Arik
I tucked my wings away as Kat went under, drawing my T-shirt over my body, my mind working like a steam engine on full speed ahead. The moment her gaze had fixed on me, the moment drowsy desire blossomed between us, I’d known my plan would work. That shy hunger was the key to getting what I wanted from her.
Did that make me a bastard? Sure. I could live with that on my conscience if it meant Maddox and the clan got what was coming to them.
“How long before we can move her?” Sun was asking.
I turned, a whole lot of not gonna happen flashing across my mind. My face too, if Sun’s mutinous expression was anything to go by. I rolled my eyes. “You really need to work on that little-boy attitude you got going there, Prince. Doesn’t work with the whole future-king deal.”
Grim stood, his sigh of resignation killing the argument before it could start. “You know she can’t stay here, Arik. It’s not safe.”
“Of course I know it. I’ve at least seen the enemy; you two are just wandering around in the dark.”
Sun crossed his arms, and the veil of boyishness fell away, leaving a commander in its wake. “Enlighten us, then.”
“You mean you’d actually believe me?”
Sun shrugged. “If what you say pans out, sure.”
Because of course I couldn’t be telling the truth. Everything I’d told them had been confirmed by the Aomai’s forays into Kat’s mind, but fuck, why should that matter?
Instead of answering, I stood to pace the too-small room. With every step I absorbed the weight of Grim’s gaze staring right through me despite the damn hood, demanding I speak, share, work with them. Help them like they’d helped me.
Fuck that.
I stopped as far from the bed as I could get and notched my spine into the corner of the room, arms mimicking Sun’s crisscrossed pose. “What do you want to know?”
Sun blinked, and a distinct duh flared in his eyes. Before it could travel to his lips, Grim interrupted.
“What do you know about the Anigma in general?”
“I know they weren’t as crippled after the Great War as the Archai believed them to be. They went underground. I followed their migration into the US—”
“Why?” Sun interrupted.
None of your damn business. Yet.
I kept my focus on the Aomai. “They’re divided into regions. Around three hundred years ago, the current leader here in the Southeast stepped in, started organizing, building their numbers.”
“Made shifters?” Grim asked.
I hummed an agreement. “The team I took out last night was fairly new. Trained, but new.” Shifters were either born from Archai females or made through a complex blood ritual. The offer of a change was rare, and rarely taken—there was no guarantee of actual shifting ability, with many males coming out the other side without an animal form, and the risks were higher than most were willing to face, including an 80 percent mortality rate. Given the number of males I’d fought, Maddox needed a lot of foot soldiers and didn’t care about leaving dead bodies behind. And at four-to-one odds, that was a lot of dead bodies.
“As his army grew,” I explained, “it also became more reclusive, until he all but cut the Anigma hierarchy out of the process—his men doing the changing, the training, the controlling.”
“Meaning?”
Grim already knew; I could tell by the tone of his voice. “Meaning his army is just that: his. He’s been building toward something big, and I think that something is about to explode.”
Sun sneered. “And this army just happens to show up, after all these years of successful hiding, in the same city as the largest Archai clan in the world, the King’s Clan?”
I met Sun’s sarcasm head-on. “They didn’t follow you here; you followed them. They’ve been here all along, and in far greater numbers.”
“Numbers we wouldn’t even be aware of without you.”
I bared my teeth at Sun. “Convenient, ain’t it?” And deliberate. I wanted the Archai to know about the enemy in their midst.
“Yes,” the prince said, “it is.”
“It’s called not being an ostrich. The Archai have become incredibly insular since the war. Peace at all costs, right?” I shook my head. “Idiots.”
“The question is,” Grim said, “if they aren’t here for the clan—”
“And that’s a big if,” Sun threw in, suspicion twisting the words. “We’ve seen no sign of them, but Arik takes out a whole team on a downtown street?”
Grim ran his fingers over his chin. “Are they looking to start another war?”
“If they are, you don’t stand a chance,” I said. Which was the point. Maddox’s numbers would decimate the clan that had betrayed me, and with Maddox’s army distracted, I could dangle the bait for Maddox and get an unobstructed chance to execute my parents’ murderer, hopefully with a little torture thrown in for an appetizer. Destroying everything Maddox had built was a bonus. Win-win-win—for me, at least.
A tiny corner of my conscience pointed out that the men in this room were the very ones I was talking about decimating, them and their loved ones. I should feel bad about that, but I didn’t. Nothing they did now could make up for the hell that had been my life.
Grim ignored my accusation. “What does Kat have to do with this?”
I shrugged. That bit of intel I wasn’t sharing; let them figure it out on their own. I’d never get Kat away from Sun and Grim if they realized exactly how powerful a piece of bait she would be for Maddox.
“To know what they’re planning,” Sun said, “we need to know the animal in charge.”
Smart thinking for once, brother. “I think Grim can answer that question.”
Grim shook his head. “Her memories of the attack are a blur.”
“You don’t have to see the attack. The bastard approached her earlier that night. He spoke with her.”
“I don’t…” But Grim’s voice was distracted, distant, his mind already tangled in the knot of Kat’s memories. I knew the exact moment he found what he was looking for. The Aomai’s focus gripped me like a fist around my throat. “God.”
“Who’s the murderer now?” I taunted. All these years they’d refused to believe me, refused to accept that Maddox was alive, but they couldn’t deny what Grim had seen in Kat’s memories. And yet, now that the moment was here, it wasn’t vindication or satisfaction I felt. Curiously, I didn’t really feel anything.
Sun narrowed his eyes at Grim. “What?”
I found I wasn’t interested in the big reveal, just the aftermath. I pushed away from the wall. “I’m gonna get some fresh air.”
The door closed behind me seconds later. Quickening my steps, I moved far enough down the alley that I couldn’t hear Grim’s and Sun’s voices anymore, then pulled out my cell phone and dialed.
A sultry voice answered. “Talk to me, baby.”
“I can do far more than talk; you know that.”
Risk’s husky laugh filled my ear. “Oh yes, you can. Anytime.”
“Anytime but now.” I pushed the appropriate amount of regret into my words. “I’ll have to take a rain check. Need you to find something for me.”
The sound of brisk footsteps came through the line, followed by a quick, metallic slide. I pictured Risk’s curvy figure gliding a desk chair across a room, letting the image flood me with sexual warmth. I’d never seen her office—she was closemouthed about her location, as I would be if I didn’t need her to help me find one—but I’d seen her body, and close enough to imagine what she was doing perfectly. In my work I had contacts all over the world, and Risk had been counted among them for the past few years. She had a reputation for being hot, wild, and a whiz at finding anything you needed, anywhere in the Deep South. We’d spent years flirting over cell phones and computer lines before our first meeting a few weeks ago. We ended up in a hotel, much to our mutual satisfaction, both then and on several other occasions.
But there was no time for jerking off right now; I had to find a secure location to stash Kat, somewhere Sun and Grim—and Maddox’s werewolf buddies—couldn’t find her.
The clicking of keys accompanied Risk’s no-nonsense, “All right, hit me.”
I outlined what I was looking for, all the while keeping an ear out for company, but the lair remained quiet and no one joined me outside.
Risk muttered to herself as she searched, then asked, “How soon?”
“ASAP.”
Her throaty laugh filled my ear. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
“Just everything.”
“Oh yes, you do, baby.” That breathy suggestion returned to her voice, sparking images of the things we’d done together, except this time, where Risk had been before, I now saw a redhead arching beneath me.
Kat.
Shock skidded along my skin. I slammed the door closed on the fantasy before it could take hold, ignoring the tightening behind my zipper.
“I’ve got it,” Risk said, pulling me back to the conversation. “And look, it’s available for immediate occupancy.”
With effort, I matched her light tone, running some quick calculations through my head. “Good. Send the details to my secure line. I’ll pull it up as soon as I can.”
“You got it, love. So”—her voice dropped, and I knew what was coming—“when can we…”
“Soon,” I told her, my mind occupied with my current dilemma.
A pouty whine traveled through the line, scraping along my nerves. The response got locked away, my tone nothing but pure honey as I said, “I’ve got some things to take care of, but once I’m settled, there’ll be time.”
“It’ll be worth it,” she purred. The promise cut off with a click of the line.
I shut down my phone, hoping it would be. I needed the resources she had to offer, not the least of which was a safe place to burn off my energy. Risk hid beneath enough layers that Maddox would never find her, and she didn’t need more than the mutual satisfaction we found together. Which made her perfect—for now.
The door to the hideout opened behind me and Sun exited. The scent of betrayal came with him, lingering like smoke in my nose, making me want to sneeze, putting me and my animal on edge at a time when I needed to be cold, detached. And yet I couldn’t deny that my indifference was feigned as I watched the white puffs of my breath rising in the cold air.
Sun stood just outside the door for a long moment, his silent regard ruffling my griffin’s feathers even more until my skin shivered in response. Finally Sun moved into my peripheral vision. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
What was that, a half-assed attempt at an apology? I snorted. “About Maddox? I did, remember?”
“I thought—”
“You didn’t think!” In the time it took me to jerk around and square off with Sun, my rage rocketed into the stratosphere, surprising even me. Hot lava shot into my veins, the past burning me from the inside out. “You believed I would kill my parents. Period. That said everything I needed to know.” I raked my gaze over his body. “You trusted some vision over not just my word, but the man you knew me to be for a hundred years, and you never even bothered to question it. You let my parents’ murderer walk away scot-free, and that”—I jabbed a finger at the prince’s chest—“is unforgivable.”
I stalked closer. Sun didn’t give ground, but neither did he challenge my fury. Head down, he waited as I leaned in, speaking right into his ear. “Maddox isn’t just coming for my family now. He’s coming for your entire clan. And you know what? They—and you—deserve whatever you get. Good luck.” I straightened. Shrugged like their fate didn’t mean anything to me. “Or not. Hope you can live with yourself, brother.”
Leaving Sun in the alley, I went inside. My griffin trembled with fury, gnashing and clawing to get back to Sun, to deliver the justice we both knew we needed, but I refused to give in. Instead I beelined for the one thing I knew would calm my animal: the female.
In seconds I was crossing the space to get to the back room and Kat’s sleeping form. Grim stepped to the door of the kitchen, sandwich in hand.
“How long will she sleep?”
“Awhile yet,” he said, not commenting on my obvious agitation. “She’ll need to eat when she wakes, get some nutrients in her. I fed her blood again, but it won’t be enough; she’ll need to feed at least once more. After that, she’ll be ready to move.”
I fed her blood.
If my animal had been angry before, now he threatened to go supernova. He fed her, not us. The image of Grim, Kat sucking at his wrist, his throat, had my griffin pounding behind my breastbone to get free.
I wrangled him in—barely. “Fine,” I growled.
Grim’s retreat back to the kitchen registered only dimly as I entered Kat’s room. I strode to the side of the bed, my stare fixed on her huddled beneath the blanket. Her deep auburn hair fanned out over the white pillowcase, spilling like fire around her pale face. My mind went back to the moment when I’d pictured her beneath me, the feel of her, the heat of pure, unadulterated lust flashing through my soul. I’d enjoyed Risk, very much, but never had I felt the kind of intensity Kat’s image alone conjured inside me. Even now my cock tightened, quick and hard.
It was dangerous. Foolhardy.
And maybe, just maybe, something whispered inside me, it was inevitable.
I remained frozen, watching the female breathe for a long time. My griffin rose just beneath my skin, the two of us staring from the same eyes, branding our possession on her. Breathing in her scent. My fangs slowly descended, my need to mark her pushing hard at me.
When I could hold back no longer, I leaned down, put my lips to that silken fall of hair, and whispered, the words barely more than a sigh, “You’re mine. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting it.”
A soft sigh answered me, surrounded me, drew me, but before it could take hold, before my need could break the chain barely holding me back, I turned and left the room.