by Katya Moore
He closed his eyes. It was all the answer I needed. “You need to understand. We didn’t take down hedge mages. We took down people who had gone full-tilt to the dark side. People who were making big sacrifices. People dealing in artifacts that could harm people. Big players in a deadly game, where losing means collateral damage and altered reality for a lot of people.”
“You were an assassin.” There it was, out in the open.
He bowed his head, resting his forehead against his hands. “Yeah. You could call it that. We thought of it more like military specialists. Wolves instead of SEALs. My team took out some very dangerous people, and we did it for the good of the Earth, or so our superiors told us.”
“Why’d you get out?”
His jaw clenched. He took another long, slow breath and released it. “A job went wrong. My team died. I barely made it out.” He paused. I could see conflict in his eyes. I watched him make a decision. “When I got home, my wife was dead. I was cast out of the greater pack for my failure as a leader, under suspicion for the death of my wife, and generally not on speaking terms with shifter society as a whole.”
My jaw went slack. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Oh Roc. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
He let his hands drop and managed a grim smile. “Long past. I went around the bend for a while, but I found my purpose again when our client got in touch with me and made his proposition. I could help the cause again, in a way. He needed my organizational skills and knowledge about celestial magic, and I needed something to make me useful.”
That struck a chord for me. “I can appreciate that. That’s kind of what my job with Mother Glory was for me, after I… left my graduate program. I’d always thought I’d be a professor, or a researcher. At least as a translator, I was doing something in my field.” I looked down at my hands, fingers knotted together. “Somehow, I don’t see a bright future in linguistics as a fugitive.”
He smiled. “You’d be amazed. You could fence antiquities, you could forge provenance papers, you could…” He took in my sour face and the smile faded. “Not what you want to hear right now. I understand.” He reached out a hand and placed it over my tightly clenched ones. “I just don’t want you to lose hope. I can’t say that we can make it all better. I don’t want to lie to you. But I can say that we’ll do the best we can for you.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you even care?”
There was an intensity in his gaze that sent a shiver through me. “Because you don’t deserve this.” His hand was warm on mine. He squeezed gently. “Because you deserve justice. And that’s what we do. We bring justice to the people who think they’re above it.”
I felt myself leaning in. I could feel his breath on my cheek. I couldn’t break our gaze if I wanted to. Before we could close the distance, he broke it for me, straightening up and releasing my hand as if I’d burned him.
“I need to talk to Luxe about our return trip to Mother Glory’s. We go in tonight.” He rose from his chair. “Thank you for telling me about the dream.” There was a formality to his voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Yeah. No problem.” I watched him go, feeling vaguely disappointed and guilty all at once.
Kit walked in to find me deep in my thoughts. “Wow, everyone’s looking guiltier then usual today. Ooh, free cereal!” He claimed the bowl that Roc had abandoned. “Having second thoughts about your romp with the Feline Brothers?”
I glared at him. “Are you always this big an ass?”
Kit paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “I… umm.. just meant…” He set the spoon down. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at peopling. Give me a hike in the woods with my laptop any day of the week. I eat a lot less foot that way.”
“And what did you mean that everyone’s looking guilty?” I arched a brow at that comment.
“Roc looked like he’d just eaten a kitten. A cute one.” He cocked his head. “Did he? I don’t pay attention to what wolves usually have for breakfast.”
“You’re eating it.”
He looked at me, then the bowl. “Oh. Shit.”
Chapter Seventeen
The bathroom situation in The Dorm left much to be desired. The bathroom at our end of the hall had two standing showers and two toilets, each in their own weathered sage-green enclosure. I hung my towel over the stall door and took a much-needed soak. My whole body ached from the exertions of the night before.
Did I really do that? Did I really do that with both of them? The soreness between my legs answered for me.
I’m not a girl who had crazy college days behind me. I wasn’t a virgin, but I sure as hell wasn’t sleeping with multiple men at once. I had a few boyfriends. One at a time. Nice boys. Boys who called their moms, and studied hard, and talked too much about video games or Russian history or our shared linguistics homework. Nice boring boys who had nice missionary sex with me. I’ll admit, I wanted to try more. I’d read a few romance novels in my time, and gotten a few ideas off the Internet. But “nice girls don’t do that.” So they said. Hell, one of them even had to be talked into letting me blow him because he didn’t want to ‘taint my purity.’ Sanctimonious twit.
It was easier to date the nice boys. They did all the chasing, all the fretting, all the mourning when it inevitably didn’t work out because I was an ice-hearted bitch. I was still reeling from my father’s infidelity, still utterly convinced that all men were evil and it was only a matter of time before Nice Boy Du Jour would catch the wandering eye and leave me. So I’d go on the dates, I’d let them fuck me, I’d try to be the good girlfriend, and then I wouldn’t be surprised in the least when they’d move on to someone more accessible, more open, more girlfriend-like. I owned my self-fulfilling damage, but it didn’t make it any more fun when I was alone in my dorm again. I gave up by sophomore year, and fended off the nice boys for their own good.
I leaned against the cold tile wall of the shower stall.
These were not nice boys. A professional liar and his bodyguard. I thought back to Luxe’s performance as Andres. To the bodies scattered around my apartment. They couldn’t be further from the earnest, scrawny intellectuals that I’d dated if they tried.
I closed my eyes. I could feel their hands roaming my body, probing my most intimate places, their lips on mine, on my body, on my…
I turned the spray a little colder. The tingles remained. I thunked the back of my head against the tile a few times.
This...is…insanity.
But is it?
What if they’re telling the truth? What if they’re really saving the world right now?
Are you listening to yourself?
Are you catching feelings for a pair of thieves based on a tragic tale that they probably made up?
Jesus, Alex. Grow up.
I ran a shower pouf over my face, inhaling the fruity scent of the soap. Maybe lectures about mental maturity shouldn’t be accompanied by Pomegranate Mango Splash. But then, what’s the right scent for mental maturity? Grandma’s Rose Potpourri?
I was changing the subject in the argument with myself. Maybe it was time to rinse off.
“This doesn’t smell right to me.” Feral paced the living room like a caged animal. “Why would she let you back in the mansion if she thinks you were part of Alex’s escape?”
“She doesn’t. She told me that Alex must’ve knocked her out somehow, and that’s why she thought that Alex stole the gown.” Luxe lounged on the sofa, arm slung over the back, feet tucked under him. “Kit killed the cameras before we made our escape, so she never saw the two of you leave her room with the bag.”
“And the security guards? They saw you leave with what you claimed was the Picmont.” Feral threw himself into an armchair. “This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.”
“Blaming Alex for the theft was her cover story for getting Alex back in her clutches.” Roc rested his hands on the back of Luxe’s sofa. “It was never about the gown. Getting i
t back from Luxe now is just a bonus to her. She’s getting greedy.”
Feral chewed at a thumbnail. “I don’t like it. And I really don’t like you going in alone. Bring one assistant. Me.”
“She wants me to do the final fitting. She doesn’t want a bunch of looky-loos standing around seeing her half-dressed.” Luxe donned a confident grin. “Bringing back the gown gave me enough cred to get close to her. To dress her. I can switch the necklace no problem.”
“How are you going to do that?” I asked.
“Piece of cake. I adjust her dress, I ‘knock the clasp loose’, it hits the floor, I swap it with Cory’s masterpiece, I put it back on her. None the wiser.” Luxe winked at me. “I have very nimble fingers.”
Arousal mingled with discomfort. I remembered those nimble fingers well. But his glib confidence in his ability to steal from someone gnawed at me.
It’s an evil amulet. It needs to be stolen.
He’s done this before. To how many people? How many of them deserved it?
“How is that masterpiece, Cory?” Roc asked.
Cory reached into a velvet-lined pouch and produced his replica. It shone in the morning sun, burnished brass and glittering gems. He hopped down from his perch on the arm of the couch and brought it over to me. “Look good to you?” he asked brusquely.
It was uncanny. Every little chip, every scratch, every discoloration of the brass looked just as it had in my memory and my visions. I weighed it in my hand, then began to slip it on.
“Hey now, no playing dress-up…” Cory protested.
“I…know what it feels like. I’m just checking the weight.” It hung between my breasts, just as it had in my dream, heavy and cold. It didn’t pulse with power. It didn’t glow at my touch. But it felt about right otherwise.
“She’s going to know,” I said, handing the necklace back to Cory. He glowered at me, affronted. “It’s a perfect replica of the necklace. You did an amazing job. But it’s just a necklace. There’s something inside the Soul’s Tears, something she’ll feel the absence of.” My stomach knotted. Feral wasn’t the only one worried now.
“It just has to be good enough to give Luxe time to blow.” Cory slipped it back into the bag and handed it off to Luxe. “She can freak out all she wants once he’s out of the mansion.”
“Do the switch at the end of the fitting. Don’t give her time to notice.” Roc gave me an appreciative nod.
Luxe nodded his agreement and tucked the pouch into his pants pocket. “Thanks for looking out for me,” he said to me with a warm, grateful look in his eyes. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to forget all of my misgivings.
“Don’t go.” The words slipped out. I felt a tightness in my chest, a slight tremor in my hands.
Luxe untucked himself and crossed the room to kneel at my feet. “I’ll be fine, Alex. This isn’t my first time out. I’ve got a solid plan, I’ve got Glory’s trust, I’ve got an amazing forgery, and I’ve got an exit.”
“Not another fire?” I asked.
Kit snorted from across the room. “I’m not a total hack. A hacker, yes, but not a hack. No. I’ve been sending stalker emails from a spoofed email account, and I’m going to trip the alarm on one of her windows. They’ll clear the house of anyone who isn’t security, shuffle Glory to her safe room, and lock everything down.” He smiled. “It should be enough of an adrenaline burst for Glory to distract her from the fake necklace.”
Luxe took my hands in his and kissed the backs of them. “See? Nothing to worry about. We’ve got this. We’re professionals.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry grin. “I’ve also got some tricks up my sleeve if things go south. Shifter, remember?”
I broke eye contact for a moment, embarrassed. “I…don’t even know what you shift into.”
Luxe folded my hands onto my lap and shuffled back a few feet, still on his knees. The room went a little swimmy, and suddenly there was a sizable mountain lion seated in front of me. He was big enough to meet my gaze easily. Golden fur shimmered in the sunlight. There was no mistaking those bright blue eyes, though. They shone with mischief as he leaned forward and nuzzled my knee. If he’d been a housecat, I would have sworn he was begging for pets. I raised a shock-numbed hand and rested it on his furry head, stroking gently. The fur was sleek and soft and entirely too real.
I slept with this.
I fucked a giant cat.
Fur became hair. Luxe rested his head in my lap, grinning up at me. “Meow,” he teased.
“Buh…” Words failed.
“Hey boss,” Kit said, interrupting my thoughts or lack thereof. “We’ve got a call from the client coming in. Want me to patch it through?”
Roc straightened up. “No. This one’s private. I’ll take it in my room.”
We all watched him head for the staircase.
Feral stood up. “Luxe, I want to talk to you. Alone.”
Luxe reluctantly lifted his head off my lap. “Yes, Mom.” He leaned in, planted a kiss on my cheek, then followed Feral to the kitchen.
Cory jumped down from his perch and headed for the stairs. “Later, losers. I’m going to prep for the heist.”
I stared down at my hands. Nothing to do but sit and fret and wonder if I’m going to see Luxe again after tonight. Knots upon knots upon knots, twisting my fingers and my stomach.
Kit sidled up to me, carrying his laptop. “You look like you need a distraction.”
I unknotted my fingers and rested them on my knees. “I need something. I feel so useless.”
A wicked grin crept across his face. “Wanna eavesdrop?”
Chapter Eighteen
“Should we be doing this?” I asked in hushed tones.
Kit snorted. “Hell no. But we’re gonna.”
My inner rules-following nerd child recoiled. “Why?”
Kit poked a couple keys on the laptop, then turned to face me. “Because you trust these people about as much as I do. And we both need to know that things are on the level.”
I raised a brow at his phrasing. “Things aren’t on the level. You guys are robbing someone tonight. A ‘heist,’ Cory called it?”
Kit groaned. “Yeah. I’m thrilled about it too. Let’s just say I come at this job from a somewhat different background than the others.”
The brow dropped. “You’re a hacker.”
“Hacktivist.” He ran his fingers through his curls and looked mildly affronted. “I got into what I do to help the planet. I used to take money from dirty corporations and give it to environmental groups. Then I got roped into this racket.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How? Why?”
He sighed and turned his attention back to his laptop monitor. “I got caught. I was checking out SparxWorx’s databases, checking up on them. Someone traced me. I don’t know if it was security, another hacker, who it was, but they found me and offered me this gig. And by offered, I mean told me to do it or they’d go to the foxes and turn me in as an ecoterrorist.”
My mouth went dry. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Holy shit.” His fingers paused on the keyboard. “I was already an outsider with my people. They create. They’re inventors, programmers, model citizens. I…have a knack for destruction. I take things apart.” He laughed humorlessly. “Philosophical differences. I’ve been pretty much on my own since high school. But the thought of cutting myself off from them forever…” He sat up straighter. “Call’s going through. You in?”
I nodded and leaned closer to the laptop. Closer to Kit. The proximity sent a surge of warmth through me. I was half-aroused, half-annoyed at myself for getting riled up over yet another man. Seriously, Alex. You must chill.
My thoughts were cut off by the sound of Selexia’s synthesized voice.
“Amarok. Are preparations in order?”
A shiver ran down my spine. The eerie calm of the virtual assistant’s voice made it all sound so casual.
“We’re ready to go tonight. Meeting’s at nine Pacific. L
uxe goes in at 9:05. Feral will be on the grounds for support and as the driver. Kit’s got the security systems in hand. Cory’s watching from above. We’ve got all avenues covered.”
“Excellent. My people will retrieve the amulet from your place of business at midnight.”
“We’ll be waiting.” Roc paused. “Was that all?”
“No. I want to know about the girl.”
Ice water flooded my veins. I froze in my seat. Kit cast a wide-eyed look in my direction.
“What about the girl?” Roc’s voice was measured, calm.
“The notes you stole were useless. Glory heard, but she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what she was looking for, just that she had a key to something powerful.” A pause. “The girl is the key now. She lived. What aren’t you telling me?”
I heard a hard exhalation from Roc. “We have the essence of it. The essence of the scroll. I have the information you need. You’ll receive it through the usual channels.”
“And the girl? Who is she? What is she?” Selexia’s voice was calm, but I could feel the urgency behind it. It resonated through my frozen form. I felt small and frightened, like a mouse in a trap.
“Don’t tell him,” Kit whispered.
Roc was silent for an eternity. My whole body trembled.
“The girl is our concern. You’ll get the information you need. We’ll deal with her.”
I reached over and slammed the lid of the laptop closed.
“I’ve heard what I needed to hear,” I whispered through numb lips. “Tell them…”
I hesitated. Luxe. Feral. Were they in on this? Are they just trying to keep me here, for him?
Kit gave my shoulder a gentle shove. “Go.”
I hit the front door and ran.
Chapter Nineteen
Feral