The Were shook his head, and Bran’s stomach took a dive. Then Willie leaned forward, his expression intense. “I wouldn’t take that as bad news.”
What Bran wanted to scream was, why the hell not, but years of business negotiations had taught him that the first man who let emotions rule him lost the deal. Right now Alex was the deal and he wanted her. “Why?”
“The absence of any intel is in itself revealing.”
“Look, Willie, I don’t need obtuse here; I need facts.”
The Were spread his hands before him and toned down his voice. “Weres tend to boast a bit.”
Bran gave him an and-that-means-what look.
“Okay, we brag. A lot.”
“Get to the point.”
Willie leaned both arms across the table. “No word on Alex but someone’s throwing a lot of cash around for several small snatch-and-grab operations. The word is they want Weres who can keep their mouths shut and follow orders.”
“And this means?”
“The targets are two women. One a girl. The other wounded. Easy pickings.”
“Alex?” If so, she wasn’t alone. He tamped down the image of her injured even as he knew Van had attacked her. First he had to find her.
“No names have been mentioned.” Willie must have sensed Bran urging him on as he rushed his words. “Key point is there have been two attempts and both have failed.”
Now that sounded more like his Alex.
“Any idea where these attacks happened?” he asked.
“No, but I know something better.” Willie grinned.
“Not the time to play coy.” Shaking his only remaining ally was not a good idea but sometimes the Were tempted him. Like now.
“Okay. Got it.” Willie jerked himself about like a dog shedding water before leaning across the table. “I signed up to be part of the next attack.”
It took everything Bran had not to lunge and grab the Were by his throat.
Willie reared back. “Not for real, man. Just so I can tell you what’s going on. If these guys are involved in … you know … in doing something to Alex.”
Bran scrubbed his face with his hands. He should have known better. If the Were had meant to hurt Alex he would have done it when they were all together. “Go ahead,” he mumbled.
Willie nodded, though his expression was still wary. Bran didn’t blame him. “We’re meeting at a café in the 18th arrondissement,” he said.
“Near Montmarte?”
“Oui.”
“I’ll follow you.”
Willie shook his head then looked as if he thought of something. “You able to do a cloaking spell?”
“Oui.” Bran didn’t clarify that he’d depleted most of his magic escaping the fae. By the time he needed to cloak himself he’d do so.
“You’ll have to disguise your smell too. Weres can pick you up that way.”
“Don’t worry,” Bran bit the words out. “Just get me close and I’ll manage the rest.”
Willie didn’t look convinced. That was his problem. This was the first solid lead Bran had on Alex since Versailles and he wasn’t going to lose it.
As they stood to leave, Bran waited for the waiter to scurry off before turning to Willie. “If this works out, I’ll owe you, my friend.”
Willie gave a Gallic shrug. “I’ve asked the saints to watch over us.”
Bran barked a short laugh before lowering his voice. “I don’t know that there are any saints looking out for mages.” Or witch/shamans either. But Alex had him, that’d be enough. He’d make sure of it.
“Let’s go,” he said, leading Willie, though the Were was the only one who knew where they were going.
Bran didn’t need to know where yet. He had the why. To save Alex. That’s all he needed to know.
Chapter Thirty-one
Don’t ask me how we got down from the cathedral or basilica or whatever kind of church it was. By the time we scooted from one ledge to another, and found an access door on the roof leading to the smallest, tightest stairwell made of stone and age, I’d started praying to any beings willing to listen if only they’d let us get to the ground safely.
We did, but literally on our last legs. It was one step at a time from there to the safe house, no energy left even for talking.
What felt like a lifetime later, I walked right up to the door of the small, single dwelling apartment as if I owned the place, Sabina dogging my heels. It must’ve been just beyond noon as the spring sun made the building look older and in more need of repair than I’d remembered.
My luck. I’d led us to the wrong place.
Only one way to find out. Last thing I wanted was some snoopy neighbors sticking their noses in where they didn’t belong and start asking some prying questions so I squared my shoulders and acted like I belonged. I didn’t have any ID, and really wasn’t sure I had a place inside either.
Sabina held her tongue as I marched up and knocked, a rabble of butterflies kamikaze flying in my stomach. I might refuse to show the nerves but that didn’t mean I didn’t have them.
I knocked again. Louder this time. Was everyone gone? Had they left the country already? Both questions made me want to growl.
“Don’t think anyone’s here,” Sabina said at my side. As if I couldn’t figure that out. “What now?”
Ling Mai at her hotel if she were still there? Since our last conversation hadn’t ended on the nicest of terms, I’d rather face charging Weres. Oh wait, I’d already done that not so long ago.
“We move on to our second option.” I hadn’t figured out what that was yet but I wasn’t going to stand around like the poor, pitiful red-haired stepchild not wanted.
I shrugged rock-hard shoulders and turned to leave when the door cracked open.
Part of me was relieved, part of me braced myself for facing my teammates.
Except it wasn’t an IR agent opening the door. It was some gangly blonde kid who mumbled, “Y-yes?”
He actually managed to have his voice crack halfway through the single word, but at least it’d been in English.
“Who are you?” I demanded, then realized that was beyond rude. It was just that I really hadn’t expected a stranger. Which meant my team really had left Paris. Without me.
It took a second or two for me to get my act together. Okay, maybe a minute as Sabina cleared her throat next to me. “Sorry,” I sighed. “I was expecting someone else.”
I turned to leave, my limbs as stiff and wooden as my shoulders had been. Shock. It must be. One too many blows. They’d really left me? Sabina grabbed my elbow to steer me down the sidewalk. No doubt I looked like I’d been on a three-day drinking binge as I shuffled away, taking everything I had to put one foot in front of the other.
Mandy I could see being happy to wipe her boots of me and our short acquaintance, but I expected more from Vaughn and Kelly. Especially Kelly. She’d been the sister I’d never had. Did she really leave? Without even a message?
If the team moved on then she’d have to go. Right?
We were about four doors away when the young man’s voice called out. “Your friend. What’s her name?”
Sabina pulled me to a stop. “What’s your friend’s name?” she prodded, her voice gentler than I’d heard from her so far.
“Doesn’t matter.” It was a lie, but I was salvaging what pride I had left. I knew when I’d become an IR member that if I didn’t cut the job I could be returned to where I’d started from at any time. The fact that it was the Pocatello Women’s Correction Center, aka jail, gave me a reason to stay with the job until my year of service was complete. Then I’d be free.
I wasn’t looking forward to being cut adrift so easily. What now? The jail was still in Idaho and that’s where, if the truth was told, I belonged. Not gallivanting around the world screwing things up.
Still, I couldn’t leave Sabina at risk because my Noziak pride made asking for help stick in my craw.
I pulled my shoulders and chin up and tu
rned to answer the kid’s question. “Kelly. My friend is … was Kelly.”
Both his brows raised. “Anyone else?”
How many friends did a person need to pass his muster?
“What is this, fifty questions?” I snapped.
He opened the door wider as he said, “Maybe we should talk inside.”
That’s when it hit me. That damn hope. That sense that maybe everything wasn’t lost. That I hadn’t been abandoned. Again.
I swallowed, hard, and kept my chin high as I walked back and entered the house.
Chapter Thirty-two
I didn’t expect a big neon sign that shouted “We Haven’t Left You Behind” the moment I walked inside the safe house. Okay, maybe I did, but it’d been a rough few days.
The place looked like someone had just cleaned it, without a telltale sign of anything anywhere. Not a lot of intel I was going to get by a quick look. Guess I’d have to resort to the interrogation technique. One that wouldn’t give too much away to Sabina standing by my side, checking out the guy closing the door.
Or maybe I could blab all I wanted and she’d still be clueless.
“Who are you?” I asked the guy as a place to start. I thought I’d kept my voice non-combative but the look Sabina shot me said otherwise.
“Name’s Hercules,” he said with a blush as he jammed his hands in his pockets, his gaze ping-ponging between Sabina and me as if trying to figure out whom to talk to—the cute chick his age, or the scowling woman who clearly wanted answers. “But everyone calls me Herc.”
I just bet they did.
“And you know Kelly? Kelly McAllister?”
“Ah.” He ducked his head as a hank of hair curled across his forehead. I could swear I heard Sabina sigh. “I didn’t catch Kelly’s last name.”
Not helping here. “Was Kelly with any of her other friends?”
“Yeah.” He jumped on that, then pulled back as if realizing how little he could or should reveal to a total stranger. Good. He had some common sense at least. Especially when he added, “You got some photo ID?”
I shook my head, nice and slow, keeping my gaze locked on his. What now, kid?
He surprised me and pulled out a phone, snapping a photo of me before I could protest. Then punched in a few clicks before looking back up. “There.”
“There what?” I asked, wondering if I’d just led us into another ambush. I grabbed Sabina’s arm and started dragging her toward the door.
“Where are we going?” she protested, obviously recovered from the last battle way too quickly.
“No idea who he sent that photo to,” I said, easing toward the door even with the kid blocking it. Only the closer I got to him the more he didn’t look as much a kid, height or strength wise. “Out of our way, buster,” I snarled, hoping that was enough.
But it wasn’t, as the confusion that had been on his face, mirroring Sabina’s look, cleared. He raised his hands. He was smart enough not to show fists or I’d have to clock him rather than take the risk he meant either of us harm. No telling how soon whoever was on the other end of the phone might be showing up.
“Wait, you’ve got it all wrong.” His voice sounded sincere but his heart rate had picked up. Why?
“We’re out of here.” I went to push him aside, assuming he was only human, when Sabina changed position, aligning herself with him.
The idiot.
“Can’t you give him a chance?” she said. “Just hear him out?”
Oh, brother. Did the girl have no sense of self-preservation?
My tone became more growl than we’re-all-BFFs-here as I looked at him and ignored her. “I’ll give you to the count of three to move it.”
“Or?”
“Or I’ll turn you into a Hercules toad.”
He actually smiled. A big ol-boy smile. Not quite the response I was aiming for. “You can do that?”
Did he know what I was? Did I dare wait around to find out? Maybe to the first and no, to the last.
“One,” I said, taking a step closer, my hands curling.
“They should be here any minute,” he shot back. Like that was good news.
It wasn’t. Not to me.
“Two. Three,” I jumbled the words together, nudging him aside as I grabbed Sabina. Only my nudge sent him careening into an armoire across the room and Sabina squawked, like I was the bad guy in the room just as the room’s door clicked open.
Chapter Thirty-three
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Leave it to Mandy to verbally bitch- slap me before she entered the room. Fortunately, behind her I heard a shout.
“OMG!” And that quick, Kelly pushed Mandy aside. Not an easy feat, as Kelly launched herself into the room and wrapped me in a rib bruising hug.
That made me feel better. Even if Noziaks as a rule were not the huggy kind. A back slap maybe. Or slug to the shoulder, definitely. But … not hugs.
“I knew you weren’t dead. I just knew it.” I could actually feel my shoulders relax, accepting that at least one of my teammates hadn’t abandoned me.
“So where the hell have you been?” Mandy demanded as she marched past Kelly then eyed Sabina. “And who the hell are you?”
I gave Kelly a quick back pat then stepped back, in part because I knew I still smelled like eau de catacombs.
“This is Sabina. She and I have been held hostage by unknowns until we could escape.” There, that about summed things up. A little. More details could wait.
“Unknown what?” Mandy gave me the stink eye.
“Unknown implies I don’t know.” Yeah, there was enough smarm in my tone to drown a bull elephant. Then, to make sure no one said anything they shouldn’t say in front of civilians, I added, “Right now I could eat a half a cow. I need a shower, clean clothes and sleep.” I nodded to my cohort who was still drooling over Herc. Wait till she saw Stone. Or Bran. Now they were drool worthy males. Nix Bran. Not the way I wanted to get my hands around his throat and squeeze. My voice was a little deeper and a lot more ragged as I said, “Sabina here needs food, new clothes and a break.”
“Of course.” Kelly grabbed the hint and started hustling Sabina from the room. “Shower’s in here. I’ve got some clothes that might fit you. And I’ll run next door and grab some food.”
Man, Kelly was good. And efficient. Before I could blink she hustled Sabina out of the room and reappeared.
“So spill,” she said, sitting on the edge of the nearest chair like it was a sleep over. Not that I attended many, once I discovered I was usually invited on the off chance one of my brothers might show up at sometime during the night.
I arched a brow at the remaining civilian in the room, which Kelly waved off by saying, “New team member. He’s making some awesome weapons we can use against preternaturals.”
About time, I wanted to shout, even I was surprised that life had gone on so quickly without me. “How long have I been away?” I asked, sinking down beside Kelly, the exhaustion catching up with me.
“Five days,” Mandy snapped, still standing by the door, her legs braced as if for battle, her arms crossed in a badass attitude. Only with her, it was her normal approach. “And why aren’t you dead?”
“Nice,” I snipped back.
Herc kept me from telling Mandy just where she could shove it as he interrupted, “You mean you really are Alex Noziak?” His eyes were saucer-wide.
“Yes. Unless there have been more teammates missing.”
“No, no, not that.” He cast an anxious look at Kelly then Mandy before continuing, his voice shakier, “It’s just that I thought … I mean … didn’t you say—”
As my energy took a nose-dive so did my patience. “What’s he babbling about?”
It was Mandy who answered. “We were told you were bitten by a shifter. Your brother. If that was true why no wounds? You should be dead.”
“Well I’m not.” I jumped to my feet before I realized the ramifications of Mandy’s words. She was righ
t. I should be dead.
Unless … I sank back on the chair, fast-forwarding through the last day or more. The pain. The ability to throw and lift more than I’d even been able to before. My sense of scent and hearing amplified. Even now, I listened to four heartbeats in the room, Mandy and Herc’s elevated, Kelly’s slower, and Sabina behind closed doors muffled.
But I shouldn’t have heard any of them.
I glanced at Kelly who must have seen some of what I felt as she took my hand. “What’s important is that you’re back.”
As if. I raised my head, shaking it because the words jammed somewhere south of my breastbone. No way, no way, no way.
I could not be a shifter.
Chapter Thirty-four
A hard knock at the door took the focus off me, which was just as well. I hated falling apart; to do so publicly was beyond the pale.
Mandy looked out the side window next to the door then yanked it open.
Stone marched in like he commanded the place, Vaughn right behind him. It was she who caught my attention more. Her and the bandages and bruises she sported. A look I should be wearing if I was still mostly human.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Stone growled, glaring at me.
“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”
“What the hell happened?” he snapped.
I gave a short, sweet summation that skipped over the amount of pain, the fear, the more fear, and the off chance the Weres were able to track me. I’d get to that in a minute, but not while everyone was looking at me like a circus freak. A look I’d be shooting at myself if there were a mirror handy.
“So you don’t know who’s behind snatching you or what they wanted?” Vaughn asked, focusing in on the salient issues. Which is why she was the team leader.
I shook my head. “All I know is the name Zaradian. Needing me to find some demon and two guys with accents. One French. One Irish. And the Weres. Except you don’t need to worry about the French dude.”
“Why not?” Kelly said beside me.
“I killed him.” Guessing by her wide-eyed expression I forgot to mention that small point. And the way the new kid was looking, we might need to find a paper bag for him to hyperventilate in.
INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) Page 14