Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles

by Sydney Somers

  The wolf had left without saying a word?

  No. Not after last night. She’d been there, felt the way he held her, kissed her, laughed with her. It had been real. It had meant something.

  Hadn’t it?

  Was she a fool to think he must have run out to pick something up? That he had a reason to leave without a word?

  She sat down on the sofa, the food untouched, and waited.

  Vaughn didn’t come back.

  Not that night. Or the next.

  On the third night she went looking for Mac.

  She’d packed her bags with every intention of leaving and getting back to the responsibilities she’d been avoiding since Vaughn disappeared.

  She’d been off the grid long enough, but she couldn’t seem to shake the certainty that there was something between her and the wolf, something that counted despite all the logical arguments that suggested otherwise.

  She knew first hand that people left, had witnessed it countless times in her lifetime. Rejection, abandonment, betrayal. It’s what people did, mortal and immortal alike. Vaughn wasn’t any different.

  So why couldn’t she quiet that nagging voice that insisted he would have said something before leaving, would have made plans to see her again even knowing she’d find a hundred reasons not to.

  Unless he hadn’t been given the chance.

  Which was how she found herself standing in Mac’s penthouse, watching from the doorway as he faced a beefy guy in a small version of an MMA fighting ring.

  She watched the pair circle and engage, throwing calculated punches and kicks that were no more than glancing blows, both immortals highly skilled.

  Until Mac noticed her.

  The distraction cost him. He took an uppercut to the side of his jaw that knocked him back a few steps.

  “Sorry boss.”

  Mac jerked his head, dismissing his sparring partner. He shook the impact off faster than expected, strolling across the ring in her direction when she knew he had to be at least a little off balance from a punch that hard. “How did you get up here?”

  Elena only smiled. There were some things even the mighty Malachi MacKinnon didn’t need to know.

  “Somebody’s getting fired,” he growled.

  She shrugged. Mac employed the best bounty hunters in either realm, but even a few of them could stand to work on their security skills. Or she would have found it a little more difficult getting into the penthouse undetected.

  “Up for a round?”

  She held up her hand. “Just had my nails done, but thanks.”

  “Too bad. Was looking forward to seeing if the rumors were true.”

  Elena didn’t betray the spark of surprise that caught her in the chest. The wolf was baiting her, and she wasn’t biting, no matter what he claimed to have heard.

  Mac figured out she wasn’t commenting either way and sighed. “Why are you here Elena?”

  “Looking for Nessa,” she said.

  Mac unwrapped the protective fabric on his hands, the twitch in his jaw the only indication that he fought a smile. “If the huntress from hell was within a hundred mile radius, I’d know.”

  “Still have her scent stuck in your head from that night at Pendragon’s, huh?”

  Mac froze, the gesture uncharacteristically revealing for the wolf.

  There, let him stew on that for a while. The reminder that he wasn’t the only one listening to rumors might do him some good.

  “How about we skip the part where you pretend you’re just here to push my buttons for the sake of a good time. We both know that’s not how you really operate.”

  “Is that right?” she drawled.

  He left the ring, walking away from her and gesturing for her to follow. “You know, when my staff mentioned you hadn’t been gambling or ordering your usual hoard of pancakes for breakfast, I thought they must have just missed you coming and going.”

  Elena fell into step with him. Coming to see him had been a mistake, but bailing wasn’t an option now. “Does your staff keep tabs on all your guests?”

  “Just the ones who get off on tarnishing their wings and halo at every opportunity.”

  Elena stopped.

  But Mac wasn’t done yet. “Needless to say, I couldn’t imagine Elena of House Lamorak hibernating while in Vegas, but sure enough,” he trailed off, indicating he’d done his own investigating.

  The ache in her stomach that had been there since Vaughn left got a whole lot worse.

  Mac led the way into his office, stopping in front of his desk. He grabbed his laptop and spun it around, hitting a few keys to bring up a video feed. “I thought there had to be another explanation because there was no way it could be about him, and yet here you are.”

  He searched her face a moment, and getting no response from her about the scrutiny she’d been under without even realizing it, he gave up and hit play.

  Part of her didn’t want to watch the screen, somehow knowing the situation was only going to get worse, but she couldn’t help herself.

  The feed showed the lobby, more specifically the elevator doors. They opened and Vaughn walked out, alone. She checked the time stamp and found it was from the night he’d disappeared.

  Mac hit another button and it skipped to another angle of Vaughn walking across the lobby and out the main doors. Yet another feed showed him walking down the sidewalk and finally out of the camera’s range.

  “I don’t have him locked away. That is why you’re really here, isn’t it?”

  She hit a key, replaying the sequence. He really had left just like that. No signs of trouble whatsoever. At least none that the camera caught.

  “I didn’t snatch him off the street either,” Mac tacked on, guessing that might be her next assumption.

  She had no reason to believe he was lying. Mac might be a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. He didn’t make it a secret he was a businessman first and foremost, but everyone knew his true allegiance remained with Arthur.

  The truth was nothing had happened to Vaughn. He’d had his fun and left without a word, sparing them an awkward conversation after acting like that mattered, that she mattered.

  She’d believed the wolf, and the bastard walked away without another look back. Even worse, though, she’d trusted her own foolish instincts, and the one time she truly let someone in, they managed to break the one thing she’d viciously guarded her whole life.

  Her heart.

  “Elena?”

  She closed her eyes but knew Mac had already seen the sheen of tears that made her throat tight. A familiar pain stole her breath, a pain she hadn’t felt since she was a kid.

  Mac closed the laptop. “You thought maybe I changed my mind about him cheating and had him holed up downstairs somewhere and that’s why you haven’t heard from him,” he added the last part quietly, too quietly. Like he felt sorry for her.

  Not fucking happening.

  She closed herself off from the pain and the hurt, locking it all the way down. Except the anger. She kept a fierce grip on that

  She squared her shoulders. Screw Vaughn and the words she’d stupidly believed. And screw Mac and his clever assumptions and pitying looks.

  She didn’t need either of them. She was just fine on her own. Always had been. Always would be.

  Mac opened his mouth, but whatever he’d been about to say was cut off when her magic released and blue flames swallowed his laptop.

  She walked out, calling over her shoulder. “I guess I owe you for that too.”

  ***

  Vaughn didn’t even try to break his fall when he collapsed on the cold wood floor in his home.

  Behind him, the mirror still shimmered with the forest in Avalon where he’d crossed the veil, but it would go dark in a moment like the rest of the house.

  He rolled to his back, resisting the urge to probe the side of his face that still felt like he was under the heated blade that branded him. The wolf snarled quietly in memory, but even the
animal was exhausted after the weeks of searching for Piper’s killers.

  Except she wasn’t dead. Piper was very much alive.

  He’d caught only a glimpse of her, but he’d heard her voice, heard the steady strength of their mother in her as she mentioned an argument from their childhood that made him certain she wasn’t a glamour or illusion meant to screw with his head.

  They’d purposely misled him. They wanted him to know what it would feel like to lose her in order to ensure he would do anything to avoid that pain again.

  He rolled back to his stomach, letting the undamaged part of his face rest on the cool hardwood.

  “Are you planning on staying there all night?”

  Vaughn lifted his head a few inches and lowered it. “I don’t remember giving you a key.”

  Rutger, leader of the rebellion, watched him from the rocking chair that sat in the corner at the top of the stairs. It had come with the house that was far too big for one person, but Vaughn had fallen in love with it and spent his spare time renovating the place between assignments.

  It was far more modern than what he and Piper had grown up in, but something about it always reminded him of home. Piper had felt it too the few times she’d visited.

  She should have been here more. Maybe if he hadn’t always been so caught up with the next mission, if he hadn’t forgotten to look out for her. To spend more time with her.

  He’d deserved to have his heart ripped open when they told him she was dead. If he’d paid better attention to her…

  “Did you pack your bags for the guilt trip you’re taking?” Rutger rose from the chair, as perceptive as always.

  Vaughn often wondered if the man was really an oracle. Only someone clairvoyant could determine what others were thinking so easily. Then again, if Rutger was an Oracle, they might have ended this war with Morgana a lifetime ago.

  “Come downstairs. I’ve made tea.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  Rutger didn’t dignify that with a response, disappearing downstairs.

  It took Vaughn another few minutes to drag himself to his feet, every bruised bone in his body protesting. More than once he had to cling to the railing to stop himself from tumbling down the creaky stairs he hadn’t gotten around to replacing yet.

  Rutger had two steaming mugs on the table by the time Vaughn lowered himself into a chair.

  “You should have told me what was going on.”

  “Dare,” Vaughn guessed. His friend would have gone to Rutger when everything in Vegas went so horribly wrong and Vaughn went hunting Piper’s supposed killers.

  Rutger nodded. “He understands that we’re stronger as a team than going it alone.”

  Vaughn lifted the mug, wincing when the rising steam set his wounded cheek on fire all over again. “It wasn’t your fight.”

  “My people. My fight.”

  “Piper—”

  “Is just as much my responsibility as she is yours and she will be fine.”

  “Yes, she will.”

  Rutger looked at him, waiting.

  Vaughn managed a sip, but the warm liquid Rutger found so soothing didn’t do a damn thing to comfort him. “They want to make a trade.”

  The rebellion leader’s eyes fell to Vaughn’s cheek. “I suspected as much. The crown?”

  Vaughn frowned. “If that’s what was in the box I stole, then yes.”

  Rutger’s eyes narrowed, telling Vaughn they would talk about that one later. “But there’s more,” he assumed, sitting his small frame back in the chair opposite Vaughn.

  Many a gargoyle had challenged the smaller man for leadership over the centuries, mistakenly thinking Rutger’s size made him an easy target. Even Vaughn had yet to win a sparring match with the other immortal.

  Vaughn nodded. “They want someone.” The sip of tea he drank turned to ice in his stomach.

  Rutger cocked his head. “Someone you know.”

  “They want a sorceress.” The wolf paced anxiously in the back of his mind. “Elena of House Lamorak. She’s my—”

  “I’m familiar with the sorceress,” Rutger interrupted. “She has quite the reputation.” He stood and set his untouched mug in the sink. “Did they say why it had to be her?”

  “No.”

  Vaughn hissed at the hot water that spilled across the table and landed in his lap.

  Rutger rescued him from the shattered mug, handing him a cloth for the cut from squeezing the cup too hard. He waited until Vaughn wrapped it around his palm, which he did mostly to humor the other immortal who would only browbeat him until he obeyed. “Will retrieving the sorceress be a problem?”

  Injuries temporarily forgotten, he stared at the man he’d worked under for centuries. “You want me to go through with it?”

  Vaughn had at least expected some resistance. If word got out that the rebellion leader sanctioned the abduction of a sorceress, it could cause a war with her entire race, and the moment they took their eyes off Morgana they were all screwed.

  Which was the least of Vaughn’s issues considering he’d run out on Elena without a word. Blindsided, he’d been halfway to the meeting site, convinced the call must have been a horrible joke or test of some kind, before realizing he didn’t even remember leaving Elena’s suite.

  By the time he could see past his grief long enough to reach out to Elena, he’d caught a lead on Piper’s killers and crossed the veil to hunt them down. Knowing Elena might be there when it was over was the only thing that kept his grief from consuming him completely.

  He hadn’t expected to find Piper alive, let alone that her death was all part of their plan to get what they were really after.

  Elena.

  Rutger gestured to Vaughn’s face and the wound he’d already figured out was never going to fully heal. “Do you think there is any other option?”

  Vaughn didn’t say anything, the wolf entirely too close to the surface from the mere mention of Elena’s name.

  “They’re powerful and organized.” Until her abductors called to tell him Piper was dead, he’d been unable to identify or track them. He should have questioned the timing of getting a lead of them so quickly, because, they’d been ready, maybe even waiting for him.

  “The Iron Brotherhood is notoriously organized and has been amassing power and followers in recent decades.”

  Vaughn frowned. He’d never heard of the Fae group before, but wasn’t surprised Rutger already knew who they were. “What are they after?”

  “To resurrect their lost queen.”

  “A lost Fae queen?”

  Rutger nodded, appearing almost distracted. “She’s been gone for some time now.”

  The only queen Vaughn was familiar with was Titania and she’d been ruling the Fae for thousands of years as far as Vaughn knew.

  “And bringing her back would be bad? Assuming it’s possible.”

  “Oh, it’s very possible.” Rutger cleaned up the shattered ceramic pieces. “I assume they gave you the means to neutralize the sorceress’s magic.”

  Vaughn dug the ring he’d used to breach the vault in Vegas from his pocket and set on the table. “They made me memorize a Fae verse that will keep her cooperative they said.” His stomach twisted.

  Rutger frowned. “Using her Fae half to chain the sorceress side that fuels her magic most likely. Clever.” He sounded far from impressed. “You’ll need Dare. He’s providing additional back up at the moment but should be free in a day or so. I’ll have him contact you as soon as he crosses the veil. I assume they gave you a few days to retrieve the sorceress.”

  “Elena,” Vaughn corrected on instinct, a growl rising beneath the words.

  Rutger arched a brow. “If you’re too close to the sorceress, I can put someone else on this—”

  “No.” Piper was his family, his responsibility. He’d failed her twice already, it wouldn’t happen again.

  Although brief, he’d felt what it would be like to live in a world without his little
sister. No teasing phone calls giving him a hard time for working too much. No coming home to the smell of scorched cookies when she turned his kitchen into a Betty Crocker nightmare. No laughter-filled promises about the pile of pups she’d have someday just so she could watch him change diapers.

  He couldn’t live in a world without those things, and the bastards who took Piper were counting on that.

  “You’re sure?”

  Not even close, but what choice did he have? If he refused, not only would they kill Piper without hesitating, they’d send someone else after Elena.

  The rebellion leader nodded his approval. “I’ll find out when and where the sorceress will be and you’ll retrieve her and make the exchange.”

  It should have surprised him that Rutger would know when Elena was home, but the other gargoyle had far too many connections.

  “If something goes wrong, my sister—”

  “Will be fine. You need to trust me.” Rutger set a hand on his shoulder. “Rest and heal. You’ll need to be at the top of your game if we’re going to get them back.”

  He was gone before Vaughn fully processed the end of their exchange. Exactly who did he mean by them?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PRESENT DAY

  Elena didn’t bother peeling her eyes open, choosing instead to clutch her stomach.

  Waves of nausea churned in her belly like they were attempting to kick a rogue surfer off his board. At least the dull roar of a migraine thumping behind her eye didn’t make her want to throw up. Yet.

  That was the absolute last time she partied with Nessa and her friends. Somehow a few drinks always turned into a total shit-show when a handful of huntresses were involved, and if anyone made for an unpredictable drunk, it was a huntress.

  The burning sensation in Elena’s chest was new. Exactly what had the huntresses given her and who the hell had dumped her on some vibrating bed in a cheap hotel room that smelled suspiciously like her neighbor’s car?

  The scent of stale cigarettes and bargain-basement bourbon really wasn’t helping the nausea.

  Sybil seemed the most likely culprit. Calling that particular huntress bat-shit crazy was actually taken as a compliment. She wouldn’t put it past the huntress to drag her into a tattoo parlor before ditching her in some honeymoon suite from hell.