by Layla Nash
“You smell terrible. Smoke and alcohol. Humans.” The sorcerer, Reynard, shuffled down the stairs into a deeper sub-basement a few flights down, so far below the surface that Nick’s wolf got nervous and quiet for the first time in a long time. It felt like an unfilled grave.
“I had a meeting to try and resolve an issue, that’s all. I won’t take much of your time.” Nick didn’t touch anything in the small chamber where Reynard stopped and faced him. Three other doors led away from the chamber, some locked with heavy chains, and the sense of claustrophobia increased with every passing second. “I have a small task I need your help with. I need to see inside a place and find out how many people are there.”
“Get a camera or one of those drone things.” The sorcerer’s lined face creased more, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested in coming to the attention of the rest of the animals in this city.”
Nick debated lighting his cigar up again, just to piss the old man off. If he hadn’t seen the bastard actually work magic, Nick would have gone ahead and done it. “There is a complication. The pack that owns the compound enslaved a djinn. The djinn might be providing defensive capabilities, or masking, or any number of things.”
“One of the smoke demons?” Reynard sniffled and snorted, abruptly putting a handful of sage in a copper bowl and lighting it with a flick of his fingers. “Oh my. Smoke and fire, they are. The djinn. I have not seen one in many years. Which kind is he? Blue? Red? Not black, no, that would never do.”
“He’s blue,” Nick said. He’d pitied the djinn, when Ray first released him from the urn that trapped him, and the djinn roared to life only to find himself serving a coward like Ray. “And very, very old. And pissed off. He will only do the absolute minimum for those he serves. Just like us.”
He meant it as a joke, but Nick had forgotten Reynard didn’t have a sense of humor. The sorcerer threw more herbs into the burn bowl, and a cloud of noxious smoke filled the small room. Nick sneezed and retreated a few steps as his eyes watered. He might have smelled a little smoky when he walked into the basement, but he’d sure as hell reek when he left.
Reynard’s mouth puckered as he stared into the smoldering herbs. “You may serve whatever master you please, wolf, but I am a free man.”
“That’s what you think,” Nick said under his breath, but only smiled when the sorcerer gave him a sharp look. Every man had a master, whether that was another man, money, fame, or his god. He raised his voice to make sure Reynard heard the rest of what he had to say. “It’s the compound outside the city with all the shifters. I need to know how many men, women, and children remain. That’s it. Numbers, and if you’re able, locations.”
“It will take time.” The sorcerer squinted and moved his hands through the smoke. “They have tried to hide themselves from this world and the next.”
Sure they had. Nick managed to keep an impassive expression. He’d heard other cockamamie magical bullshit from any number of charlatans and fortune tellers, but Reynard made it into a fine art. “Great. Let me know as soon as you can.”
The sorcerer held out his hand, palm up, while he continued to mutter and whisper into the smoke.
Nick snorted and pulled a second bag of gold out of his pocket, leaving it on the sorcerer’s palm, and headed back up the stairs without another word.
He waited until he was outside to start coughing to get the awful rank odor of the herbs out of his nose. He heard a few pairs of feet scuffling over the concrete, and his wolf immediately tensed. That was never a good sign. A growl rose in his chest as the scent of other wolves drifted into the alley, and Nick braced for an attack. But the wolves ran past and instead a woman’s sharply-drawn breath sent him into a panic. They attacked a woman, an innocent bystander.
Nick bolted, ready to shift, and plowed into the middle of chaos.
Chapter Five
Lacey
We almost closed the bar down, Eloise and I. She made me laugh with her mate’s latest shenanigans and other gossip from the lion pride, and for a few hours, at least, it felt like I could forget everything else. I’d known Eloise when she was just a skinny street kid, hustling for any dollar she could get and trying to hide her crazy medusa side, and I was nothing more than my mother’s third and weakest daughter.
Oh how times had changed.
When Eloise started falling asleep in the fifth or sixth round of appetizers, still clutching a martini glass in each hand, I figured it was time to return to the real world. I nudged her and Eloise bolted upright, eyes comically wide. “I’m awake.”
“I know you are, champ.” I laughed, signaling the waiter for the bill. “But I’m fading and I should probably get back before the cackle gets any ideas about who gets to be queen.”
She glanced at her phone and groaned. “Seriously, it’s only one. What the hell happened to us? I remember when we didn’t even bother going out to party until one.”
I gave the waiter my credit card before Eloise could even dig into her purse, and she gave me a dark look as she pointed a manicured but threatening finger in my direction. “I invited you out, I should pay.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m happy to pick this one up. I didn’t buy you any baby shower gifts for when you adopted the kids.”
“They’re teenagers,” she said. Eloise shook her head, polishing off a few fancy eggrolls. “No gifts necessary. Besides, I thought you liked spending Benedict’s money?”
She had a point. When I pondered the possibility of getting my card back and making Eloise’s mate pay for our night out, she started laughing and almost fell out of her chair. She really couldn’t hold her liquor. I tapped at her phone, smiling as Eloise giggled and held onto the table. “Is Benedict coming to get you?”
“He’ll send the car service to pick me up.” Eloise studied her shoes, then mine. “Is the family going to pick you up? I didn’t see any of your... cousins hanging around.” And she dropped an exaggerated wink on “cousins” to make sure I knew she meant bodyguards instead.
Oh, Eloise. I loved that girl. She was a hot mess, no matter how refined she tried to be during the day or how many foster kids she mother-henned around the city. “I gave them the night off, so it’s just me. I’ll catch a cab.”
“Oh no you won’t. We can drop you off wherever you need to go.” Eloise frowned as she checked her phone and saw a missed call. I arched an eyebrow when her expression soured, and she wobbled to her feet. “I need to call the ball and chain. Just a sec.”
She marched a few feet away to call Benedict back, and I leaned back in my chair as she read him the riot act about something that happened with the apartment. Sometimes it felt like the entire city changed and left me behind. Eloise had been my partner in crime, and in the space of a year, she got married and adopted three kids and her cousin as well. She had a fancy penthouse apartment in the city and a wing of the Chase mansion outside the city. A new job managing a bunch of shelters and soup kitchens, and a whole set of sisters-in-law to hang out with. I was happy for her, but it felt like life gave her everything just as it took everything from me.
I played with the engagement ring and tried not to think too deeply about Cal. I missed him so much it hurt to breathe. It hit me out of nowhere sometimes, in a sudden shock of cold water, and stole my breath away. It was bad enough that he died, that I’d lost the love of my life, but his loss was made even worse by the fact that my cousins killed him and tried to kill me in order to justify attacking the jackals. They also wanted to take my place in the line of succession, though everyone else ended up dead after Eloise and her mate helped free me.
I pushed away the thoughts as the darkness threatened to swallow me up. That always happened when I drank. Even Eloise’s cheerful argument with Benedict didn’t break the spell, and the waiter offered me another drink when he returned with the bill, since clearly I’d received bad news.
But I managed to fake a smile and leave a generous tip, since he’d put up with a lot, and gestured f
or Eloise to get her ass in gear. I needed to walk off the alcohol before I dared enter the den; my cousins would sense drunkenness as weakness, and sadness as a crippling deformity. We maneuvered through the crowds in the bar until we were on the sidewalk outside, and a sleek limo pulled up with a uniformed bodyguard to open the rear door for Eloise.
I snorted. “Town car? You liar.”
“I told him not to,” she muttered, looking at least a little embarrassed. “Come on, let me drop you off near the house. I don’t want you walking out here alone this late. There are still muggers and shit in this part of the city.”
“Oh, Eloise.” I hugged her as I started to laugh, though I whispered so no one would overhear. “I’m the hyena queen, I can handle muggers.”
She held me by the shoulders, suddenly sober, and fear lurked in her eyes. “Listen to me, Lacey Szdoka. I know you, and you’re not okay. You’re taking stupid risks. You don’t laugh the same. I’m worried about you, you hear me? I can’t lose you.”
A knot formed in my throat, all tears and fire and regret, but I kept the smile pasted on my face. “I promise I’m okay. You’ll be the first person I call if that changes.”
She didn’t believe me at all, and I didn’t blame her. But Eloise smooshed my cheeks in, and shook her head. “You crazy bitch. I love you.”
“Love you too, scary eyes. Call me when you get home.”
Eloise ducked into the limo—well, half-fell into the limo—and the bodyguard carefully shut the door behind her. I even waved as the limo pulled away, though it felt kind of silly. I didn’t move until it disappeared around a corner, then I looked around, at a loss. Part of me wanted to head for the dive bar that one of the wolfpacks owned. O’Shea’s would still be open and crowded, and the O’Shea siblings would make room for me if I wanted to drink myself into a stupor in the corner.
But eventually I’d face the same dilemma and have to go back to the den. I couldn’t sleep in the guest room at O’Shea’s, either, without raising serious issues among the hyenas about my willingness to be queen. So I turned away from the street that led to the rest of the shifters in the city, and headed into the darker side streets that would meander back to the den.
I made it three blocks before something moved in the shadows and the back of my neck prickled in anticipation as the familiar feeling of being hunted raced through me. Before I could debate whether to send for help or shift forms, three forms separated from the darkness and collided with me. I flew back and landed hard on the concrete, feeling my shoulder separate as my arm wrenched and I rolled into a wall.
Fuck.
But there wasn’t time to recover or plan or do anything but feel the pain as I shoved to my feet under a new onslaught of kicks and punches. The hyena snarled and threatened to claw free, and I bared my teeth as I caught a whiff of the assailants. Wolves. Probably BadCreek. But something was off about them. Something didn’t smell right.
My eyes narrowed and I ducked another punch, though I caught a boot in my kidneys and grunted. They were big dudes, over six feet and made of muscle, and their eyes glowed gold and reflective in the darkness. For the first time, it felt like the fight would be over before it really began.
I pulled the knife out of my pocket and whipped it into the throat of one of the attackers, and he stumbled back with a spray of blood. The other two didn’t even look at him, so it didn’t even buy me a second to think. They both charged.
I braced for the blows, to be run right over and maybe carried away to a hellish nightmare of a death, but a louder growl roared into the silence and the hyena abruptly calmed. Everything would be fine.
I didn’t share her confidence. The attackers grunted, then collapsed on the concrete with wet thumps. I straightened, wincing as my shoulder pulled, and swallowed curses. The very last person I wanted to see stood over the assailants, frowning at them as if they’d been naughty kids, then started to search their pockets. Nick.
My heart skipped a few beats and the hyena wanted to preen as he glanced over at me, but I kept myself aloof. I didn’t have time to be distracted. And he was a walking distraction—tall and lean but all muscle, easygoing in almost everything but with a spark of truly crazy badass when he needed to complete a mission, and dark hair and eyes that had me staring even when I wanted to look away.
Nick smiled with only half his mouth, though the scars on his face pulled at his cheek oddly. “You okay?”
I hesitated. The hyena wanted to blurt out the truth—we weren’t okay. Not by a long shot. But my pride wouldn’t allow it. “Yeah.”
His head cocked to the side in a wolf-like expression, as if he smelled the lie, but he was too damn smart to call me on it. “Your left shoulder is about six inches lower than your right. Might want to put it back into the socket before it swells up or heals wrong.”
“Thanks. I hadn’t noticed.” And I didn’t quite know how to put my own shoulder back into place. Normally Savannah did that kind of thing for me.
Nick straightened, having found nothing on the bodies of the assailants, and that easy smile spread like honey over a biscuit. Warmth spread through me just as slowly, in a drizzle of need I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “Need a hand?” He waggled his eyebrows and held out one of his meaty paws.
It almost made me smile, though I kept my stern expression in place. “I didn’t have you pegged as a medic.”
“I’ve learned a few tricks.” Nick stepped over a body and approached, though he did so slowly and from the side, as if I were a wild animal that would startle and run if he walked right up to me. “Ready?”
I eyed him for a long time before taking a deep breath; he was right, of course, that the shoulder needed to be put back before my speedy shifter healing permanently locked it out of place. “Yes.”
He reached for my shoulder and I tensed, but Nick paused and carefully wiped his hands off on his jeans. He looked just a touch sheepish. “Sorry. Got a bit of blood on them. Good move with the knife.”
“Thanks.” I took a deep breath to steady myself and instead caught a good whiff of him, and immediately started coughing. My eyes watered until he turned into a brown and beige blur in front of me. “What the hell is that smell?”
Irritation stole across his expression. “Sage and some other hocus-pocus. Had a meeting with a psychic and he likes to create drama.”
“A psychic? I didn’t picture you as someone who’d seek out fortune tellers.” The thought distracted me as his warm hand slid around my arm and the other cradled my shoulder. “What did you ask him? Whether you could ever wear these clothes again?”
Nick snorted. His long eyelashes distracted me as he studied my face. “Nah. Asked when I’d find the woman of my dreams.”
Typical bullshit. Before I could start mocking, Nick said, “One two three” in a staccato burst and wrenched at my arm.
I howled as pain erupted in my shoulder but then eased as the joint re-seated itself and the shifter healing took over. Nick leaned down to press a kiss against the sore spot, then winked at me. “He said tonight.”
I laughed. I shouldn’t have, since I didn’t want to encourage that kind of behavior, but the man was a master at pick-up lines and confident to the point of insanity. The very first time we’d met, when his wolf was in control of his body and he’d been tortured into madness by BadCreek, Nick took one look at me and managed to snap himself back to human long enough to try a cheesy line on me.
Nick picked up my bag and handed it to me after brushing some of the trash and mud off it, then gave me a long, slow look that practically ignited a fire under my skin. The man practically oozed... lust or desire or sexuality or something. He had a swagger to back it up, and my imagination filled in the rest. “You look very nice tonight, Lacey.”
I shivered at the way he said my name, and turned away so I wouldn’t see his pupils dilate or the hint of longer teeth pressing against his lower lip as the wolf started to take control. “Thanks. What do you think these guys want
ed? They don’t smell right.”
“Neither do I,” Nick said under his breath, then smiled as I gave him a sharp look over my shoulder. He crouched over the bodies and flipped one over, thumbing the guy’s blank, staring eye open to show it still frozen in solid gold. “They were on something, probably. One of the compounds the lab was working on. It puts the wolf in control.”
“That’s scary.” I kept my distance, though more because of him than the dead wolves. “They’re definitely from BadCreek?”
“Yep.” Nick pulled out his phone and sent a text message, then put it away. “This one here is a real piece of work. I’ve been waiting for him to poke his head out so I could kill him.”
I felt the same way about almost every wolf from BadCreek. He looked at me again, about to speak, but hesitated. Instead, Nick just watched me, as if he expected me to say something. I watched him in return, unable to form words around a sudden knot in my throat. I wanted to cry and I didn’t know the reason. Maybe he reminded me of Cal. Maybe it was the ease with which he acted around me, as if he had no idea I was queen of the hyenas. The hyena knew it was something else.
His expression softened, something I’d never seen before, and Nick tilted his head back down the side street. “Want to get a cup of coffee?”
It was the kindest invitation I’d received in months. Not just coffee, but the hint of a quiet listener and a calm shoulder to lean against. An opportunity for someone else to take over and worry about security and everything else. I pretended to search for something in my purse so I could dash at my cheeks and clear my throat. “I should get back.”
“Why?” Nick didn’t move. “We can get coffee and they can pick you up. Or I can drive you.”
It was tempting. I stared back down the street at the bright lights and distant sounds of laughter. All I had to do was say yes, and so many things changed.