by Layla Nash
“You were trying to fill an emptiness inside you,” she said, absently. As if the observation wouldn’t take my breath away with how close to home it struck. “You did it with work and women. Neither seemed to get the job done, so you did more of both. And more and more and more, until finally you landed here. Something’s working to fill that void now, but I don’t know what that is yet. Food? Beating on Sasha? Glaring holes in the back of Owen’s head every time he looks at my ass? I don’t know. I like you better this way. I don’t have to worry about bleaching everything you touch.”
I focused on breathing. Filling an emptiness with work and women. I wondered what kind of emptiness he had to deal with, though the scars on his body were some indication. Ending up working a secret mission against BadCreek filled in some of the rest. But her description felt familiar for more than just Nick. Since Cal’s death, I’d had an emptiness inside me, and I’d tried filling it with work as the hyena queen. And Kara was right—it didn’t help. There was never enough work, never enough distractions, never enough liquor to fill the void. To make the silence less mocking, the nights less lonely. The emptiness was always there.
Nick grumbled and kicked the back of her seat. “Stop making me sound so gross. And before you argue with me, did you get the phone I asked you for?”
She handed a prepaid phone back to him. “Of course I did. And there’s water and snacks in the cooler by your feet, by the way. We’ll have to restock the cabin, since you probably put a good dent in the supplies.”
“Bet your ass we did,” Nick said. He fussed with the crappy phone, checking the card and powering it on, then handed it to me. “You can call Eloise from this phone. I don’t know what happened to your old one, but at least the hyenas can’t trace this one.”
“Why would I be worried about them tracing my phone?” I took it, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember Eloise’s phone number. Who the hell memorized numbers anymore? I hardly knew my own.
Nick fished in the cooler for a bottle of water. “In case it wasn’t an accident and someone set you up.”
Kara’s eyebrows rose as she leaned around to look at me again. “Wow. Someone set you up?”
“We don’t know that,” I said. A sinking feeling in my stomach grew at just the possibility. Cassidy wasn’t that power hungry. I thought she’d only aspired to be the security chief and no more. She said often enough that she didn’t want to deal with the administrative bullshit of being queen and she was glad that was my problem and not hers. “I’m not particularly concerned that—”
“If it was a setup and you survived,” Nick said, handing me a piece of paper, “then she won’t want you alive to challenge her again. I’m sure she’d rather find out you lived before the rest of the pack so she can dispose of you quietly. That won’t happen, obviously, but we’ve got enough to worry about without dealing with assassination attempts. And that’s Eloise’s phone number.”
“Thanks.” Assassination attempts. Luckily most of the challenges and attempts to kill me had been relatively straightforward since I’d become queen, though I’d become cautious about who I accepted food from. Traditionally one became queen by defeating the previous queen in combat, but poisoning the queen or assassinating her would probably have been accepted, too. Nausea unsettled my stomach, although it could have been the godawful coffee Nick made coming back to haunt me. “I’m not sure I’m ready to call Eloise just yet.”
And not in front of an audience, that was for sure.
Nick nodded, handing me another bottle of water. “We’ll know more soon. Do you think we can get in contact with your beta discreetly, or will that cause too many problems?”
There really wasn’t any way to know without calling her. And if Cassidy set me up, it could have been a plot hatched by both of them together. Or Cass acted alone and might have killed Savannah to eliminate anyone still loyal to me.
I stared out the window as we entered the city and all the green disappeared into gray concrete. All things considered, it was damn impressive there were any hyenas around at all. We killed each other off so rapidly we probably should have died out generations ago. I’d intended to put a stop to the violence when I became queen, but it was far easier said than done.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know that, either. We can try to call, or send someone over there to try and see what’s going on if no one answers the phone. Cass won’t be letting a lot of people inside the den right now anyway, so she can consolidate power.”
The silence stretched as I debated what to do next. I really needed a shower, a good breakfast, real coffee, and a bit of space to think. Making the wrong call or telling the wrong person could blow everything up, and I still didn’t know if I wanted to go back as queen or just walk away. I never considered abdicating, but if Cass did a good enough job and intended to continue what I’d started—and she hadn’t tried to kill me, of course—then maybe I could walk away on good terms.
And I needed Nick to figure out how the hell we would free Smith and the djinn. I rubbed my temples as the headache from the day before reignited. As much as I didn’t want the wolf involved in too much of my business, at least until I sorted out how I felt about him, he would be able to call Savannah without arousing too much suspicion in Cassidy. “You could call my beta and ask about something you gave me or wanting to be at the funeral or something. That would tell us a great deal about how they’re treating my death.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Nick said. “Once we know that, we can start planning the rest.”
I should have asked the djinn for a deadline. There was a hell of a lot more to get done than I’d anticipated, and already it felt like I was running out of time.
Chapter Eighteen
Nick
Nick didn’t care how much they made fun of him as long as it entertained Lacey. His wolf grew more anxious as they got deeper into the city and approached the den. He knew the alpha bear would be waiting.
The SUV pulled up outside the gym where a welcoming party was loitering outside: the alpha, the Russian, and the psychotic polar bear. A growl started in Nick’s chest, but he paused as Lacey cleared her throat. “Are they waiting for him or for me?”
Owen put the car in park but didn’t unlock the doors. “Him, mostly. Do they need to be worried about you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Lacey looked over at Nick, her eyes flashing gold in what might have been a challenge. “You going to keep your shit together?”
“Yes,” Nick said. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let her see him being pushed around by the bears. “Are you?”
“I’m not promising anything,” she said, and opened her door to greet the impatient alpha bear.
Kara grinned as she looked back at Nick one more time. “I like her. Don’t fuck it up.”
He grunted and climbed out as well, nodding to the Russian and the polar bear as he walked around the SUV. Before Nick could even speak, the hyena queen said, “He’s fine. Let’s get inside.”
She strode to the door without waiting for a response, and for a second, the men just stood on the sidewalk and stared at where she’d disappeared inside the gym. Nick smiled widely and sauntered after here. “See? I’m fine.”
“I’ll decide that, wolf,” Kaiser said under his breath, though he followed them both into the first floor of the building.
Kara pointed Lacey toward the elevator. “You can shower upstairs and call Eloise, if you’d like, while they... sort this out.”
The hyena queen nodded, though she paused near the elevator to give Kaiser a hard look. She pointed at Nick. “He’s useful to me right now. Don’t kill him.”
Kaiser waited under the doors closed after her to look at Nick. “Well. You’re useful to her now? What the hell happened?”
Nick didn’t want to preen, but he plucked at the front of his T-shirt to make himself look a little bigger. “What can I say? I know people.”
“Cut the shit,” the polar bear, Axel,
said. “Why do the hyenas think she’s dead?”
“She disappeared for a while,” he said. Nick retrieved some water from the cooler and wished it were a bottle of whiskey instead. “The djinn dragged her into some other realm and convinced her to help free him. She’s got to find Smith and Ray first, then the djinn will free the rest of the women and children in the compound.”
“What the hell is djinn?” the Russian asked.
“The genie.” Kaiser didn’t look particularly surprised. “We’ve been waiting to hear something from them. How likely is it that this is a trap?”
“If the djinn didn’t mean it, he wouldn’t have released her,” Nick said. “She would still be trapped. So if there’s something else going on, I’m guessing the djinn isn’t part of it.”
The alpha bear grumbled and started to pace. After a long, rather uncomfortable silence for Nick as he waited to be tackled and restrained, Kaiser folded his arms over his chest and stopped short in front of him. For a moment, the grolar bear’s gold eyes glared at him from only a few inches away. “Are you going to endanger any of my young?”
“No,” Nick said. He didn’t even try to make light of the situation. “If I have my way, Lacey won’t bother to let her pack know she lives, and we’ll both disappear into Europe before the end of the week. You’ll never be bothered by me again.”
Kaiser’s left eye twitched. “Your sister would not be pleased with that.”
“I know,” Nick said. “Which is why she doesn’t know about it yet. And no one is going to tell her.” Nick glared at Owen, who shrugged and held his hands up in surrender. Nick cleared his throat and went on, focusing on all the possibilities of a life of freedom with Lacey. “So we’ll be out of your hair directly if you don’t get in my way.”
The bear didn’t like the implied threat, but Kaiser, at least, let his better sense prevail. “And how, exactly, are you going to find Smith and Ray? It’s been months.”
“I have a few ideas,” Nick said. “You probably don’t want to know any more than that.”
“There’s an Alphas Council tonight,” Kaiser said. “If you’re going to be causing trouble or needing assistance, now is the time to make that clear.”
Nick hesitated. An Alphas Council. No doubt the new hyena queen would make her debut. He wondered if Lacey knew about the Council, if she wanted to take part, or at least use it to signal her support for the new queen. It would be a very clean way to make the break. Or to re-open the wound, if Lacey decided she wanted to be queen again.
He rubbed his face. “I’m not sure all of you will want to be involved.”
The bears traded looks, and finally Kaiser heaved a gusty bear sigh. “I’m not sure we would, either, but that’s what family is for. What do we need to do?”
“I have to call a few people and arrange some meetings,” Nick said. He didn’t know whether to be grateful for the offer to help or annoyed that his prospects for alone time with Lacey were being smashed apart. “But I’ll let you know.”
The bears stayed to grumble at each other, but Nick headed for his room and the pile of extra cell phones he kept around. It took longer than he liked to find the one with the witches’ contact information, and longer still to steel his courage to call the coven leader. Just the thought made his skin crawl and his stomach sink. But Lacey needed the witches, and that was that.
The coven leader, Estelle, answered on the fourth ring. “Well well well. To what do I owe the honor, Nikolai?”
He really didn’t like witches. “I have a job that might require your expertise. Can you meet tonight?”
“Just me, or the whole gang?”
Nick debated whether it would be worth facing the entire coven. “It’s a job for all of you. I’ll leave it to you on who should hear the details.”
Estelle pondered, making a “hmm” sound as she made him wait. Nick practically itched to throw the phone across the room and call the whole thing off. He could make Hugo do it, with enough gold. He’d have to rob a bank or the Chase mansion, but Nick would find a way.
Finally, Estelle yawned. “Very well. You’re lucky it’s a new moon, otherwise we’d have to wait a while. Midnight, at the old cemetery. You remember the tree, I trust?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.” He growled more than he intended, but waited until she hung up to do the same. He tossed the phone across the room and headed for the gym, searching for a hint of Lacey’s scent. As soon as she figured out what she wanted to do with the hyenas, they could figure out the rest of their plan.
He wondered if they should fly to Paris first, or stop in London. It was springtime, and he always loved Paris in the spring. Nick stopped in his tracks when he found Lacey already in the gym, beating on one of the heavy bags with her bare hands, blood streaming from her knuckles. So apparently the call didn’t go well. Nick braced to deal with a pissed-off gorgon, some lions, and maybe the rest of the hyenas. It just made Paris look even better.
Chapter Nineteen
Lacey
I took a quick shower and got dressed in the clothes Kara loaned me, grateful that she had set up a breakfast spread in the kitchen along with a fresh pot of coffee—with lots of cream and sugar, thank God. I didn’t really want to call the cackle or even Eloise. Curling up somewhere to hibernate for a few months seemed like the best idea.
Still, though, I wasn’t entirely out of the business of worrying about my family. The suspicion that perhaps Cassidy wasn’t completely innocent of my disappearance nagged at me, and I wanted answers before I just rolled over and let her take the reins. But first I owed my best friend a call.
She took so long to answer I feared she wouldn’t answer the strange number, but eventually a deep voice reached me. “This is Eloise’s phone. How can I help you?”
Benedict, her mate. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. It was probably easier to break the news to him, all things considered. “Don’t hang up. This isn’t a trick. This is Lacey Szdoka. I’m not dead.”
A long silence answered me, then the jokester lion said something to someone in the background before the noise around him changed. I knew he’d moved to a different room before answering. “Keep talking.”
“Something weird happened and the djinn who works for BadCreek took me to a different... place. That’s why everyone thought I was dead. I haven’t told the rest of the cackle yet; I might want to just disappear, but I didn’t want Eloise to think I was really gone. Can you break the news to her?” For some strange reason, a lump formed in my throat. I didn’t like the idea of Eloise mourning me. I didn’t want her to suffer from missing me, but at the same time it was reassuring that at least someone would be sad if I wasn’t in the world.
Benedict didn’t sound like he entirely believed me. “How did the djinn find you?”
“We raided the compound again the night I disappeared.” I tripped over the date, about to say the night before, but I realized I still didn’t know how long I’d been gone. I couldn’t believe a full week had disappeared on me. Maybe if I saw a newspaper, I’d believe it. “Something happened while I was waiting in the woods.”
“We told you to stop doing that,” Benedict said, sounding too much like a lecturing older brother for my tastes.
“I make my own choices, lion,” I said, and some of the hyena queen’s attitude crept into my voice. “And none of those choices have anything to do with your pride. If you don’t want to tell Eloise, I’ll find another way to let her know.”
Benedict grumbled and muttered under his breath, but didn’t answer.
Ridiculous men. I decided to help him along a little. “She’ll kill you if she finds out you knew and didn’t tell her. Besides, do you want her to suffer another minute? Give me a break. Go tell her I’m not dead and I’ll try to come over to see her tomorrow.”
“Where are you staying?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. I didn’t need the lions showing up at the bears’ den and making a big deal of things. The momen
t the hyenas saw the other shifters gathering, they would suspect something was up. I didn’t need the attention. “And don’t tell anyone else, including your brothers. You all are notoriously bad at keeping secrets. I’m not trying to make a big splash.”
“Logan will know,” he said. “And there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind about that. He’ll kick my ass across every inch of this city if he finds out I kept this from him, so do your worst, hyena. You’re not going to scare me more than he does. We’ll be in the city later tonight for the Alphas Council, so the two of you can meet up for brunch or something. Assuming she doesn’t get in the car the second I tell her and try to hunt you down.”
“Thanks. She can call this number if she wants to talk.” I took a deep breath and hesitated, knowing I only procrastinated making the other call.
But Benedict wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to chat on the phone. He muttered another expletive, said goodbye, and hung up before I could reply with a similar swear.
I got up to pace through the apartment, wondering where everyone else was, and tried to be grateful that they left me alone to make the calls. I picked my way through a bagel, taking my time just so I didn’t have to find out whether yet another relative betrayed me, but eventually I couldn’t come up with any other excuses. I needed to hike up my big girl pants and get on with it.
Savannah didn’t answer her phone. That didn’t surprise me, since she didn’t know the number. I paced some more as I stared at the cheap plastic handset and wondered who else to reach out to. There weren’t many people I trusted to keep their mouths shut about me being alive—which was a pretty good indicator that I needed to stay gone, regardless of whether Cass had anything to do with my supposed death.
And she’d still gotten me abducted by the djinn and roped into the deal to free him, even if she hadn’t managed to kill me.