Page 28 of Triumph of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #6)

“He is powerful,” Lykos said. “I will be too one day.”

“Definitely. And you don’t need to be the chosen wolf for that. Abrams is telling you stupid shit to manipulate you.”

“You are also attempting to manipulate me.”

The kid wasn’t a dummy, was he? Nor that young and naive.

“Every chance I get,” I said, opting for honesty instead of denying it.

“Like I said, Duncan is my mate. And I’m watching out for him, the way he watches out for me.

I also don’t want to see one of his relatives killed.

It would hurt him.” I pointed at Lykos, assuming he understood the cloning thing and that he and Duncan were siblings, however great their age difference.

“When I succeed in slaying him, will you attempt to exact revenge?” Lykos touched his chest.

“You’re not going to slay him.”

“It is my duty, but it is regrettable that it would leave you without a mate.”

“Your duty is to think for yourself. Abrams is a dick, and he’s not even a werewolf. Not a pack leader. You don’t need to obey him.”

“I… must obey him.”

“Why? Is he magically compelling you somehow?” I eyed the kid’s forehead, but he didn’t have a scar to indicate a link to a control device. I did, however, remember magic flowing into him when we’d been together before. It had seemed to force him to attack me.

“When I mature, I can become your mate, if you wish,” Lykos said. “As a replacement for the one who I will slay.”

“Sorry, kid. I’m not a cougar.”

He blinked in confusion. “You are a wolf.”

“I know. I meant— Never mind. Duncan is a good guy. He’d like to be your friend , not your enemy. Not your assassination target.”

Lykos’s head swiveled around.

At first, I thought Duncan had done something to draw his attention, but Lykos was looking toward the woods to one side, not toward the parking lot.

Had one of my relatives returned? I sensed… not a magical being, but I did detect a magical item. A mundane human carrying an artifact?

A branch snapped, and a man in a cowboy hat stepped into view. His face grim, he carried a revolver in one hand, a small metal device in the other, and he wore a bracelet on his left wrist, the golden edge visible below the sleeve of a suit jacket.

“Ivan?” I asked, though maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d called twice, looking for his sister.

He’d been scrutinizing Lykos—guided to him by whatever that device was?—and blinked in surprise when he spotted me. “Luna?”

“Yeah. We’re about to head out to look for Izzy and my niece, Jasmine. She’s missing too. We had to gather a few things to help us find them, but we think they might be located in the same spot.”

“The ransom letter I received said they were kidnapped here and that a brown-haired wolf boy was helping identify the targets.” Jaw clenching, Ivan strode toward Lykos.

He didn’t point the gun at the kid, but his finger flexed on the trigger, as if he were thinking about it.

Lykos sprang behind a tree for cover, then ran deeper into the woods.

Ivan started after him, but I surged forward to intercept him.

I grabbed his arm in case he got a dumb idea about firing that gun.

I had no idea if Lykos had anything to do with those kidnappings, but I couldn’t let Duncan’s little brother be hurt.

The kid glanced back, meeting my eyes, before disappearing from view—and my senses.

“He wasn’t responsible,” I told Ivan. “And what letter? If it was from Abrams, it can’t be trusted. If it was a ransom letter—isn’t that what you said?—it certainly can’t be trusted.”

“No. I know.” Ivan looked down at my grip on his arm.

I released him. I didn’t know if he’d activated that bracelet—when we’d first met, he’d said it could temporarily give one the strength and regenerative power of a werewolf—but he hadn’t tried to shove me away. He’d also seemed conflicted about attacking a kid. I hoped he was.

“I actually came to give you something and implore you to help find Izzy.”

“I’m working on it. Honest. I had to get some advice first.” I left out that the advice had come from a magical cave in the form of a vision. Just because Ivan believed in werewolves didn’t mean he would buy that. “We’ve got a pretty good idea where they’re being kept now.”

“Izzy is a pain in the ass,” Ivan said, “but she’s still my sister. And I can’t let Olivia lose her mother.”

“I understand.”

“Can you get her back? Can I help?” Ivan raised his wrist, the sleeve falling back to show the whole bracelet.

“I’m going to get them back, yes. And I’ve already got a druid and a werewolf to help. I think that’ll be sufficient.”

He mouthed, “ Druid ,” having probably never encountered one. At least not that he knew about.

“We’ll get them,” I promised and stepped back, intending to leave him and head for the van, but I paused. “Did the letter say anything useful? What ransom did Abrams want? That’s who sent it, right?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed that. The real estate developers were still possible culprits behind everything, though all the magical potions that had been hurled about the premises continued to make me think Abrams the more likely antagonist.

But why would Abrams have thrown Lykos under the bus? Or had he believed his young werewolf assassin would take care of Ivan? I grimaced.

“For me to get that from you.” Ivan pointed at the chain around my neck, though the medallion itself lay under my shirt. “And also another one from a werewolf living here in a van.” He pointed to the parking lot.

“I guess that solidifies it. It must have been Abrams.”

Chad had been interested in werewolf artifacts too, but I doubted he’d masterminded the kidnapping of Izzy and Jasmine.

“There wasn’t a name on the letter,” Ivan said. “I was to get the medallions and mail them to an address, and then the kidnapper would send Izzy to me.”

“Do you have the address?”

“Yes.” Ivan withdrew a folded paper from his back pocket and showed me the letter.

The address was familiar. I took a photo so that I could check later, but I was fairly certain that was one of the locations that Jasmine’s father had come up with as being related to Radomir’s business. Another piece of evidence to link this to Abrams.

“It crossed my mind to try to bribe you for those items.” Ivan shook his head ruefully as he withdrew an envelope folded in half.

“But, even if you’d agreed to sell them, which I doubted from the beginning, mailing priceless artifacts to a random address did not seem like a surefire way to get my sister back. ”

“No. You’re supposed to do an in-person exchange when you’re trading for a kidnap victim. Or so Hollywood informs us.”

Ivan nodded his agreement, then offered the envelope. It was stuffed thickly enough that hundreds of dollars could be inside.

I held up my palm. “You were right that the medallions aren’t for sale.”

“This is for finding my bracelet and returning it. I did promise a reward.”

“That’s okay. I was looking for something else when I happened across it.”

Ivan raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to be too proud to accept my offering? It’s not a hand-out. I’m sure you don’t need that.”

“I’m not proud, but I’m also not a treasure hunter or anything like that. I’m a property manager.”

“Let me at least reimburse you for the postage you spent mailing the bracelet.”

“Okay.”

Without taking any of the money inside out, Ivan held the envelope toward me again.

“The price of stamps hasn’t gone up that much.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Inflation has been particularly profound in that area.”

As I shook my head, a call came from the lawn.

“Luna? Are you out there?” Rue stood in the grass, holding up a potion in a vial. “I have something for your intern, but he’s not in the leasing office.”

“I need to go,” I told Ivan. “That might help us find your sister.”

Without letting him make another attempt at foisting the money on me, I waved and jogged toward Rue.

With my future uncertain, maybe I was a fool not to take every coin, dollar, and postage reimbursement offered, but I felt guilty that Izzy had been captured because of me.

Okay, she wouldn’t have been captured if she hadn’t been here harassing me, but still.

It was hard not to feel that I had, all those years ago when I’d lost it with Raoul, set in motion the events that had led to her being taken.

I might never stop feeling guilty over Raoul’s death.

Some regrets accompanied one to the grave.

“He’s helping Duncan load up the van for the storming of an enemy lair we’re hoping to find today,” I told Rue when I reached her.

“Here.” She handed me the vial. “I trust you can instruct him on its use. Tell him that I put the invoice under the windshield wiper of his vehicle. If you are taking him to assail an enemy lair, I must insist that he pay for the elixir before you leave.”

“He’s the wealthy son of the wealthy family who owns this place.” I waved to encompass all of Sylvan Serenity. “He’s good for it.”

“His credit worthiness is not my concern. That he might die before paying the debt is.”

“Ah. I guess that’s valid.”

“Certainly. Did you know that an entire pack of werewolves came through here this morning?”

“That was my family.”

“How dreadful. And there’s been a young one lurking around the area for more than a week.” Rue peered into the woods. “When I moved from the urban core of the city to this suburb, I expected life to be quieter and calmer.”

“It hasn’t been? I haven’t noticed any graffiti on your door here. Werewolves rarely carry cans of spray paint when in their lupine forms.”

“Yes, but the power of their auras is distracting when they cruise through. It interferes with my reading.”

“Your life sounds difficult.”

“It’s very often fraught.”

Duncan hopped out of his van, met my gaze, and waved. Were they ready to head off? Was I?

No, I thought, but I waved back, acknowledging that I would join them.

“I’ll let Bolin know about the invoice,” I told Rue before heading toward the van.

Duncan looked past me and into the woods, but if Lykos was out there, I couldn’t sense him. He’d either been scared away by Ivan, or he was off to enact some plan to kill Duncan.

I shook my head grimly, hoping the kid wouldn’t show up at Abrams’s Seattle compound.

Duncan’s determination to befriend him—be father him?

—made me think he’d already started caring about what happened to Lykos.

As someone who’d battled a loved one and won, I could attest to how that was as bad as losing.