Page 79 of Contested Crown

Summer laughed and clapped, her face joyful in the sunrise.

“Free!” She giggled. “Free, free, free!”

I recognized where we were and knew that we needed to move. The city came alive just before sunrise, and I could already see the hints of light cresting the horizon.

“Summer, what…” The question died on my tongue. What did she do? That was obvious. She had used her magic to take us back to the city.

It was even more obvious why she’d done it. She had been even more imprisoned than Cade and me.

“How did you know we were going to escape tonight?” I asked.

My blood was cooling, my breath coming more calmly. I felt my wolf fading back, but it was still there, still under my skin. Something in me relaxed, as though I finally could let my shoulders drop now that I had myself back, now that Iwasmyself again.

“I didn’t,” Summer said. She looked up and around, eyes wide. I was struck by how pale her skin was in the morning light. “I knew it would be soon. I knew it had to be soon. They want to deal with House Bartlett before the other houses find out what they’re doing, but they won’t be able to hide it much longer.”

Her smile was a twitch of lips.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked.

“No,” she said, blinking. “Do you?”

I exhaled a sharp breath. “No.”

The sun lit the sky white, and I felt the last of my wolf pull back into myself. Cade murmured and shifted in my arms. He blinked, and I stared down at him.

“Miles?” His lips and skin were gray. “Did we make it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He shifted again, and I set him down. Leaning heavily on me, he turned to Summer. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Blinking, she seemed to realize what she’d said. “I mean, I did it for me too.”

“We need to move,” I said.

“We need to get naked,” Summer said.

For a second, I gaped at her, my mouth working, and then I shook my head. “Uh, thanks for saving us, but?—”

“There’s trackers in the clothes,” Cade said. I exhaled sharply. Of course.

“Yes. And Phelan listens to everything. All the time. He can hear your thoughts.” Summer spoke too fast, an edge of manic in her voice. “Even the ones you don’t say.”

“Okay, well, let’s get out of the street at least.” I kept an arm around Cade’s shoulders and led us down the street.

Los Santos sprawled, the bay that had made up most of the city’s income for a century and a half didn’t stifle its growth the way that San Francisco on its peninsula was limited by water on either side.

That meant Los Santos had high-rises and expensive, narrow townhomes. It also had plenty of areas where squat one- and two-story buildings revealed the desperate poverty that people in the fifth most expensive city in the state could live in. Summer had placed us in one of the outlying trails of the city, a part that had narrowly wound itself between the two suburbs that bordered Los Santos.

It was known for crime, drug use, and the fact that the cops looked the other way, claiming it should be part of either of the two suburbs that bordered it.

That made it prime territory for Declan Monroe.

Hugging Cade tightly against my side, I ducked my head and started for the nearest homeless encampment. Weeds grew out of an abandoned lot, the gravel on the ground indicating that whatever building had once been here had been leveled long ago. Now, blue tarps were strung up. Small, patched tents were packed closely together, smelling of dried sweat and body odor that would never wash out of the fabric.

As we moved through, I could feel the eyes crawling over us. But these people wouldn’t know Declan Monroe directly. They would deal with whoever was selling his drugs, three or four people down the chain of command.

They would never recognize me. I had been too far up. I was oversight.