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Twenty-Three

Jenn propped herself against the cellar wall beside him. “He’s wearing your shirt as a kilt.”

And Atlas looked damn good doing so. Robin had offered to stop by his condo or to ride along on a snap to wherever else he kept a stockpile of tartans, but the warlock had refused. Robin wasn’t mad about it. “I know.”

His cousin lowered her voice. “You fucked him.”

One corner of his mouth crept up. “I know.”

Lower still. “He’s the fucking enemy.”

The other corner of his lips tried to tip up, but he bit the inside of his cheek to stop it. “I know.”

She whipped her gaze to him, strands of honey blond hair escaping her ponytail. “Would you stop?—”

“I know it’s driving you nuts.” His cousin was, second only to Atlas, the easiest of targets to rile up.

Her growl faltered when he let loose his smile, her own resigned chuckle following. “The way you two fight, I guess part of me always knew it was coming.”

He waggled his brows. “You know who else was coming last night...”

She rolled her golden eyes and backhanded his gut. “Did you get it out of your system?” she asked, as the rest of the team filled the room and claimed their seats at the tasting table.

Robin’s smile faded as his gaze sought his mate across the room, the last person he ever thought he’d be tied to, the person he wanted to fuck and strangle in equal measure.

“I don’t think I’m ever getting him out of my system,” he replied, and Jenn gasped, correctly interpreting his meaning.

“Trust me,” he added, “no one hates that more than me.”

Not the sex he’d spent all night having.

Not even the fact that he and Atlas seemed to be on the same page for a change, working together to catch Evan and defeat Chaos.

But after that mission was done, was Robin ready to have a mate?

He’d been a lone wolf the past thirty years.

Yes, he had the team here, friends and at least one family member who hadn’t shunned him completely, but he was on the outside looking in.

Always had been, even before Deborah had died.

She’d been his connection to the people around the table; without her, the threads still tying them together were no less heartfelt but all the more tenuous.

He’d put his life on the line for any of them, he’d made Deborah that promise, and he acknowledged the world was a better place with all of them in it, even Icarus despite how much the mouthy courtesan exasperated him, but he’d rather hide out in the distillery alone than stay here and sing kumbaya.

And he sensed every friend around the table and even the cousin beside him would rather he stay there too.

He deserved that for what he’d done—or rather hadn’t.

And it was easier to not disappoint anyone if he kept everyone out.

But he couldn’t keep his mate out. While he missed having someone in his life like Deborah, someone who had known him inside and out, he valued his independence more.

Valued his free will the most. Was this magic that had tied him and Atlas together, that his mother had told him in her letters would find him when Nature needed him most, overriding that will?

He meant what he’d told Atlas last night; he was tired of being a pawn in other people’s games—the warlock’s, Nature’s, magic’s.

But was the draw he felt toward Atlas, even when he’d hated him most—the blood rushing in his veins, the tightening of his gut, the warmth in his chest, the stiffness of his cock—magic or something else entirely?

Robin didn’t like either answer. Hated that it didn’t matter even more.

He’d told Atlas to stop running. Could he ignore his own instinct to do the same?

Mac, dressed for a day at the office no matter the location, was the last team member to join them, the scrape of his chair across the floor drawing Robin out of his head and back into the room. “All right, we’re all here, again,” the raven said, droll as always.

Icarus wouldn’t know what the word meant if it hit him in the face, his blue gaze alight with mischief as it tracked a roving Atlas around the room. “Why are you wearing Robin’s shirt as a kilt?”

“They fucked,” Jenn announced.

The responses were as mixed and hilarious as Robin expected.

Paris, a sighed, “Finally.”

Mac, a choked, “What?”

Icarus, a maniacal cackle.

Adam, his head hung.

Abigail, a low whistle.

Mary, clapping from her position at the head of the table.

“Moving on...” Robin said with a carry-on gesture.

Only for Atlas to hit replay. “When Robin claimed me yesterday?—”

Responses were noticeably less varied, some version of “What the fuck?” echoing around the table—except from Mary.

Of course she knew.

Atlas didn’t break his stride, in steps or words, talking over the grenade he’d thrown. “It gave me an idea. The men who snatched me yesterday outside the hunter’s house?—”

“Wait, back up,” Adam said. “We need the full story. Not the fucking one, the kidnapping one.”

“Atlas got a text yesterday morning,” Robin explained. “It sent him to a house in The Corners.”

“The hunter’s,” Atlas said.

Adam pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket.

“That’s consistent with what we found.” From over his shoulder, Robin studied the regional map—LP to Talahalusi—marked with locations.

“Mentions of his appearance over the past few years are concentrated in the South or near reservations. Human, like Atlas said; Indigenous, we think, at least partially so.”

“I got a name too,” Atlas said. “Cyrus.” He held a slip of paper out to Icarus. “Contact info for my excavator. Compare notes.”

Icarus opened his laptop, fingers flying, while Mac picked up the interrogation. “Did you find anything there?”

Atlas looked to be heading to the spot beside Robin until Mac’s question had him abruptly changing direction. “Nope,” he answered, strolling way from Robin. Too casual not to be suspect.

“How’d you know it was his place?” Mac asked.

“They said so.”

His answers had become clipped; there was something he didn’t want the larger group to know. Robin stepped in before Adam or Mac could press. “It was a setup. Three of Dyami’s men jumped him. Took him.”

“Took him?” Jenn said. “How’d they manage that?”

“It’s possible,” Robin said with a sly grin aimed Atlas’s direction.

It wasn’t enough to lure the warlock back to his side, Atlas posting up across the room from him, back and boot propped against the wall. “I let them. I wanted to get more information.”

Probably why he’d stayed out of reach, knowing his motive would piss Robin off. A growl rumbled up from his chest and into his words. “When I intercepted the van, they assumed I was after the bounty on his head.”

“Did you know?” Atlas asked him, and Robin nodded. It was a modest contract, not outrageous enough to attract a flood of takers, but high enough to weed out first-timers. Attractive to hunters like Robin, like Cyrus. “Why didn’t you take me in? Claim it for yourself?”

“Did you miss that whole key-to-it-all conversation yesterday?”

“That’s not?—”

Robin cut him off with another truth. “It has never been my intention to give you up.”

“Just end me yourself.”

That was one solution. But first... “After I end your brother.”

“Is there a plan in this bickering somewhere?” Mary interrupted.

“We’re going to play to Robin’s strengths,” Atlas said. “To his reputation as a bounty hunter. I can’t be the only one Evan has a bounty out on.”

“You’re not,” Robin confirmed.

“And those bounties have other interested parties?”

Robin nodded again.

“Good.” He pushed off the wall, roving again. “You’re going to steal those bounties out from under him. Get his attention. Then catch me.”

“But Evan’s seen you two working together,” Mac said.

Atlas beat him to the reply, and the vehemence in it surprised Robin, did more funny things to his insides. “Evan’s also seen him shunned by all of you, and he’s seen us fighting each other. He also knows me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Icarus said.

“He knows what’s at stake if Robin catches me.”

“To Mac’s point,” Abigail said, “doesn’t he think Robin caught you already?”

“I didn’t take him in and claim the bounty,” Robin said, then with a flit of his hand added, “He escaped.”

“Not the first time.” Atlas landed against the wall next to him with an irritating wink. “Evan will need to see me out in the open. Or at least get reports of it. He also needs to believe the ties here are severed. They’re frayed already, so that shouldn’t be a stretch.”

Seething, Jenn shot off the wall on Robin’s other side, and Robin had to throw out an arm to hold her back from murdering his mate. “We don’t cut people off like you do.”

The murder, however, came from the opposite direction.

“Is that so?” Paris’s raised voice from across the table drew everyone’s attention, indignation unfamiliar in his soft voice, judgment unusual on his typically serene face.

“When I found him, when I told him the truth about his sister, he’d been sleeping outside in the field where she died for days. ”

Jenn immediately retreated, gaze cast aside as she tucked her tail and slunk to Abigail’s side.

Rotating on his shoulder, Atlas angled Robin’s direction, and when he spoke, it was a request, not an order. For Robin’s decision, irrespective of the opinion of anyone else in the room. “There needs to be another visible blowup, in case anyone is watching. Can you do it?”

His call, his will, his independence. “I can do it.”