The pleasant scent of roasted meat roused Shay from a dark sleep, and for an instant, she was at peace. Mrs. Troost was fixing lunch. Knight was somewhere nearby. She would eat on the patio with the sun on her face.
And then she opened her eyes.
The stark walls of her prison no longer ran like paint, but they still existed. Her thin cot mattress was still on the cold cement floor. The damned collar was back on her neck. The only change was the missing baby bassinet. She was alone in the room.
I shifted. Finally.
Desiree, to her credit, had kept her promise about convincing Allison of the necessity of Shay’s shift. They’d hauled her into a windowless room, drained her nearly to unconsciousness, then removed the collar and left. Shay didn’t recall much about the shift into or back out of her beast form. All she knew was that the need to peel her own skin away from her body was gone.
She scratched at her left wrist, remembering the sharp sting of Desiree’s fangs piercing the skin. The wounds were healed, but the sense memory hadn’t disappeared.
Does Knight still feel the place where he was bitten?
She hauled her exhausted body into a sitting position. A tray of cooked steak and a bottle of water sat beside the mattress. She ate with more enthusiasm that she’d felt in days, thrilling at the taste of the meat and the chill of the water. Her body craved the sustenance, and it was gone too soon. The food helped her mind clear. It smoothed out the rough edges of memory.
Leopold.
She had a brother.
I have to get us out of here.
She’d gotten Desiree to trust her a little bit. She would do whatever it took from this point to gain more trust. To get information. Anything Shay could use to ensure her escape. Even if it meant playing nice with her enemies.
Desiree didn’t make her wait long. The whimpering baby gave her away long before she turned the locks. Shay shifted around to face the door, hoping to appear open and interested in her visitors. Desiree had the baby on her hip and a bottle in one hand, and she seemed insanely relieved to see Shay awake.
“Oh good, this kid doesn’t like me.” Desiree plunked the infant right into Shay’s lap and slapped the bottle onto the cot. “Please, get her to eat.”
Shay adjusted the squirming child to a more comfortable position. The formula was still warm. “What’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“Why not?”
“We couldn’t decide.”
“Her parents couldn’t decide?”
Desiree shrugged. “The father’s dead and deservedly so. He never got a say. Not even before Fiona ripped his throat out.”
Shay made a terrible leap based on the faintest citrus scent marker in the child, as well as the baby’s jet black hair. “Was Fiona her mother?”
Genuine grief crumpled Desiree’s youthful face, temporarily chasing away the anger and hate that always seemed to linger. “Yes. We tried to take care of the baby, and even Leopold tried to help, but we were awful at it. Victoria was kind of successful, but then she was murdered, so we needed you or Brynn. We needed someone to take care of our sister’s baby.”
Shay studied the feeding child with fresh eyes. The spawn of her enemy. An innocent life trapped with a warring family and no happy ending in sight. It also meant that Magus-loup half-breeds could reproduce—good news for Brynn and Rook. News she desperately hoped to share with them. “Is that why Fiona wanted to impregnate Victoria? Because she had a child of her own?”
“Partly.” Desiree glanced around, as though worried Allison might overhear and be angry. “Her pregnancy gave Fiona the idea that we could reproduce and create our own family to protect each other. But we couldn’t manage it with regular loup, so Fiona came up with the plan to secure Knight. She knew that would work.”
Her skin crawled at the matter-of-fact way Desiree spoke about kidnapping a man for the sole purpose of raping him. Repeatedly. Her beast snarled.
“We had to protect ourselves,” Desiree said. “No one else would. The Magi betrayed us. Other loup would hate us. You were all so inferior anyway. We only had each other.”
The official word about the hybrids’ escape from Magi control was that they’d “lost control” of them. Archimedes Atwood hadn’t been keen to discuss the details of that loss, and Shay latched onto Desiree’s words. “How did the Magi betray you?”
Hatred burned like fire in Desiree’s black eyes. “In the place we lived, the Magi prevented us from using our abilities through magic of some kind. They lifted the magic when they wanted us to practice, but mostly we were normal and helpless.”
Shay saw her answer without Desiree explaining it, but she didn’t interrupt.
“Two years ago, one of the men who brought us meals took Fiona into another room and raped her. He said if she told our master, he would do the same to the rest of us, so Fiona kept quiet. They all thought we were sterile, anyway. He came every week for nearly a year. None of us told, and Fiona endured for us. It nearly broke her when she found out she was pregnant. The master was furious. He allowed Fiona to kill her attacker. Instead of terminating, the master was curious how her pregnancy would go.
“Our sister nearly died giving birth, and it left her sterile, but the baby was healthy. A healthy baby the Magi wanted to kill, but we protected her as we protected Leopold. We also planned our escape, and the moment the master let the magic down, we were gone.”
An unexpected flash of anger woke Shay’s beast further. The actions of one careless, despicable man had awoken a hatred inside of Fiona that had led them all to this day. Shay couldn’t imagine the pain or humiliation Fiona had suffered. It did not forgive the horrors Fiona had inflicted upon the loup garou. Nothing ever would. But Shay understood her half-sister a little bit better.
“I’m sorry,” Shay said. “I’m so sorry that happened to her.”
Desiree straightened her spine. “We all swore the day we escaped that we would be the slaves of males no more. Not human, Magi, or loup garou. They would all one day kneel to us.”
“But why destroy my run? Why kill everyone in Stonehill?” Grief battled with Shay’s anger for dominance.
“As a show of our strength, of course. After our escape, the master contacted us, promising us freedom and money in exchange for a few favors. His plans worked well with what Fiona wanted, so she agreed to work for him.”
And then she proceeded to double-cross him.
“The original plan to acquire Knight was more direct. We destroy two towns to show what we can do, and then we politely ask for him to turn himself over to us. The brother ending up at Potomac gave us an even better incentive to secure him. Plus my scent had the added bonus of pointing the finger at the Magi. Sensitive noses are a wonderful thing.”
That information did not surprise Shay in the least. They had theorized as much. Desiree’s words only confirmed it.
Desiree wandered the room, speaking to herself as much as Shay, as though they were actually friends. “I was quite jealous of Victoria, you know. I’ve only ever seen Knight from a distance, and from some photos Fiona took while she had him. For a loup, he’s quite beautiful. And according to Victoria, he has quite the baby maker under his belt.”
Pure jealousy burned in Shay’s gut. Jealousy and rage. Shay had only ever guessed as to the extent of Knight’s pain during his kidnapping. Guesses made based on conversations and the things he didn’t say. Whispers of conversations about a baby. The way he spiraled out of control emotionally after the attack on Springwell and Victoria’s death.
Oh Knight, please hold on until I get home to you.
Shay couldn’t spew the words simmering in her heart. She needed Desiree to trust her, not fear her, and all Shay wanted to do was attack. Fiona and Victoria might be dead, but Desiree had been an accomplice to Knight’s torture, and her beast demanded vengeance.
We’ll have it, old girl. I promise.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how gorgeous he is?” Desiree asked, completely unaware of Shay’s internal struggle. “It’s such a shame our other sister had to charge in for the rescue.”
I will eat your heart for breakfast and your liver for lunch.
“You couldn’t have expected Knight’s family to give him up without a fight,” Shay said, proud of the control in her voice.
“We thought destroying two towns would be incentive enough.”
“They’ll never give him up, Desiree. It’s not about how many other loup you kill, or how many towns are attacked. It’s about family. You know how it feels, right? That overwhelming need to protect your family, no matter what it costs you?”
“Of course I do.”
“They’ll fight to the last loup in Cornerstone to protect Knight.”
Desiree shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, Allison and I are prepared. We have assistance in our war against Cornerstone, and we will take it apart brick by brick if we must. Because this isn’t only about our future children. This is about vengeance for the murders of Fiona and Victoria.”
Shay bit back the need to correct Desiree on who had murdered whom. One of the hybrids had murdered her father in Stonehill, and he deserved vengeance, as well. One day he would have it.
She didn’t comment on Desiree’s declaration, uncertain how to lead this conversation into anything except an argument. She also didn’t need to push her luck with Desiree by asking about their assistance. Feral loup and half-breeds had already been their foot soldiers, and they’d all died for their efforts.
The baby finished the bottle and smiled up at her with eyes as black as her aunt’s. She didn’t look like Fiona. One day the child would probably possess a magical ability of some sort, thanks to her three-quarters Magi bloodline. Brynn would know more about that. Knowing that the baby in her arms was, indeed, her half-niece, made Shay even more determined to escape. She would take Leopold and the nameless baby home.
Home to their family in Cornerstone.
“Chelsea,” Shay said.
Desiree startled. “What?”
“We should name our niece Chelsea, in honor of her grandmother.”
“Oh.” She tilted her head, thinking. “I like it. I’ll ask Allison.”
Shay didn’t care what Allison thought. The baby’s name was Chelsea. “You do that. In the meantime, I’ll take care of her. Now that I’ve been allowed to shift, I’ll be better able to do so.”
“Good.” Desiree ruffled Chelsea’s thick black hair. “She likes you.”
“I like her, too. Desiree, may I ask you something?”
“Ask away.”
“The day I asked you to allow me to shift, after I met Leopold. I smelled something unusual on you, a marker that was familiar but not your own scent. Something like sage. Where did that come from?”
Desiree’s expression flattened. “We’re done talking, sister. You know more than enough for now.”
Shay did nothing to stop her from leaving, or from locking them in. She looked down at the sleepy child in her arms. Shay’s niece. Her mother’s namesake.
“I’ll protect you, little one. I promise.”
***
Bishop McQueen eased back in his desk chair and glared at the stack of paperwork on his desk. Forms from the electrician he’d hired to wire up the new apartments. Various quotes for the lumber and essentials needed to rebuild the auction house. Insurance papers. So many small things that still needed to be seen to before anyone could properly move into the new residences.
He was no stranger to paperwork. He had worked alongside his late father since he was twenty-one, managing the auction house and dealing with sellers. But he’d never overseen a project as large as all of the new construction happening around town—necessary to ensure the comfort and safety of his new residents.
Time for a break. Bishop had been holed up in the office for five hours, making calls and working on the computer. No new leads on the Skydale attack meant more waiting on that front. Mason’s team had left that morning to search in West Virginia, and he wasn’t expecting an update until five o’clock. Bishop desperately needed some fresh air.
Maybe even thirty minutes alone with his wife, if she wasn’t busy.
She often was. As the Alpha female, Jillian had as much responsibility to the run as he did. Being out there, a strong presence for their people, visiting and talking and listening to concerns. Their paths didn’t often cross during the day, so they took advantage of their time spent alone at night. Oh yes, they took advantage.
The landline rang, startling Bishop out of thoughts of his wife naked in his bed. Private number.
Assuming a wrong number, he plucked up the handset. “McQueen Auctions.”
“Alpha McQueen, I presume?”
Bishop went rigid. The voice was unfamiliar, with a prim lilt to it that hinted at someone who walked with his nose in the air. “This is Bishop McQueen. Who is this?”
“Archimedes Atwood.”
Brynn’s father and a Prime Magus within the Congress of Magi. Not to mention the man responsible for the very existence of the hybrids who kept attacking them. He palmed his cell phone and began typing out a 911 text to Rook, Brynn, Jillian, Knight, and Jonas.
“I will assume from your silence that my phone call surprises you,” Atwood said.
“You could say that.” Bishop sent the text. “If you’re calling to speak to your daughter, she’s unavailable.”
“As much as that idea does appeal to me, I have business to discuss with you, Alpha.”
“What sort of business? You ready to call off your bulldogs?”
“If you are referring to my creations, then yes, this does involve them. I wish to stop them and end this violence between our people.”
Bishop snorted. “Oh please. You created those hybrids specifically to cause violence.”
“The original intent was to use them to cause strife between the loup garou runs. It was never to circle back to the Magi, but I lost control of those girls. They work for themselves now, not me.”
Atwood had already admitted as much to Brynn weeks ago. “You created living weapons that you lost control of, and they began slaughtering my people. Hundreds of loup have died because of you, Mr. Atwood. I would sooner rip your throat out than be your ally in anything.”
“Very colorful, Alpha.”
“Trust me, that was not a metaphor, it was fact.” Anger simmered right below Bishop’s learned calm. He wanted to hang up and get the man’s snobby voice out of his ear, but he needed as much information as he could coax out of Atwood first. He’d contacted the loup, a species the Magi considered no better than animals, for a specific reason. “It’s been two months since the first attack. Why reach out now?”
“My daughter is in the middle of this war, and I want to see her safe. It’s why I met with Fiona in Philadelphia. To ensure Brynn’s protection in all of this.”
“Bullshit. You barely had the time of day for Brynn before all of this, so try again Magus. I want the truth, or this conversation ends.”
Someone knocked. Knight and Jonas slipped inside together, both alert but silent. Bishop held a silencing finger to his lips.
“Fine,” Atwood said. “My concern is closer to home. Once the hybrids are finished getting what they want from you, my fear is that they will turn on the Magi.”
Bishop didn’t stop a bark of angry laughter. “So you want our help to stop your rogue creations, because you don’t want them to attack you? You made them, you can put them down your own damned self.”
Rook, Brynn, and Jillian arrived together. Knight pointed at Brynn and mouthed the word “father.” Brynn paled.
“I was hoping you would be more open to collaboration,” Atwood said. “After all, we do have a common goal. If you change your mind, my daughter knows how to contact me.”
“Please, do hold your breath waiting.” Bishop hung up, annoyed at himself for the childish comment. He inhaled deeply, letting the oxygen calm his anger to a manageable level.
“That was my father?” Brynn asked. She’d huddled in one of the chairs, arms wrapped around her middle, Rook behind her with his hands on her shoulders.
“Yes.” Bishop shook himself. “He wants us to team up to stop the hybrids.”
“Are you serious?” Rook asked.
“He used Brynn’s safety as an excuse, but he’s worried that once the hybrids have finished toying with our lives, they’ll turn on the Magi.”
“Bastard wants us to do the dirty work, so they don’t get attacked by their own creations.”
“In a nutshell.”
“Can we call him back so I can say fuck off and go to hell?”
Bishop suppressed a smile.
“That was ballsy, considering this whole mess is Atwood’s fault in the first place,” Knight said. “He must think we’re distraught fools who’d accept any help we can get.”
“The Magi created the hybrids to make our runs turn against each other,” Bishop said. “Now that they’ve lost control, they want us to clean up their damned mess.”
“It’s how the Magi work,” Brynn said. “They don’t do their own dirty work. They never have. They get others to do it for them.”
Bishop suspected as much, but something in Brynn’s voice hinted at a specific incident, rather than a judgment of the whole. “Have they done something like this before?”
Her face went scarlet and she curled in on herself even more. Knight and Jonas stepped closer, instinctively closing ranks to protect the distressed woman.
Rook knelt beside her chair, his concern for his mate plain on his scarred face. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“This isn’t the first time the Magi have used others as their pawns,” Brynn said. Her voice was high, choked with unshed tears.
Bishop hated causing his brother’s wife pain, but he had no choice. “Tell me.”
“The war between loup and vampires.”
He was familiar with the history of that long, bloody feud, incited by the vampires attacking the sanctuary town in Florida. The loup had retaliated in kind, and the result was the near-extinction of the vampire race. Every loup knew the story. “What about it?” he asked.
“The vampires didn’t start it. The Magi attacked the town in Florida and made it appear as though it was a vampire attack. Your loup then attacked a vampire nest, believing they were retaliating first.”
Disbelief hung heavily in the air. Bishop stared at Brynn, whose misery was couched in truth. The loup had been tricked into starting a war with the vampires, and the Magi had kept it a secret for more than sixty years. He glanced at Jonas, who looked ready to explode but was keeping his temper in check. Knight appeared thoroughly disgusted by the whole thing.
Rook made a horrified noise. “Why didn’t you tell us this sooner?”
“I couldn’t.” Brynn wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. Long ago I swore an oath to protect my people. It was a secret I was forbidden to share.”
“What about the oath you swore to me on our wedding day?” Rook stood up, a kind of distress rolling off him that Bishop didn’t recognize. He’d never seen his youngest brother so confused. “You withheld important information about our enemy.”
“I’m still Magi, Rook.”
“You’re loup garou, too, or is that something you can conveniently forget?”
“Of course not.” A bit of Brynn’s own temper, likely urged on by her mostly silent inner beast, had her sitting up straighter. “It’s impossible to forget when you have a foot in two worlds, but will never fully be part of either. I know I’m different.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“It’s not about trusting you.” Brynn met Rook’s glare with one of her own.
Bishop didn’t want them hashing out their marriage in front of an audience. “Regardless, Brynn, you’re a member of this run and this family,” he said in his strongest Alpha tone. “You possessed important information, and you should have told me, if no one else. As your Alpha, I needed to know this.”
“You’re right,” Brynn said. “I’m sorry. I can’t fix that I kept it from you both, but I am sorry that I hurt you. All of you.”
“Thank you. I understand you wanting to protect the people you were raised to respect, but my first priority will always be to this run. Period. Is there anything else pertinent to this issue that I need to be aware of?”
“Not that I was ever told. But because of my station, I wasn’t told much.”
“Are you sure you want to blow off Atwood?” Knight asked.
Every head in the room turned in his direction.
“What are you thinking?” Bishop asked, incredibly curious why Knight would consider a partnership with the Prime Magus.
“Atwood is scared that the hybrids might come after him, for whatever reason. If we can draw him out, whether here to Cornerstone or to another location, it might bring the two hybrids out of hiding.”
“You want to use my father as bait?” Brynn asked.
“Yes.”
If Brynn had anything else to say on the matter, she held it in and glared at the floor.
“Atwood is a fire elemental,” Bishop said. “I don’t like the idea of him getting too close to our town.”
“Another place, then,” Knight said. “It may or may not work to draw out the hybrids, but I think it’s worth a shot.”
“How likely is it he’ll agree to a face-to-face?”
“Not likely,” Brynn said. “He rarely goes anywhere except his home and the Congress compound.”
“Fiona got him to meet her in Philadelphia,” Rook said.
“She offered him my safety, and he went in order to secure it. What can we offer him?”
“The same thing, plus one,” Knight said. “He has a grandchild on the way. He’ll want assurances that the baby’s safe.”
Rook snarled. “We are not using my kid as bait.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Knight was bizarrely calm under the direct aim of Rook’s fury. “If Atwood knows he has something else of importance here in addition to Brynn, we can force him to meet us under our terms.”
Bishop had to admit it was a good plan. Rook still seemed perturbed by the idea, but Brynn was nodding repeatedly.
“That would work,” Brynn said. “It’s difficult to reconcile the man who raised me so distantly with the man who told me in Philadelphia that he loved me, and that he’d done everything in order to assure my safety. But I believe he loves me, and I agree that if he finds out about a grandchild, he’ll do whatever he can to protect us. Including working with the loup to stop the last two hybrids.”
“Getting Atwood’s cooperation could help us find them faster,” Bishop said. “And help us find Shay.”
Knight’s expression hardened—he’d been on that thought process the entire time, Bishop was sure of it. Respect for his brother hit him hard. Knight was thinking like an enforcer and a leader, even though he was technically neither.
“I’ll give Atwood a day to stew on it,” Bishop said. “And for everyone here to consider it. If there are no objections this time tomorrow, I’ll contact Atwood about a meet-up.”
Knight appeared on the verge of objecting to something—probably waiting a day before giving in to the request from Atwood—but he stayed silent. He was also the last to leave when Bishop dismissed the meeting.
“We’ll get her back, Knight,” Bishop said as Knight reached the trailer door. “I promise.”
Knight glanced over his shoulder, something burning in his eyes that Bishop hadn’t seen in a long, long time: absolute resolve. “You’re right, brother. We will.”