by Katya Moore
“You did what?” I was ready to tear Kit’s throat out with my bare teeth. My human teeth. It took everything I had not to shift and do some real damage. I had to settle for pinning the fucking fox to the wall with my hand on his throat.
“She needed to know if she could trust us.” He gasped and wriggled in my grasp. His eyes were fixed on Roc. “Now she knows. Now she knows she can’t.”
I let him drop to the floor, then whirled on Roc. “What did you say to the client?” There was more than a little snarl to my voice. Anger made me live down to my name.
“I’d say that it was confidential, but that confidence has already been shattered.” Roc shot Kit a withering look. “She overheard me speaking to the client about her. The client was interested in any information she had regarding the scroll.”
“The client wanted her,” Kit said coldly. “The client wanted you to turn her over.”
“And I told him no.” Roc said, his voice annoyingly calm, like he was placating a small child. “I told him she was in our care now.”
“No.” Kit got to his feet, rubbing his throat. “You said that we would deal with her ourselves.” His eyes were hard and angry. “That’s not menacing at all.”
Roc closed his eyes. He ran a hand over a weary expression. “And that’s why it’s a bad idea to listen in on conversations that don’t concern you. You take things out of context.”
“Well, what context should she have taken that in?” I growled. “Damn it, Roc, I would have booked it too. Now she could be anywhere, she’s not disguised, and she’s in incredible danger.” I felt the claws in my hands, desperate to unleash themselves. “If anything happens to Alex, so help me…”
“Calm yourself, Feral,” Roc began, then found himself cut off by a surprise right hook from Luxe. He staggered back, rubbing his jaw.
Luxe rubbed his hand, staring down the wolf with eyes of blue steel. “The time for calm is past. You were going to sell her out. You scared her off. We need to fix this.”
“We don’t have time to fix this, Luxe.” Roc adjusted his jaw, then met Luxe’s fiery gaze with one of pure ice. “We have a job to do tonight. I know where Alex is headed. She’ll manage. She’ll be fine.”
“You can’t guarantee that!” Luxe roared. “She came to me because she had nowhere else to go! She trusted me!” He gave Roc a hard shove to the sternum. “She put her trust in me, and I will be damned if I let her down.”
“Well then, prepare to be damned.” Roc grabbed Luxe’s wrist and twisted. “Because we are getting that amulet tonight if I have to drag you to Glory’s mansion by the balls.”
“Alex…”
“Ninety thousand people.” Roc’s voice was hard as stone. “Ninety thousand kids. That concert is sold out. If she does what we think she’s going to do, if she sacrifices someone before that concert and powers up that amulet, that’s ninety thousand mindless slaves for whatever purposes she has in her twisted little mind.”
I saw him start to shift. I wanted to let him. I wanted a piece of Roc’s jugular in my mouth too. Roc was faster, shifting down to his wolf and leaping back with all four paws. I dropped into my panther and dove at Luxe’s midsection, right before his jaws could close on Roc’s face. We tumbled, a ball of black and gold fur, and slammed into the living room wall.
“Why?” Luxe snarled at me.
“Because he’s right,” I snarled back. “Because if Glory takes that concert, there’s not a corner of this earth where Alex will be safe.”
Luxe let himself slip back into his human form, leaning against the wall for support. “Fuck.”
Roc sat on the arm of the sofa. “Glory’s already rallied her Thousand Young against her, Luxe. That’s bad. Now imagine thousands more. Glory’s been doing giveaways, promotions, all sorts of work to get people besides her fans to this concert. And Glory’s not going to let Alex slip through her fingers again. Not until she gets the information that Alex is carrying inside her. Not until she gets the power that she holds.”
“And how is she going to get that?” I narrowed my eyes at Roc. “How were you planning on giving it to our client?”
Roc rubbed his face again, harder. “Look. She already gave me the information. The nightmare she had this morning. That’s all I was going to tell him. All I was going to give him.” He glared at me. “I wasn’t going to give her to him. I’m not giving her to anyone. We’re keeping her safe.”
“Well, we’re doing a shitty job of it,” Kit spat. “We don’t even know where she is, much less how we’re going to get her to trust us again.”
Cory spoke up from the corner. “If you’re all done trying to kill each other, I have an idea. Get your shit together, get ready to run the job, and I’ll take care of it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “And we should trust you why?”
Cory laughed bitterly. “Because I’m the only one not trying to get in her pants, and I still want to help. Now fuck off and go get that amulet.”
Chapter Twenty
Alex
I committed my first crimes that afternoon in the stacks of the UCLA library. I wore someone else’s hoodie, emblazoned with the UCLA logo. I carried someone else’s messenger bag, loaded with textbooks that I sold at the nearest used bookstore. The cash went toward a new wig and a pair of big sunglasses from a costume shop. I went for an anime-style bright blue, hoping the cheapness of the acrylic hair would be written off as a fashion choice instead of a bad disguise. I lucked out and found a pink lipstick in the bottom of the messenger bag. I wiped it with a few tissues, hoping to ward off any secondhand diseases, and painted big bright lips on myself. I didn’t know what I looked like, just that I didn’t look like myself.
I wasn’t myself. Not anymore. I didn’t know who I was. Who I was becoming. I wasn’t the nerdy academic. I wasn’t the runaway girl covering herself in tattoos and bad choices. I wasn’t the hip acerbic translator living the glamorous rock star-adjacent lifestyle.
I looked at myself in a shop window.
I’m a fugitive.
I’m a criminal.
I’m scared.
Every ounce of tough girl I’d coated myself in for the last decade and change was scoured off of me, leaving me raw and bleeding. I’d let myself trust again. I trusted actual criminals. And it paid off just as I’d expected it to pay off.
Fuck everyone.
I hid in the back of a bookshop’s cafe for most of the day, burying myself in romance novels. I drank enough coffee to stop a bull’s heart. I had nowhere to go. No place was safe. I left the shop when I caught one of the younger clerks watching me. She probably just thought I was going to shoplift something, but I couldn’t risk it. I bought a bag of pastries and one of the romance novels, something that involved three hunky literary characters, a cursed bookshop, a nearly blind fashion designer, and a murder. It sounded just weird enough to distract me from the chaos that was my life.
I took myself and the book to a blind alley and hid in the corner, waiting for the sun to go down. Hunkered down amid the refuse, cast away, homeless, hopeless. At least the book was good. I’d never considered how hot Moriarty would be in bed. The master criminal made me think of Luxe and Feral, though. I started skipping those pages. They hurt too much. When I’d finished it, I set it aside and buried my face in my arms. I’d spent so much of the past few years alone. I had no idea why I felt so achingly lonely now.
No, I knew damned well why. I just didn’t want to admit to myself how nice it had been to be accepted. To be desired. To be needed.
I couldn’t call Trixie. She’d warned me first, but she was still the one who created the wanted poster that had me hiding in this alley. I had no other friends. But I couldn’t bear to be alone. Not anymore.
It was the most obvious place in the world for me to go. But I went there anyway.
“Oh baby, where have you been?” Mom lifted the sunglasses off, revealing my red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, my love.” Her arms were made entirely of comfort, and e
ncircled me in a tight embrace. I sank into that embrace gratefully, letting her swing me and shush me and generally treat me like a six-year-old with a skinned knee. Because, honestly, that was about right for my emotional state.
She eased me into a chair and fussed over me and made me a cup of tea. I didn’t drink it, but the hot cup between my hands grounded me.
“You’ve seen some shit, haven’t you, sweetheart?” Mom asked somberly.
“Mom!” The expletive caught me off guard.
She laughed at my shocked expression. “Oh, stop. We’re both big girls.” She sobered, looking at the hollows under my eyes and the haunted expression within. “Tell me all about it.”
I thought back to the night before and stared at my tea. “I…can’t.” Really. No way I’m telling Mom about her little girl having wanton three-ways with strange men.
Mom reached out a hand across the table. “Tell me what you can.”
I gave her fingers a quick squeeze, then proceeded to pour my guts out. How the crew had welcomed me, brought me in, asked for my help, earned my trust, then betrayed it. I left out the lingering looks, the wild sex, and the near-kisses.
“They took me in. They gave me a room of my own. They told me they were the good guys, taking bad artifacts out of the world, so no one would get hurt like…like I did.” I picked at the lace on the table. “Luxe and Feral helped me get some of my things back. Feral saved me from a gang of Glory’s thugs. The others asked for my help. My expertise. Luxe told me his life story.” I snorted bitterly. “Or a life story. No way of knowing if it’s his.” I stared morosely into the dark, calm surface of my tea. “I… I didn’t trust them. But I was starting to. A little.” Sorrow twisted into anger. “Then Roc…he was going to sell me out. His client wanted me, but he said he’d take care of me himself. He was going to dispose of me, like another cursed artifact.”
“Dispose of you?” Mom blanched.
I nodded vehemently. “He was part of some sort of hit squad for the shifters. He used to take out human mages.”
“A cleanup squad.” Mom twisted her cup around on its saucer. “That is serious. I’ve heard tales…” There was a vague look in her eyes. She looked at me as though seeing me for the first time, then nodded to herself. “No. It’s time you knew more about your father.”
“Mom.” My voice held a warning that she ignored.
“You remember how we met, right? I’ve told you that story?”
I sighed softly. “You were at some crunchy granola store buying herbs, and he came over to chat you up and see what you were buying…” My eyes widened. Gears clicked into place. “You were buying magic shit and he knew it.”
“My smart girl,” Mom said, a hint of pride in her voice. “Yes. He told me he had an interest in the magical arts, and would I show him what I knew?” She sighed. “He was so handsome. And I was so naive. And he was so handsome…”
“Ugh. Mom.”
“Sorry.”
“You told me you made him spaghetti and he was wowed by your cooking prowess.” I squinted at her. “I’m guessing that was a lie?”
Mom frowned. “Not entirely. I did make him dinner, which he enjoyed. But I also read his tea leaves.”
“And..?”
Her cheeks went pink. “And that’s all you need or want to know about that.”
“Ack.”
“The next morning, he confessed to me.” She poured herself another cup of tea. “He’d been sent by an organization to check on me. Make sure I wasn’t causing any mischief with my powers.” A distant smile crossed her face. “He promised he’d tell them I was just another hippy who liked to tell stories to people for money. And he promised he’d come back for dinner the next week.”
“Dad worked for a cleanup crew?” I goggled.
“He was an advance scout. He’d search out suspected mages, assess whether they were threats, and report back to the wolf packs that handled the troublemakers.” She sipped her tea. “I’ll admit, I was conflicted at first. Knowing they were out there, taking down other mages, wondering if I’d get too powerful and wind up on their radar despite your father’s protection. But then, I saw who they were taking down, and why.”
I cocked my head at her.
“They were taking down the people who scared mages as much as they scared shifters. The power-hungry. The powerful and amoral. Mages who fueled their powers with human sacrifice. They’d sacrifice other mages if they could get them. Mages like me, who couldn’t defend themselves beyond basic wards.” She met my eyes. “The cleanup crews were terrifying, yes, but they did a necessary service.”
“So that’s why Dad traveled so much?” Things were clicking into place.
Her smile faded. “Part of it, at least.”
“Oh. Yeah.” That leaden feeling settled in the pit of my stomach, a mass of grief, anger, and betrayal. “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t be. I’m not.”
I blinked at that. “What?”
She rested her fingers on the table on either side of her cup, tensing and releasing them. I could see her struggling for words.
“Mom, it’s…”
“I don’t regret what I had with your father,” she said at last. “Not one minute of it.” She took in my stunned face. “Yes, it hurt when I found out about his other wife. Yes, I was angry. But…” She sighed and looked down at her hands. “He loved me. He loved us. I will never, ever doubt that. Not for a moment. And I loved him. I loved him more than I realized I could love.” She met my eyes again. “I still do. And I always will.”
“But he lied to you. He lied to us.”
“He lied to himself.” I could see the pain in her eyes. “He thought he could break away from his family. He wanted to leave them all behind, to come away with us and never look back.”
“Why didn’t he?” My lip trembled. “Why didn’t he choose us?”
“Family honor,” she said softly.
Bitterness flooded my mouth. “He tossed us aside for some stupid…”
“No.” Mom’s voice was hard. I fell silent, stunned at her tone. “No. Your father was blackmailed into returning home by his family. For their honor.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “They knew about you. They knew we’d had a child, part-shifter, part-mage. And they feared you. And they wanted you dead.” Her head bowed under the weight of her pain. “Your father made them a deal. We’d be left alone, we’d be forgotten, and he would return to his arranged marriage and his shifter duties.” Our eyes met, and my heart shattered into a million pieces. “He left us to save us.”
I felt like I’d break under the weight of it all. All of the rage I’d held against him. Our estrangement. Never taking the chance to say goodbye. All of it crashed over me. And I wept.
“He was a good man, love. A good man who made some bad choices.” Mom rubbed my hand, wiping back tears of her own. “He loved you. He loved you so much.”
“I loved him too.” My voice squeaked. I didn’t care. Everything hurt.
“Then don’t let what he did stop you from living your life.” She squeezed my hand. “Those new friends of yours. You’ve got feelings for them? You trusted them?”
“Yeah.” I sniffled. “But…Roc said…”
“What exactly did Roc say to this person who wanted to take you away from them?”
I thought back. “He said ‘We’ll deal with her.’”
She released my hand and opened her mouth to say something.
That’s when all hell broke loose in the tea shop.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Get it out! Get it out!”
Mom and I poked our heads out of the back room to find people scrambling out the shop door. The cops stood outside with the rest of the customers. One held a phone to his ear, talking with animal control loud enough for me to hear.
In the middle of the chaos, a large black bird flapped and squawked. Becky clutched a broom with white knuckles, trying to work up the courage to start shooing the
frightened creature out the door.
I strode out into the shop and took the broom from Becky. “I’ll get it. You go get a drink of water,” I said. She gave me a grateful look and ran to the storeroom.
I approached the flapping bird, brandishing the broom. To my surprise, the bird perched on a chair and cawed at me in what I could only describe as a sassy tone. In fact, it was downright sarcastic.
My eyes widened, then narrowed. “Cory?” I hissed.
I swear the raven rolled his eyes at me.
“Read it,” he croaked. A scroll dropped at my feet. I yelped and jumped back as though he’d dropped a grenade. He made a croaking noise that was probably laughter. “Read,” he repeated.
“I’m going to shoo you out of here now,” I said. “No hard feelings.”
“Fuck you,” he croaked.
I felt less guilty about the swat I landed on his tail feathers. He cawed and croaked and flapped and made a wild ruckus as I herded him out the front door to scattered applause from the displaced customers. As he soared into the sky and flew away, I snatched up the scroll and headed for the back room.
THIS SCROLL WON’T KILL YOU!
So it said. The words were emblazoned across the edge of the scroll in black permanent marker. I ran my hand over it. Heavy paper, possibly watercolor paper. Not vellum. Not strange arcane not-vellum. Safe, ordinary wood pulp.
I unrolled it and read.
Lachlan Van Allen. A sketch of a cat’s paw print.
Fisher O’Brien. A sketch of claw marks tearing into the paper.
Kevin Paulson. A tiny fox.
Roger Andrews. The derpiest looking wolf face I’d ever seen.
Cornelius Whittaker. Shut up. A stylized soaring raven.
And beneath that…
Also, Roc is a fuckhead. We’ve got your back.
There was an address after the last line.
“What do you think it means?” Mom asked, peering over my shoulder.
“I don’t…” And then I did.