
“You will not know everything until woman with scar kills wolf leader. You will be there when this happens.”
Was she talking about Tanza’s father, the alpha?
Eli was predicting that Adrian would witness Jaz kill the leader of a pack. Who? Probably Reinhold.
Adrian’s heart banged his insides. He would be expected to bring Jaz in for multiple murders. He asked, “Does the woman with the scar kill out of self-defense?”
With sad eyes, Eli shook her head. “Do not know.”
He’d just gotten it in his head that he and Jaz could find answers and have a future. That would never happen if she killed her own father without reason, which didn’t fit what he knew.
Adrian’s stomach roiled.
Justin spoke softly. “Sounds like Eli is talking about the Golden Kodiak wolf shifter. You need help, buddy?”
Adrian raised his gaze to Justin. “Not yet.” Shifting his gaze to Elianna, he said, “Thanks, Eli. We all know you want to help us, and no one is going to be upset with you for the visions.”
Glancing back at Justin, Adrian asked, “How long do I have?”
His friend stared past Adrian for a long moment. When Justin’s eyes came back to meet his, they were apologetic. “I don’t have to go back to headquarters until tomorrow.”
Elianna frowned, clearly confused.
Not Adrian.
Justin had just given him how much lead time Adrian had until he had to report all the information from Elianna’s current vision.
Once he did, all hell would break loose the minute the Guardian realized Adrian had lied by omission. Would he risk allowing Adrian to fulfill his obligation or use his eagle-shifter power to call him to headquarters regardless of where Adrian was located at that moment?
Elianna’s visions always came true.
Would Jaz kill her father?
