Page 94 of Their Mate

She was inside and so were the rest of my pack.

“Congratulations, boys,” I muttered. “You’ve all been played like fiddles.”

The urge to laugh was there, but it tasted too much like fear. Not for me; I’d wriggled out of worse than this. But for them. For her. The thought of Sera caged, well, that set something truly ugly curling in my gut.

I pulled back, booted a loose rock into the dark, and made my way down to the quay where we’d left the boat. If I couldn’t pry them out myself, I’d damn well make noise in the right places.

And that’s when I found Logan’s radio, sitting on the bench seat like an afterthought.

I thumbed it on, the old hiss filling the silence. “Well then,” I said, grinning despite myself. “Let’s see who’s listening.”

First frequency: static. Second: dead air. Third:click.

“Do you got the money?” I said, low and mocking, into the speaker.

Silence, and then a voice, and hell, if it wasn’t a little familiar. “Jamie Buchanan.”

I laughed, short and harsh. “Aye, lass. Thought you’d be rid of me that easy?”

It was her. The shadow-girl from London. Last time I’d seen her, it had been in an alley dripping with rain, her hood drawn up, money in one hand and a warning in the other.

“I told you to bring him back,” she said now. “Unharmed.”

“I’ve got a bit of a problem there, lass. You see, I’ve gotten him to the Isle of Man, but now he’s in the Watch’s hands and I’m going to need some help getting him and my mate free.”

Her breath caught. “Your mate, Sera Moore?”

I blinked. “Well, well. So you know the lass’s name. Makes sense. You’re all connected, you English conspirators.”

“There’s something else,” she said. “Our sensors picked up movement from Dublin not long after your pack went dark. Hundreds of heat signatures, Jamie. Not human. Not wolves. But lycans. They went into the water and every last one of them is moving straight for the Isle of Man.”

I went still, knuckles whitening around the radio. “Hundreds.”

“Yes.”

I blew out a loud breath through my nose. “Shiiiitt.” My laugh was humorless, scraping the edge of fear. “That’ll be him, then. The fuckin’ bloody Elder Lycan—and his army.”

“They won’t last,” she said quickly, but there was no conviction behind it. “They die in a few years, everyone knows that?—”

“Aye, years,” I cut in, voice flat. “But they’ll last long enough to chew this island to pieces. We’re going to need an army of our own. The Watch isn’t prepared for that kind of force. Send as many people as you can spare, lass. Guns, ammo, hell—bring a bloody tank if you’ve got one rusting in some barn.”

There was the sound of cloth shifting, like she was pulling her hood tighter around her face. Her voice went sharp again, cutting. “If I wanted this job done right, Jamie, I should have just done it myself.”

I grinned despite the cold knot in my gut. “Och, don’t flatter yourself. You’d look lovely storming the beaches with your knives in hand, but you hired me for a reason. I’ll keep the bastards alive long enough for you to show off.”

A pause. Then, softer: “Hold on until I get there.”

I thumbed the dial down, eyes on the black horizon where the sea heaved like it was alive beneath the moonlight. My reflection in the dark water looked grim, older, a little too much like the stubborn bastard I’d always promised I wouldn’t become.

“Hold on,” I muttered to myself, to the island, to my pack caged behind that locked door, and to what was coming for us tomorrow.

We were going to need a miracle.

I twisted the dial, thumbing through until the next line opened. “Zara Yorke. If you’re breathing, answer.”

It took half a minute that felt like it stretched into an hour before the line crackled.

“—Jamie?” Zara’s voice. Stiff, tired, but alive.