Page 35

Here’s to Never Growing Up

N ot telling her what we know was hard as fuck.

When Wolfie and I arrived, we had his portable x-ray in tow. Boone was worried about the escalation from outdoor spying to direct attacks, and though I didn’t believe that big ass treasure chest was booby-trapped, I agreed we should approach it with caution. There are plenty of ways to harm someone that don’t go boom, and since Magpie rolled into town, the hornets’ nest has been stirred.

The x-ray showed a trove of books and papers, but no wiring or mechanisms to rig the lid or anywhere else. We hauled the thing back to the house and examine the contents piece by piece instead of pulling it out in the studio, only to cart it home afterward. Magpie wanted to dig in, but sharing the results from the blood work was more pressing, so we stowed it in her garage for safekeeping.

That was two weeks and what feels like a lifetime of bullshit ago.

Jolene was furious that the blood we drew showed signs they were dosed. To keep it simple, I had my lab rat ex-girlfriend dummy up a report showing that it was Rohypnol. Unfortunately, I had to add a lie to the pile to avoid questions; it wasn’t my first choice, but once I showed the guys the real one, we agreed it had to go to the Society.

The drug they were given isn’t one we’ve ever seen before. It was powerful enough to take out four Guardians, so it’s dangerous. They confiscated all the samples and paperwork from my source so they can analyze it further. Whoever made it—human or supe—knows enough about our physiology to tailor make a knock out liquid to transcend species-specific resistances.

Someone isn’t just dosing college girls to get laid or targeting Jolene because of her work overseas; this was a well planned, coordinated test run. The clubs Seer took magpie to are extranormals only, and it’s impossible to know if they hit her group on purpose or at random. What we know is that there is an enemy looking to do harm to supes.

And they know where our girl lives.

Boone damn near lost his mind. He called his father and his mother—a miracle—and the mayor. After they promised to look into it with their contacts in DC and abroad, he spent hours looking at the lab reports as if his degree was going to magically change from law to biomedical engineering. His supe sides have been in overdrive so badly that Prez gave him some of the suppressant they give the kids until puberty.

Conversely, Magpie has been burning the midnight oil after classes pouring over the contents of the trunk. She seems convinced they left it as a clue to the mystery of her background check. That little tidbit came out when she had to ask us to move her boards from the basement to the garage so she could work in one place.

It breaks my heart that we can’t tell her we know why she couldn’t join the FBI. Anyone with a birth certificate registered to Whistler’s Hollow is forbidden to work in the military or law enforcement. It’s part of a deal the council made with various governments hundreds of years ago to keep supes out of positions where they could lose control and hurt someone. Every location we have enclaves—hybrids or not—have specific coding in their birth or adoption records to indicate the person is banned from those careers.

That’s why she passed security checks, but not this search.

Boone’s father is part of the coalition in the Society that got our kind allowed to have any security clearance at all when he first got elected. Until then, we couldn’t hold office, work for agencies or get licenses for a lot of jobs. Edgar Two may be a randy old jackass, but he’s always worked hard to give supes more freedom.

Hybrids are another story, and Teddy struggles with being a disappointment to the asshole all the time. His mother is no better, but at least she favors him in public.

Jekyll comes running up to her with a tennis ball, pulling me out of my meanderings. I scoot my chair back—my natural aversion to felines puzzles the hell out of Jolene, but she gives me a crooked smile as she lobs the ball out the open garage door. I shrug, continuing to organize the papers in my stack by year.

“I’d love to know who sent me this treasure trove. It’s full of information I think got scrubbed from town records. So much history… I’ll be at this for weeks,” she murmurs, holding up a faded world map that has to be almost a hundred years old.

I wince. The map is full of Society markings and both abandoned and current enclaves are marked with symbols that won’t be hard for her to research. “It may be old junk from someone’s estate sale. You’re an artist; maybe they thought you could create something with this crap.”

Her brow furrows, and she narrows her eyes. “So they broke into my studio, reset the alarm, and left it without a note? I don’t buy it, Prez. Also, you don’t either.”

Sighing, I tug my glasses off and clean the dust off of them as I blink. “Okay, you’re right, my little detective. But I also don’t think it’s as sinister as an obsessed stalker following you from city to city.”

My words are only partially true, but I don’t want her to lose herself in this unnecessary sleuthing. Once she emerges, we’ll be able to tell her what all of this means and why she didn’t get to follow her dreams to the behavioral unit like she planned. Though, to be honest, I couldn’t be less concerned about our heritage buggering up her original plans. If we weren’t on lists, she might never have come back here and we’d all be poorer for it.

“Do you guys know where Seer has been taking off to with her friends all the time?” she asks. Her tone is offhand, but I can tell by the way she won’t meet my eyes and the teeth tugging at her lower lip that it bothers her.

“No,” I admit. “She’s been mysterious of late. Julia wouldn’t let her get into trouble, though. She’s very conscientious and so are her consorts.”

My magpie looks up at me with an arched brow. “So much so that they allowed us to get roofied? Forgive me if it doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“That’s true,” I nod my agreement, but since she doesn’t have all the details, I can’t correct her. Wolfie talked about his old Guardian as if she could destroy the universe in a single blow for years, and he’s one of the more powerful supes I know. Julia, Zasha, and Tharin are a deadly triad, and under normal circumstances, they would have left very few pieces of the person who dared to cross them.

“I don’t trust her or like her. Her guys are okay, but she’s got an air about her that says she’s hiding something. I hate people who lie when it wouldn't cost anything to tell the truth,” she mutters, tacking the map on the board and rearranging some pictures around it.

Her words hit me like a ton of birdseed and I snap my mouth closed before I blow it. I don’t want to lie to her, but I know why we have to. I’m not sure any of us will be forgiven, though. Jolene has become an integral part of our lives and I can’t imagine Wolfie or Boone feeling any different. In fact, for them it has to be worse because…

“Prez, can you hand me that stack of journal entries on the bench?”

I grin as I look over at her. Magpie has her hair in a messy bun with three pens sticking out of it, and an adorable pair of glasses perched on her nose. I didn’t know she wore them until I walked out here to help her with sorting. She told me they were only for reading, but her eagle eye marksmanship tells me she doesn’t need them much. After her long week of lessons, school, horse training, and research in here, she’s probably strained her eyes a bit. I should pull her chart from the office records to get more familiar with her particular physical quirks given it might have hints why she hasn’t emerged or even what she’s going to emerge as.

The Council sure as fuck hasn’t been forthcoming about their thoughts on the subject. Boone, Wolfie, Seer, and I have all made separate requests to access her Society files, but they have blocked us at every turn. It’s like someone is actively hiding her true parentage. That’s weird because usually the docs and Guardians have unrestricted access to their charges.

However, since Andromeda isn’t back yet from whatever assignment she’s been on, we can’t talk to the one person who helped guide Jolene when she was a young shifter. Paired with the fact that she’s mated with one side of my darling vet and three of Edgar’s, it’s not a leap to believe that we’re being kept in the dark on purpose.

Supes can mate with more than one person depending on species, but I’ve never heard of an unemerged supe mating with four vastly different species.

We won’t discuss my insecurities about her not triggering my supe side yet. I’m not a hybrid like the others, and I’m a little terrified that whatever she has lurking inside won’t choose me. I don’t want to mention it, though, because I don’t know if I could handle their platitudes. The one woman I loved before I came to the Hollow and met Wolfie left because our inner selves didn’t mate.

It’s a sore spot, and one I’ve never had to worry about with him. His sides seem to click with mine, even if that step hasn’t happened yet.

I’m confident that it will. In fact, I wonder if Jolene is the catalyst to awakening that part of me. But that may be dreaming—my creature is so different from your average shifter or mage. I’m more rare than a fae or even a phoenix. I only know of a few of my kind because we are solitary and get deployed by the Society to care for enclaves of supes both big and small throughout the world. Our gifts make us perfect candidates for the position I’m currently holding, though a few other types can handle it as well.

“Hello! Earth to Prez!”

Blinking, I give Jolene a sheepish smile, pushing my glasses up. “Sorry, love. I got lost in thought, it seems.”

“I wanted to know if you were ready to break for lunch.”

“Hell, yes. I’m ready to eat my hand. Would you like to accompany me to pick up food from the diner and then we can stop at my place to feed my clan?”

She looks at me with a puzzled expression. “Your clan? I didn’t see anyone else living at your house when Edgar and I came to the mini office.”

I grin, shaking my head. “Not people, love. I have an entire building of friends I’d like you to meet. We were too worried about you to take a tour after the drugging. I’d like to introduce you to—well, not a hobby, but a passion of mine. Are you game?”

Her face lights up as if I’ve asked her to adopt a barrel of adorable puppies. “I absolutely want to! You’re always so reserved outside of the bedroom, McSteamy. I can’t wait to learn more about what makes you tick.”

Holy fuck. Why didn’t I do this earlier? I’m an idiot.

* * *

My magpie walks through the large aviary with wide eyes and coos of joy as she greets every bird. She asks about their species, where I got them, and what makes them special. I’ve had no one take such an intense interest in my clan, and it’s making my stomach flutter with happiness. Wolfie always helps me feed them and even clean, but he’s not fascinated by every feather and fowl I house.

Jolene is. She’s like a kid in a candy store, and she lets them land on her hands, shoulders, and head as much as they please, even giggling when some of the bigger species try to groom her. I should have known by the way she is with Eurayle, but I assumed her fondness was because that companion chose her. Now I realize that our girl simply adores animals of all kinds, and she seems to have a knack for getting them to trust her.

I wish that was a clue to her nature, but it isn’t. Quite a few common species of supes have animal affinities, and even more rare types bond with non-humans easily.

For now, I’m going to enjoy watching her chitter and play with my babies. This little side quest was exactly what I needed to quell my worries about where I stand with my magpie.

If she can charm my aviary, she can charm my inner fellow, guaranteed.