Page 23

CHAPTER 23 - RAZE

“A re you sure you’re up for this?” Luna’s eyes rounded with sympathy. “Maybe give it a few days. Astra just?—”

“I’m good.” I cut her off and dove into the task at hand—my next mission with the Shadows to apprehend the gantii traffickers.

I could barely get off the couch until Talon, Cole, Blaze, and Luna kicked me off it, forcing me to shower and dress for our mission today.

I need to be here. Need the distraction to mask the pain of my whole world being thrown off its axis. Need to expel my wolf’s restlessness and the dark winter into which my heart descended. Moping about my cabin achieved nothing.

No time for that when we had gantii to liberate from the last Brotherhood trafficking ring. Bad guys to catch and kill. Stolen evidence to obtain from Eduardo and Devon, who took it from its burial spot in the cathedral’s yard. Free my pack from jail. If I let my heart drag my mind down again, the process would delay even longer.

More importantly, we need to catch the traitorous Guild members reported to be assisting the remaining Brotherhood members, one of whom was responsible for my mate’s unjust imprisonment. I had a special place in Hell reserved for him. My wolf and I wouldn’t stand for the abuse and captivity of wild supernaturals any more than the nightmare that asshole put Little Wolf through. Perhaps I would castrate him the way I did Devon.

My wolf gave a victorious howl at that achievement.

Talon assembled Cole, Blaze, Gable, Luna, me and a few trusted Tollens in The Eye at Nightfire Academy to review the brief for today’s mission. I glanced around the security room I was never privy to during my time studying magick, long before my transfer and incarceration in the Guardians. Only those in my inner trusted circle knew my secret alter ego as a Lycan and that was the way it would stay.

As she nodded at Talon, he got stuck with delivering updates his team had collected, and I fell back into memory of my last five days with my mate.

“Everyone clear on the brief?” Talon eyed the team.

Brief? What was it again? I scraped the back of my aching neck. Fuzzy mind and headaches hit me when Little Wolf left, and I forgot what time it was, let alone the day.

At least Talon ordered me a new Guild uniform, one that fit my exact measurements, letting me breathe, unlike the last disaster, which was too small and restricted my movement.

Talon’s critical eye landed on me. “Raze, we clear?”

Fuck. I did it again.

I leaned back in the conference chair, rubbing my temples to ease the throbbing in my forehead and behind my eyes. “Remind me of our objective?”

Talon let out a long breath from his nose. “Did you hear any of it? We can’t afford any mistakes.”

I pressed my face into my palms and scrubbed. “I’ve got a headache. Just get me a Berocca and I’ll be fine.”

Talon looked ready to dismiss me from the team as he clicked a button on his projector and it beeped, deactivating the screen. Instead he cleared the Tollens from the room with an order to get ready to depart.

A small, warm palm came to rest on my arm. Luna’s. “Have you slept or eaten since Astra left, big guy?”

The name was like a dagger of ice to the heart.

“Not much.” I crunched my hands into fists.

Deafening silence haunted my cabin. The pillow and sheets in my bed as well as the sofa smelled of her. Cold consumed my bed and heart. Her coffee mug sat in the dish drying rack. Half the chocolates Luna gifted her remained in my pantry. Little Wolf clouded all my thoughts, and I couldn’t escape her or the emptiness in my soul.

“Maybe you should sit this one out and rest,” Luna repeated her earlier suggestion.

“No, I need the distraction.” I patted her hand, grateful she cared for my well-being when it gradually faded like my mate’s scent.

She glanced at Gable, who fished around his bag, removed a small sachet, and lifted from his seat, going to the urn at the back of the room.

He came back and dropped a steaming plastic cup in front of me. “Drink this when it cools. It tastes like a dog’s ass, but it’s better than that sugary crap for your headache and fatigue. It’ll kick in in about thirty minutes when you digest it.”

I dragged the cup closer, my nose wrinkling at the scent of herbs soaking in lukewarm water. “Thanks.” I threw the medicine down my throat.

I didn’t initially trust the ex-snake, but the shifters implicitly trusted him, as well as my mate’s best friend, and he set up protective spells around my cabin without taking a cent. Gable was a man of worth who fought for the helpless. Someone I trusted and wanted on my team.

“Run me through the plans again,” I croaked, holding back a wretch.

Talon gathered a ledger from the table and deposited it in front of me. “This was lifted from the auction house. It contains the addresses of sellers and buyers as well as storage and transport warehouses.”

Memory flashed of being intercepted by vamps on our last mission to arrest vendors and purchasers. A coppery scent clogged my throat. Tall, lanky vampires bursting into the room. The burn of narcotic sinking into my skin from the dart they shot me with. Luna and Blaze shouting for me as the portal blinked shut. I slammed my eyes closed, trying to shake off the moment of my capture.

“Raze?” Luna’s palm found me again, the imprint small and warm, reminding me of Little Wolf’s, grounding me and breaking me out of the memory’s spell.

“I’m good,” I croaked again.

“We’ve checked most of them out while you and Astra got reacquainted,” Talon informed me. “Our source tells me several key players are meeting at this address this afternoon.”

“What for?” I cracked the lid on an unopened bottle of water and swallowed half down.

“That’s why we’re checking it out.” Talon closed the ledger. “They’re communicating plans in code as they suspect they’re being watched. Our source is decoding it for us.”

“Who’s your source?” It mattered when I refused to walk into another trap and be drugged and kidnapped. “And are they trustworthy?”

“A hacker I work with,” Gable informed me.

“His info checks out,” Talon backed him up. “The biker hasn’t let us down yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It was exactly what I was asking. “Biker? One of Castor’s friends?”

“That’s him.” Gable folded his arms over his chest. “I forgot you met last week.”

The pressure in my chest backed off, knowing that they worked with an associate they trusted to complete multiple tasks such as healing my mate and me.

I turned to address Blaze and stabbed my finger at the desk. “In the Guardians, we don’t leave a teammate behind if something happens.”

He slipped through a portal and left me to my fate when they were outnumbered by vamps. I wasn’t going back out with him until I had his promise to have my back.

The balls of fire magick he rolled on his fingers went out with a puff. “I’m sorry for that. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” I growled at him, then swung my gaze back to Talon. “Anything else I need to know?”

“That’s the gist of it.” Talon withdrew to the side of the conference table, grabbed a plastic tub and came back, placing a circular, gold Guild badge in front of each member of the assembled team. “Wear these cameras to record any film and sound of the meetings for use in legal proceedings. I’m not taking any chances when that asshole Kymbal slipped through my fingers last year on a technicality and pressure from his connections.”

Kymbal. The name set my beast into motion. The bastard that sentenced Little Wolf to the Guardians. Corrupt as they came. From what Talon told me, they’d been after him for over a year since he used his family connections and pedigree to escape his own prison sentence. I had to quell my beast from tearing his head off. Incarceration was a far better punishment for a sniveling coward.

Talon fitted his camera on his left breast, and I followed his lead, pinning mine in the same spot, the rest of the team doing the same.

“Any concerns or objections?” His gaze swept the line of us, and no one spoke, so he added, “Move out to our target.”

My wolf and I responded to his natural command the way we would to Knoxe’s or an Alpha Lycan.

Twenty minutes later, we broke into teams of three, me with Blaze and Gable, scouting the south and east perimeter of the abandoned theatre, while Luna, Talon, and Cole took the other directions.

Gable’s medicine kicked in right on time, giving me the boost of energy and focus I’d been lacking the last two days. I felt stronger and clearer-headed, lethal determination zinging down my spine.

Whoever chose to meet this afternoon chose the perfect place. Few neighbors, including a building contractor, a tire replacement garage, car battery workshop, a train station several hundred feet away, a few shops that looked like dives. Security wearing guns under their jackets patrolled the perimeter. Standard for the traffickers, according to Blaze. Very out of place in a suburb like this.

Luxury cars parked in the rundown theatre parking lot. Idiots. First rule of an escape: don’t park together where you can be detained. Second rule: don’t hire security who are so obvious when we worked in the shadows. Third rule: meet somewhere remote or with more privacy. Amateurs. Beggars couldn’t be choosers when most of their ranks dried up with whatever spell Luna cast to eradicate the Brotherhood’s power.

“Find anything?” Talon radioed in on a state-of-the-art device designed by Cole. We agreed to report in after an eight-minute perimeter check.

“All clear on our end,” Blaze reported back.

“Ours too,” Talon replied. “We’re heading in.”

“We’ll take our security and meet you there in approximately ten.” Blaze concluded the report.

He moved us to the rear entrance, where we snuck on up security, stunning three unconscious and portalling them back to the Academy, where two of Talon’s most trusted Tollens awaited to arrest our captors. In the middle of processing them, Talon’s crew dragged another two men through their portal, dumping their unconscious bodies.

“What took you so long, Stoney?” Gable teased, earning the middle finger from Talon as his team evacuated the Terra Room and returned to our target.

“Move out,” Blaze ordered, playfully slapping the back of Gable’s head.

We crossed over the portal to our rendezvous point and proceeded to the rear theatre door, making as little noise as possible, approaching our enemy from the stage. Talon’s team tackled the front, coming in through the seating area, preventing anyone from escaping. They probably should have brought more Tollens with them as leverage, but his trust in his team was at an all-time low after a few incidents in the Academy, where enemies and gantii invaded with the help of insider staff.

Dim light from the theatre streaked through the curtains, kicking in my Lycan sight. Various scents dragged in my nostrils—steel weapons, magick talisman, leather from shoes, the tang of gold and wood caskets, and the hint of a perfume that I previously encountered amid the rotten scent of arrogance and treachery. These weren’t your everyday Guild members. They were elite and from old money. The kind of assholes who looked down on members like me when I came from little and didn’t value material possessions.

I caught Blaze by the shoulder, waiting for his hand signal to speak. “I recognize the perfume of a woman,” I whispered.

He aimed his gun at the curtains, ready to blow holes in them. “Who?”

“Theresa Sanchez,” I replied, also known as Councilor Sanchez for her role on the Guild Council, overseeing the direction of our fine establishment.

My body shuddered, my wolf wanting out to take care of the bitch for politically trying to leverage having Knoxe and me cast into maximum security for defending Astra and tearing off her nephew’s balls for attempting to sexually assault my mate.

Blaze texted my intel through to Talon. His phone screen went black, then lit up again at the reply.

Good. Let’s hope that asshole Kymbal is with her.

Strength surged to all corners of my body as my beast assumed control, ready to exact justice on that asshole in my mate’s honor. Claws sprung from my fingers, and my fangs lengthened. I stopped my wolf at the point of a full shift, only adopting my weapons of mass destruction when I relied on the suit to break the impact of any blow.

“Easy there, big guy.” Gable shoved his palms at me. “No shifting.”

“Too late.” I flashed him my claws.

“That’s enough,” Blaze warned us, motioning for us to get closer to obtain video evidence.

The three of us crept up to the red velvet curtains, Blaze in the middle, Gable at the left end, and me at the right side.

Theresa Sanchez stood in a circle with four others, three males and one female, none of whom I recognized, although three wore Shadows emblems, and the remaining, Guardians.

Dressed in her pink skirt suit, dripping in pearls, a jeweled broach, neck scarf, tights, and three-inch pumps, she still spelled dangerous bitch. I didn’t bother assessing the others when my Lycan zoned in on her, lusting for her blood for threatening my Alpha and me. Once we did away with her, our sights were set on Kymbal.

Councilwoman Sanchez clutched her designer brand purse with manicured fingers. “I’ve assembled you here today to seek your support in the upcoming Councilor election.”

Dirty, rotten bitch. Votes from allies were how she stayed in power.

“As you may know,” she went on in her haughty, entitled voice, “my nephews were falsely accused of crimes they didn’t commit and wrongly imprisoned. A vote for me will require your support to free my nephews and clear my family’s good name, and then my boys can return from exile. In return, you have my full support for any matter you raise at the Council table. Just bring it to me first to discuss.”

Meaning she supported them within reason. If she didn’t like the idea, she would knock it down and crush it, like she did during our first appeal when Knoxe, Tor, Pascal, and I were thrown into the Guardians. Now I knew why— she worked with the dirty snakes Jaz aimed to protect us from. She probably ordered her nephews to put the green light out on ending our lives in prison, explaining why we repeatedly got attacked in the halls with shanks.

Movement in the corner of my eye peeled my attention to Blaze, who gestured for us to wait and watch. My wolf wanted to unleash his terror on them. Not yet. Talon needed supporting evidence of Councilor Sanchez lobbying allies. Enough to send her to the Guardians to be locked up without a key.

Pity. I’d love to see her out completing missions without her high heels, tweed suits, jewelry, hair spray, and makeup. Getting her nails dirty and bloody, capturing and arresting gantii. That thought alone encouraged my wolf’s chest to thunder, an action I forced him to shut down fast.

“You have my support always,” an older man with glasses and a crooked nose and the kind of voice that kissed ass.

Kymbal. The man I wanted dead.

Fuck. My body rocked with the threat of full transformation.

Gable deserted his position and came to me, grabbing my arm. “Take it easy, wolfy.” He adopted his entrancing snake voice to coax me down. “Not until we get the signal.”

Tremors rattled me, and I struggled to maintain a hold when my wolf hungered for one outcome. Death. The last time I lost it and went rogue, I got kidnapped. This time I stuck close to my team for safety.

“I know you want him dead for what he did your mate.” Gable’s tone turned silkier, smoother, dragging me deeper into a state of calm. “He’s going to pay, and not with his life. The worst penalty to afford him is life in a cage. Worse than what he sentenced Astra.”

“He’ll never survive a day in prison,” I growled.

Gable patted my chest and smirked. “That’s my intention.”

I snapped my gaze to him, lost in the golden slits of his eyes, his naga serpent powers in action. On one hand, Gable showed a compassionate side, helping shifters in need. On the other, he had a vindictive heart, stained black like mine from my time in the Guardians.

I rubbed his head and messed up his hair. “I won’t kill him, Naga. I promise.”

“That’s the spirit, wolfy.” He released his control over me, his slits rounding back into pupils.

Blaze flashed hand signals at us, and I glanced past the smaller male to interpret them. Light illuminated the cuff of his uniform as his djinn tattoos charged with power.

“Go time,” he communicated our order.

The naga warlock lifted his palms and they lit up with white magick balls. “Remember, no tearing out throats.”

I grunted and pushed past him, steaming through the curtains behind Blaze as Talon and his crew shouted at the assembled traitors. A firefight ensued as they tried to break away and escape. I was on them, crash-tackling two to the floor, punching their jaws so hard, their heads snapped back, their eyes rolled back in their heads, and they fell unconscious.

Theresa scattered, losing her balance in her heels, and I sprang to my feet, pursuing her. She screamed as I launched at her and rolled her to the ground. I pinned her arms over her head and straddled her waist as she kicked and swore surprising profanities for a supposed pedigreed woman. I let her go on, my beast roaring at me to end it, but I didn’t follow through on letting her get off the easy way when she made our lives miserable.

“I’ll have you locked up for life, you vermin!” she spat at me.

Threats I didn’t give a shit about now that I was free, and Vartros destroyed my Guardians’ records. The Guild couldn’t do shit to me, and if they tried, I’d vanish and never return. That meant I could do whatever the hell I liked to her or her nephews for denying my mate’s appeal, assaulting and traumatizing her, stabbing my team and me, and bullying and beating up Pascal and Tor. Revenge tasted like blood on my tongue, and when I caught up with her nephews, I’d sink my goddamn fangs into those two assholes and make them pay.

Threats flew around from the four others cuffed and in my team’s custody.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, Kymbal.” Talon lifted the much smaller and weaselly man from the floor by his shirt. “You went after the wrong man and imprisoned my princess’ best friend.”

Vindication for Little Wolf lit my veins on fire.

“I’ll have your badge for this!” the ferret threatened.

“You won’t get out of it this time.” Talon shook him so hard his teeth rattled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

The bluish-white light of a portal crackled, and our leader glanced over at me. “Is Councilor Sanchez secured?”

Gable crouched beside us and snapped restraints on her. “She is now.”

I showed her no mercy when I hauled the bitch to her feet, riding a triumphant wave.

Talon nodded and shoved his captive through the portal, Cole and Luna following behind him with the male they both detained. Blaze waited for us both, covering our backs as we marched to the window, dragging the cussing witch through it to the other side.

“Where are we?” Kymbal took in the hieroglyphs of the stone walls of the basement. “We have rights. I demand a Guild lawyer.”

Talon snorted and dragged him into a cell warded with more symbols. “Somewhere your friends and family can’t get you released this time.”

The biker’s clubhouse basement. The Guild wouldn’t dare enter when the Jackals would kill them for entering their turf, and they didn’t touch demigods.

The other four shouted down the walls as they were roughly shoved into their homes for the next few weeks, until Talon secured a conviction with a judge immune to bribery and corruption.

I went up the iron bars, not touching them when they’d burn my gantii skin. “Get used to your confinement. Close quarters. Cold, damp, and darkness will be your friend in the Guardians when we lock you up.”

Where they sent me and my brothers for crimes we didn’t commit. Where they locked up my mate for a minor crime that could have been dealt with by the Academy's discipline procedures.

Today turned out to be a good day after all. I couldn’t wait to tell Little Wolf the good news when we next spoke on Sentry Ben’s phone.