by Rebecca Main
“No,” I mutter, tugging at the door handle with my good hand. Locked.
“Protocol states—”
“Fuck protocol!” I snarl at Miles, snatching my hand back to cradle my left wrist. A hand comes to rest on my arm as I silently seethe. My wrist gives a painful throb. It’s broken. There’s no doubt about it. Felicia turns me around, a dark scowl upon her beautiful features.
“Let me see it,” she commands. I present my wrist to her, and she lets out an aggravated sigh. “Come on.” I follow her to one of the smaller tables scattered across the room and take the seat she offers. “Lay your hand and wrist as straight as possible. Miles, grab some medical wrap and a couple of splints from the med kit. Quickly.” Felicia adjusts my wrist carefully, ignoring my hiss of pain. “With the Borealis Matter so fresh in your system, you’ll heal fast. I wouldn't be surprised if it's better by the end of the night, but if we don’t set this properly now, it could heal incorrectly.”
Miles returns with haste to work with Felicia on setting my wrist. I purposefully ignore the knowing looks Miles shoots my way throughout the process. Let me and the boys handle this. Wyatt's words play in my mind on repeat. Like the most annoying song ever.
“We’re going to forget this little incident occurred, understood?” Felicia’s voice holds a precariously tense note to it. I nod my head stiffly. Miles offers the same response, though a tad more eagerly. “Miles, lock down all the equipment per protocol. We’ll help in a moment.”
Miles walks off, and I keep my gaze steadfast on the metal table, squaring my shoulders as much as I can for the upcoming reprimand. “What were you thinking?” she hisses. I let out a small exhalation, head shaking dismally from side to side.
“I wasn’t,” I tell her. It had been instinctual. Second nature.
“You’re damn right,” she responds. “The atrium might house priceless relics, but the observatory houses expensive equipment. Equipment that is extremely hard to come by without raising a lot of eyebrows.” My head bobs. Felicia lets out a frustrated sigh. “Look at me, Calliope.” I do so. “This can’t happen again.”
Her eyes flick toward Miles surreptitiously, and I note the way he observes us from afar. “I understand,” I whisper.
“Good. How’s your wrist feeling?”
I give my fingers an experimental wiggle and scrunch my nose in response. “Shitty,” I admit.
“Take a few more minutes and then come watch me shut down.”
“Felicia.” The 5’4” woman pauses midstride to pass me a look over her shoulder. “Wolves are attacking again.” The red light continues to flash above us. By this point last time, the wolves had cut the power. Why hadn’t they done so again?
“I’m aware,” she says dryly.
“And the power is still on,” I continue, following her with measured steps.
Felicia turns to face me, folding her arms over her chest, a look of annoyance stealing through her gaze. “I’m also aware that the power is still on. Thank goodness.”
“But why?”
“Why?” She lets out a scoff and turns back around, walking toward a string of switches and levers running across a wall. “How should I know?”
The lights stop, and so do I.
“Great!” Felicia exclaims. “Now we don’t have to continue to shut down. Miles.”
“On it,” he answers excitedly, quickly rebooting all that he’d turned off. I remain frozen in my stance, mind whirling a thousand miles per minute. It seems extremely unlikely for the wolves to attack again in so little time. They had gotten exactly what they came for. So why the second-round hit? Unless....
“Callie?”
They aren’t the same.
“Callie?”
It’s a different pack.
“Calliope!” My head jerks to the side at the sound of my name. Felicia and Miles both look at me expectantly. “Your wrist?”
I stretch my fingers. The muscle and bone are tight, but the pain has lapsed. I give a short nod of my head and join Felicia. It takes a great amount of effort to concentrate on her words, but by the time we are finished rebooting and imparting the final relic, I know one thing for sure. We have two enemies pounding on our front door. It’s just a matter of figuring out who and why.
Chapter 5
Bad Reputation
I’m escorted back to my room an hour after we’ve finished the last relic. All of us are. The men who accompany us have no news to share, which is complete bullshit. I find myself pacing my room, anxiously waiting for Wyatt to turn up. Surely, he'll want to gloat. Or at least hold some tantalizing piece of information over my head, without telling me the full story. I will take what I can get.
“Knock, knock,” Wyatt’s voice calls as his knuckles rap against my door. The door inches open without my reply. “Can I come in?”
I usher him inside with an impatient sweep of my hand and plant myself on the edge of my bed. “Well?”
“They’re dead.” Christ.
“All of them?”
He nods, running a hand over his jaw. “Not the wolves, the dogs.”
My stomach drops. “The… dogs?” Despite myself, a quiver runs through my voice. The dogs? They killed the fucking dogs? “All of them?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” he snaps. My mouth shuts. I pale at the disturbing news. “They disabled the new perimeter alarms and took out the dogs before charging the facility. The atrium is a mess. We don’t even know if they took anything or if they just wanted to cause chaos.”
“Maybe both,” I offer softly, mind whirling. I blink back the tears that gather along my vision. “Even Dakota?”
Wyatt takes a seat next to me, grabbing my hand and giving it a rough squeeze. “Sorry, Calliope,” he mutters. I slip my hand from his hold and rub it along the back of my neck.
“Mongrels,” I spit out. Wyatt’s hand moves to rest on my thigh, and I let out a little defeated sigh. There is no point in scampering away like some scared rabbit.
“Your bruises are gone,” he finally says after a minute, his eyes lingering momentarily on my wrist. I clench my jaw and slowly exhale.
“Borealis Matter.”
Silence crawls into the space between us, broken by the squeaking of the bed as Wyatt shifts. I cast him a sidelong glance, but his gaze rests solely on the hand placed on my thigh.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he apologizes, “but you know how it is now.” Let me and the boys handle this.
I raise a shoulder nonchalantly, letting my hands settle in my lap. “Forget about it,” I tell him, even though I have no intention of doing so.
“I kept thinking of you out there,” he admits, leaning in closer. “I couldn’t help but think if you were there by my side we could have taken down the whole lot of them.” His fingernails begin to dig softly into my thigh.
“Wyatt….” My heart skips a beat, knowing precisely what he intends to do next. Knowing I’ll do nothing to stop it. But why? A small voice cries in my mind.
Wyatt twists, his lips planting themselves against mine in stunted urgency. We tumble back onto the bed, lips slanting over each other like an old habit. But there is nothing there behind it. No spark. No feeling. It’s certainly nothing in comparison to the mere touch of the mysterious wolf’s soulmark, but at least it takes the edge off this need crawling under my skin. Wyatt reels back after a long minute, taking in my lackluster performance with a sculpted frown upon his brow.
“What’s wrong?” I shake my head, eyes flying to the wall. Anywhere but him. Wyatt leans back in slowly, letting his lips run along the length of my throat before nipping at my ear. “Upset that you had to keep the darkness at bay?” I suck in a sharp breath, shoving him away with both hands. He lets out a mean laugh as he almost falls off the bed, enjoying my fury.
“Take it back,” I order firmly.
“Come on, Calliope,” he cajoles. “No one takes on a nest of wendigo and lives to tell the tale if they don’t have that killer instinct
inside them. Own your darkness.”
“Get out,” I command, lacing steel into my words.
Wyatt hesitates before delivering a mocking bow. “The Council will be here in a few hours. I’d suggest you clean up and get ready for questioning,” he says lightly.
“Why would they question me?”
He straightens, rolling back his shoulders and pinning me with a superior look. “I’m sure they’ll want to question you after I finish giving my report of the events.” I swallow hard, but say nothing more. He departs with a satisfied smile on his face, leaving me to stew and brood over what I might expect.
+++
The stirring sensation of the Borealis Matter has mostly passed. The proverbial “itch” scratched behind closed and locked doors. Afterward, I wait patiently for a Council crony to come and lead me away. They came. I went. And, well… it could have gone better.
“Ms. Sawyer, I had hoped not to see you so soon after our last meeting,” Mr. Hall comments, shuffling the papers in front of him idly. He peers at me over the rims of his glasses. “But alas, as Mr. Baker detailed, you attempted to, and I quote, ‘take charge of the situation and aid the Stellar Warriors. By force, if necessary.’ In your insistence, you ‘pushed and shoved’ Mr. Baker—”
“That’s not true,” I tell the Council sharply. “Mr. Baker’s account is wrong.”
Mr. Hall takes off his glasses to clean them on the end of his shirt before responding, “And what part is wrong?”
“All of it.” The Council breaks out into angry murmurs, and I catch my father’s disgruntled scowl.
“Do explain yourself,” he calls from his seat. I straighten, taking a calming breath before speaking.
“The alarm went off, and I rushed to the doors to activate the security protocols via the security panel. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, though not on my part. Mr. Baker was keen to exit the observatory and assist his comrades. I was keen on securing the observatory.”
“I see,” my father grumbles.
“I’m happy to have cleared up the matter. It would have been unfortunate for the Council to make a decision based solely on one report.”
“And your supervisor, Felicia Metzart, can corroborate your story?” Mrs. Baker asks slyly. I give a brief nod. “How very interesting,” she says confidently.
The smile I suddenly sport feels brittle. Mr. Hall opens his mouth to speak when I press on. “What’s interesting?”
Mrs. Baker wears that cat-that-got-the-canary look. The one her son likes to don so frequently. “Well, I don’t think it will come as a surprise to you when I say, between Wyatt and yourself, the Council is more inclined to believe the former given your… history.” I swallow down the hurt that comes with her well-placed hit, the smile on my face fading. “You understand, don’t you, dear? We’ll certainly be sure to crosscheck the facts of the evening with Ms. Metzart and—”
“And when her version is the same as mine?” I ask. Mrs. Baker stops short at my interruption, the satisfaction waning from her smile.
“While doubtful, if your stories do align, then Wyatt will be reprimanded accordingly. However, if the inverse is true, then a reprimand befitting the situation will be applied to you.”
“Which means?”
“Which means, Ms. Sawyer, you’ve been in front of this Council several times in the past year. All for disorderly behavior. We have been lenient thus far—”
“Lenient? The first time I made a mistake you completely reassigned me! There was no discourse to handle it,” I shout.
“Enough!” my father cries, slamming his hands down on the table—one constructed of flesh and bone, the other of metal and fiber. The latter a direct result of an encounter with a ruthless vampyré. “That is enough. Your report of the evening’s events has been recorded, as has your ill-mannered behavior. Go.”
It definitely could have gone better, but at least afterward I was able to get some information out of the younger warriors, such as the Council’s rapidly growing concern about wolf attacks and how the most recent attack is labeled as "personal."
I spin the butterfly switchblade around my fingers pensively. The feel of the cool metal running across my skin is beyond comforting, a fact I attribute to the Borealis Matter that pulses through both of us now. It has never felt more natural in my hands.
The vibration of my phone captures my attention. It’s hidden somewhere among the numerous shelves along the walls.
Nova: <
My thumb hovers over the downloadable link hesitantly before tapping down. I haven’t heard from any of the sisters since they had left, but that’s not unusual. Typically, when on mission, communication is strictly kept between the outbound agents and coordinating director. Which means the image is either a gag photo or….
The image comes through a few seconds later. A picture of a man’s back. A man’s bare back that is detailed with an assortment of images in black ink: a Celtic knot, a skull and compass, distorted ravens, claw marks, and paw impressions. Countless more. They do nothing to diminish the sculpted trapezius or broad shoulders that stack the body. Nor the straining muscles that compose his lats.
Nova: <
I don’t hesitate this time around. When the image loads, I’m greeted with the wolf's scowling face—at least half his face—as he wipes at it with a towel. His front is just as ripped as his back. And I can’t help but think how well those broad shoulders fit his broad chest. Or how nice the dark hair spanning his pectorals looks. My thumb and forefinger separate on the screen, zooming in on the way said hair spears a direct path south. His abdominals aren’t too shabby either. Though he doesn’t sport a swimmer’s trim waist, it's easy to see that he packs muscle everywhere. A fighter’s body through and through.
Nova: You’re welcome.
Calliope: How exactly did you get these photos?
Nova: I snapped a few pics on the new camera. Don’t worry. I deleted the pics once I sent them to my phone.
Calliope: You are brilliant.
I find myself smiling stupidly down at my phone, tapping the pictures again to see the wolf—not wolf, the man, I correct myself. They don’t build men like that these days. Ones who take pride in their body and know how to take care of themselves. And probably know how to take care of others just as well. I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat.
Nova: You owe me! ;p
To say the least. Ugh. What was I thinking letting her do this for me? It’s not like I’m going to pursue anything with the man. Moreover, if her sisters get wind of the photos or our correspondence, I don’t know if I can count on them to keep quiet.
A knock sounds quickly at my door. Two sharp raps and the issuer makes their way inside. I shove my phone in my back pocket, keeping a neutral expression on my face as my father shuts the door behind him. He’s a tall man, with hair and goatee kept neatly trimmed. He doesn’t look happy to see me, but that’s not unusual.
“Calliope.” I note his greeting comes out as more of a grumble than a salutation.
“Dad.” I pat the spot next to me, giving him a wry look. He takes a step forward but doesn’t accept my silent invitation. I feel my butt vibrate, and my eyes go wide at the sensation. Thankfully my father doesn’t take note of my exaggerated expression.
“Your behavior today at the Council meeting was inexcusable. The way you act reflects upon your family, Calliope. I thought your mother and I taught you better.”