Page 66 of Broken Souls

Four?That’s too low for a trap. He would expect all of us to come get our brother back. And even though he knows we won’t call in any soldiers of our own as we’re unsure of who is on Talon’s side and who isn’t, four won’t even give him one-to-one odds, especially if two of those heartbeats are Khalid and his girl.

“Talon’s speciality is technology,” Maddox offers. “He can’t cloak for shit.” In this day and age, he doesn’t need to. Most sups rely on technology. Why scry when you can use a phone? Why bother focusing on heartbeats inside a thick-walled building when you can hack the cameras?

“Then you most likely have two werewolves, a witch, who I am assuming is Khalid, and an Earther.”

Our heartbeats are all different, werewolves being the slowest, with their resting rate at thirty to forty beats a minute. An average Earth human’s is from sixty to eighty, but athletes can get theirs lower than forty. Witches have slightly lower rates than humans but not by much.

“One werewolf is on the first floor – and the fucker is fast. He’s racing around like he’s hyped up on something.”

Shit.It isn’t a trap; it’s a fucking experiment. Antonio has one of his super werewolves waiting for us, and he wants to see what it can do.

“And everyone else is in an office on the eighth floor.” He pauses. “Khalid’s control has snapped. His heart rate’s all over the place.”

“Fuck,” Leno curses as I open my car door. With Rudy now staying behind, we don’t need to tag the vampires for them to know when to phase in should we corner Antonio. Leno will keep an open line with him.

“We’ll be in the next building,” Aleric says. “Once Antie knows Maddox is in the building, he’s most likely going to bolt, but if he doesn’t, call me, boo.”

“What about Enoch and Ez?” Maddox asks as he climbs in behind me. My phone buzzed while Vlad was briefing us.

“They’re five minutes out. We’ll meet them there.”

Rudy stops beside my door. “Call me as soon as you need me. Don’t make me clean up your bodies,” he signs.

“Grim, bruh,” Maddox says from the back, speaking so we can hear him.

“I’ll call if you can help,” I sign.

He starts to protest, but I put the car into reverse and leave him with the vampires. There’s no point him coming in to die alongside us. Antonio chose one wolf to take us all on. Either that wolf is actually capable of killing us all, or he wants us to survive the night. If we don’t make it, I trust Rudy to watch over Micha and my daughter.

If she survives the war long enough to give birth.

I push those worries down, keeping my focus purely in the moment. Distractions will get us killed.

“Khalid and his girl are the priorities,” I say as I drive over the bridge. “Antonio’s second. Maddox, get upstairs as fast as you can. The rest of us will buy you time. Leno, keep an eye on the house, and if you need to step out of this fight, you step out.”

He nods as he scratches Krypto between the ears. His arms are caked in dirt all the way up to his elbows, keeping him tied to the plants back home. If Antonio decides to double back and attack the women while we’re all out, Leno will rip them to shreds. On their own, the plants are brutal, but when controlled by Leno, they are a hundred percent lethal.

“And you, Krypto,” Leno says in a cute voice. “You are not going to get involved in this fight. No, you are not. Nuh uh. You’re going to sit in a nice tree outside until it’s safe to come out. Yes, you are. Oh yes, you are. Who’s a good boy?”

Krypto woofs, then pants happily in expectation as my brother pulls out a box of chicken nuggets from inside his bag. “Only one,” he says as he opens it and holds it out to his dog. Krypto looks at him, then at the entire box, his thoughts clear on his doggie face.

“Only one, boy,” Leno says in the same tone, not wanting to teach Krypto to only respond to a harsher voice. He’s constantly reinforcing his dog’s training, constantly testing him to make sure that when he’s given an order, any order, he’ll obey. As much as Leno tries to keep Krypto away from the more dangerous situations, mistakes happen, and it will only take one refusal to come back or stay down or leave the food someone else is offering him for something bad to happen.

Leaning his head into the box, Krypto licks one up.

“Good boy!” But even as Leno coos over his dog, worry trickles from him. If the werewolf waiting for us moves as fast as Antonio does, he might be able to get past us and to Krypto before Leno or his tree can save him.

“There it is,” Maddox says as he leans between the seats and points to a sky-rise that doesn’t look any different to any of the others. White stone. Glass floors. Nothing about it stands out. There isn’t even a construction zone around it to block it off to the public.

“Why’d he bring Khalid here?” I ask, a knot of unease growing in my stomach. We’re missing something, and that might just get us killed.

As he pulls up a shield around the car, Maddox jokes, “Maybe he’s compensating for something?”

“That would only work if he owned it,” Leno says.

“That’s what I just said, bruh.”

I glance up at the building as I park the car on the other side of the lot. Although from the door to us is a distance a werewolf can easily cover in a second, a second can make all the difference when it comes to casting spells.