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Cool air circulated through the conference room on the street level in their Spartanburg headquarters, but nothing matched the icy shoulder Siofra turned on Rory.
He could deal with being in deep shit with the boss and his team, but he hated having this gulf of silence between him and his nymph. He leaned against the wall to the side of where Siofra sat at the end of the table, stewing. That wasn’t as bad as the hurt filling her eyes.
He’d let her down, but he had no way around it. He couldn’t just turn her loose.
Twenty minutes ago, Rory had called the Guardian to share his Mother Cadellus encounter and explain that Siofra needed to speak with him immediately.
There had been a long silence before his boss said he was on the way. From where, Rory had no idea. Being a sea eagle who lived on the East Coast, up in Baltimore, the Guardian flew in his animal form at night.
Calling Justin had resulted in a loud earful of cursing, but Justin ran the team Rory had been assigned to, which meant he had to be kept in the loop. It wasn’t as if Justin wouldn’t drop everything to come to the aid of a team member, but he hadn’t understood the panic to meet now.
Rory didn’t blame him. They were all jumping out their collective asses for some guy named Baatar. The Mother Cadellus encounter could have been reported in the morning since it involved no one on their teams.
Justin stomped through the open doorway into the conference room with a cup of coffee and growled.
He cast a vicious look at Rory and pulled a chair out on the opposite side of the table from where Rory stood.
After Siofra made her initial demand, she’d stopped talking to Rory and hadn’t said a word since entering the building.
In the next moment, the Guardian entered and looked as put together as he had hours ago and any other time Rory met with the powerful shifter. His boss paused, then took a position to Siofra’s right, leaving Justin on the Guardian’s right.
Why hadn’t his boss gone to the power position at the head of the table? This seemed almost congenial.
“Hello again, Siofra,” the Guardian said in the cultured tone of a time gone by. Yet his dialogue often included current terms and phrases, showing how he morphed with each era he lived.
“Sir.” She swallowed and fidgeted with her hands. Where was the fierce woman from less than an hour ago?
The Guardian asked, “What happened tonight?”
Siofra explained about the rat and pigeon, and repeated that she’d never had that happen before. Her words would ring true to Justin and the Guardian even if Rory had not been standing nearby to naysay anything he heard as an outright lie.
Damn, he loved hearing her voice again. He was going to miss her, miss being with her.
And that right there was why he had to back away.
He had to suck it up and let someone else on the team take his spot ... as long as it was Justin or Cole.
No one else was allowed near her.
Ferrell snarled, sending Rory an image of Siofra with a fence around her and the jaguar stalking the perimeter.
He groaned silently at his screwed-up thinking when it came to this woman. The minute he handed her off, he had no more say. He fell back on the mantra he’d been repeating to himself since her ultimatum in the cab.
Siofra was just a woman.
She would be gone after tonight.
If she stayed around, he’d end up in her bed.
The minute Rory had started that mental chant, Ferrell started sending him a volley of gory images of Siofra dying hideous deaths.
When Rory ignored him, Ferrell sent an image of Rory in a coffin.
“Rory?” the Guardian called out.
“Sir?” He stood away from the wall, wishing he’d been paying attention.
“I asked if you had anything else to add to what Siofra told us.”
“No, sir. I’ve obviously never met this Mother Cadellus before, but if all the stories we’ve heard are true then it fits that she used a dead pigeon to specifically contact Siofra.”
Siofra flashed Rory an annoyed glance.
That could be considered communicating, he mused silently.
Sitting back, the Guardian addressed Siofra. “As I understand it, you wish to answer our questions about the Cadells now, is that correct?”
“Not really,” she said with more confidence this time and sat back with her arms crossed.
Rory’s mouth dropped open, then he snapped, “Are you kidding me?”
Without looking at him, she turned a tired voice to him. “What?”
“You said this was what you wanted to do and the only way you’d share what you knew about the Cadells was if our boss came in tonight.”
She turned fully to face him and said, “No, that’s not correct. I said ‘If he wants answers on the Cadells, he’ll have to meet me now to get them.’”
“Same difference,” Rory argued.
“It might be the same if I had intended to share all I know right now, but that’s not the case.” She cut back around, now having to look directly into intense eagle eyes, which had darkened in a bad way.
Sensing the Guardian’s irritation, now Rory had the urge to pull her to him and talk her way out of this mess, but she bulldozed ahead. “I will make good on my offer and I’ll gladly tell you everything I know about the camps they kept me in, how they operate, and the people involved. I may not know their names and specific location details, but I’m good with faces.”
When she paused, the Guardian took his time before asking, “What is the catch?”
“I have to save the man I consider a brother. The man who helped me escape. He escaped after I did, but he doesn’t speak good English when he gets flustered and he has problems with his power.”
Justin took a slug of coffee, put the cup down, and asked, “What kind of power? What is he?”
Rory waited to see what she’d say.
Siofra said, “I don’t know how to describe what he is, because he doesn’t seem to know. He has moments where he can’t control his body and he talks to himself. He said he’d lived in the mountains of China for a long time before being brought here six months ago.”
“Is this Baatar Chinese?” Justin asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said, concentrating hard on her answer. “He doesn’t have their facial features and he’s huge. He has an odd accent. I don’t know what it is, but not Chinese.” She clasped her hands in front of her and said, “All he wants is to be free to find peace. Like I said, he has more strength than a human his size, but one time he had a seizure of some sort and passed out. I thought he’d died. He needs someone to be there when those moments get bad. I have no allegiance to the Cadells. If you help me find Baatar and promise to help him, I agree to spend two days answering any questions you have on them. But ... only if I can go free after that as well.”
Rory’s heart and his jaguar screamed no.
Not because he didn’t want for her to find her friend or to live free, but because he didn’t want her to leave at all. He wanted her where he could keep her safe from Cadells and any other threat.
If the Black River pack or Cadells got their hands on Siofra again, she would die. He knew it.
But the longer he stayed around her, the more difficult it was to fight his animal who wanted her as their mate and to stick to his own conviction of never mating.
What was his option, then? Ask Justin or Cole to go with Siofra?
What if something happened to one of them and they didn’t make it back? From what Rory had been told, Gallize mate for life. That would leave either Tess or Eli a widow with no hope of a mate for the rest of either woman’s life.
Tess was pregnant.
Just because he felt this insane need to put his neck out there to keep Siofra safe didn’t mean he should risk his friends’ lives or that of any other Gallize shifter.
Justin pissed him off on a daily basis lately, but he and Cole always had Rory’s back and he had theirs.
Silence blanketed the room as they all waited on the Guardian’s decision. He sat forward, leaning one arm on the table when he spoke to Siofra.
“I will agree to this if you can find Baatar in one week.”
Her face fell. “One week? That’s not enough.”
Not losing his temper, the Guardian explained, “My shifters stay very busy dealing with closing down Jugo Loco operations, protecting humans and innocent shifters, plus aiding in the protection of national security here as well as in other countries. Even if it takes months of planning, when we send a team in, they handle most operations in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. A week is extremely generous.”
She brightened and her voice filled with relief. “Oh, no problem. I don’t want an entire team. I can’t take more than one person with me anyhow. Baatar would be wary if more than one accompanied me. He trusts no shifters and would believe I was being used for a trap. No team. Just one, please.”
The Guardian sat quietly then said, “You may have one, but your deadline is still going to be seven days.”
Rory mentally thanked his boss, because he needed a deadline. He’d decided he couldn’t dump this on Cole or Justin. He’d have to do his duty and keep his hands to himself, which should be simple with Siofra pissed at him.
She sat up. “Okay, then I agree, but I want to leave immediately.”
Rory drew in air to argue that this could wait for them to leave in the morning.
The Guardian said, “You may leave as soon as you and our shifter are ready. Justin will assign someone to take Rory’s place. That shifter will have what he needs, plus he’ll arrange for whatever you need, then you can leave.”
“What?” Rory said on a blast of exhale.
His boss looked up sharply. “Is there a problem?”
Rory hated saying the words that came to mind, because it would not go well, but that didn’t stop him. “I’m here now and ready to roll. I know everything there is about this situation, so we could leave immediately.” There went his chance to wait until morning.
Justin addressed Siofra. “You two seem to be at odds right now. Sure you wouldn’t prefer someone else?”
“You mean like you, bear?” Rory asked with a sarcastic cut. He was trying to protect the son of a bitch. “Tired of being home already?”
“You’re a piece of work lately, you know that?” Justin muttered.
Siofra stewed quietly, but said, “If he’ll leave tonight, I’ll go with ... him. I only need his expertise and muscle. Anyone would be fine.”
Rory glared at her.
She must have felt it. She turned and glared right back.
He got it. She was still angry he wouldn’t let her take off on her own back at the park. She had a point about them having no reason to hold her when she’d committed no crime beyond trying to survive.
In her shoes, he’d be out of patience.
Justin grinned for the first time since coming in the room. “If our boss has no objections ... ” Justin paused and looked to the Guardian who gave a curt nod before the bear finished saying, “Then good hunting, cat.”
Rory couldn’t make up his mind if he was relieved or not. Justin’s short tone and the Guardian’s grim expression didn’t bode well for his future.
Ferrell had no trouble. He growled softly like he did when he got his way.
The Guardian stood. “I’d like to see you for a moment, Rory. Justin, would you make arrangements for transportation and whatever Siofra needs?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rory followed the Guardian out with one last look at Justin, who he’d expected to be smirking. That wasn’t the case. His friend met his gaze with one of disappointment.
He didn’t have time to ask Justin what the hell that was all about when the Guardian couldn’t be happy with Rory. His boss had to have noticed the tension between him and Siofra.
Just what Rory lived for, a road trip with a pissed-off female.
Ferrell sent him the image of a happy jaguar riding in a convertible with Siofra driving.
Bastard.
Rory fully expected to catch hell for getting involved with a woman he was supposed to be guarding. What if the Guardian had only agreed out there to end the meeting so he could tell Rory in private that Justin was going with Siofra after all?
The Guardian had the ability to make any decision he chose when it came to his Gallize shifters. But that decision would be a problem.
Rory couldn’t stand aside and let her go with someone else. He had serious concerns about keeping Ferrell contained if that happened.
He had his argument ready, even though odds were against him winning an argument with the boss.
As soon as they were alone, the Guardian turned to him with a rigid composure that never seemed to hiccup. “You’re still killing your jaguar. I think I know why.”
