“Yeah, I will. I promise. But what about Tamsin? She’ll sense something’s up.”
“I’ll have Badger and Duncan give her a Prime nudge to not notice anything different. And I won’t order you to let Badger Prime you to help you. But if you want his help with your acting, feel free to ask him.” He sighed. “So, how pissed off at me are you?”
But again she heard his smile. If she closed her eyes, she could see it, the way his eyes crinkled when he did.
“Just get your ass home as soon and safely as possible. And if you ever scare me like this again, I’ll seriously think about locking a tracking and shock collar on you. So if you go too far away, I can zap you to come back.”
Another throaty chuckle. “Oooh, kinky.”
That made her laugh. If he could crack jokes, he had to be telling her the truth about his safety.
“Life will probably get even crazier for a while,” he added. “And I’m sorry about that. It can’t be helped. But we’re going full-throttle trying to drag these fuckers out of the shadows and end this once and for all.”
“Is Faegan behind it?”
“We still don’t know, honey. I think it’d be worse if he’s not because it means someone’s tapped deeply enough into our networks to know we’re after Faegan.”
“I suppose it’s too much to hope they have him at that lab and are already vivisecting him, isn’t it?” she growled. “Maybe they tortured information out of him?”
“Well, that would be fun to imagine, but the secrets he could reveal, even though he doesn’t know many of our pack’s secrets, could still be pretty damaging. And I suspect a man like him would squeal at the first hint of them hurting him.”
“True.”
“There’s something else I’ll need you to do. Once he’s awake, Ken will send you some info in a text over the secure app. Write it down and delete it immediately. You need to do an emergency build-out on a new identity for someone.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Again, this is a secret from everyone but our inner circle. His real name’s Jake Peterson, but come up with something different. Make him fifty-ish. As young as mid-forties or as old as sixty, if you have to, but it has to be done fast.”
“Peterson? Why does that—” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Carl’s father?” she whispered.
Another throaty chuckle. “Surprise! It’s a long story. I might not be coming home with Faegan’s head yet, but I am not coming home empty-handed. And I mean it—don’t tell Carl anything about this.”
“Okay, got it. How soon do you need it?”
“The faster you get it to me, the faster we can come home after we’re done. I want to fly back with him in case any glitches crop up, so I can Prime the customs agents to ignore it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it only has to be good enough to get him on an aircraft and us back into the country without me having to scramble officials’ brains from London to Seattle. We can build out a detailed identity that will stand up to deep scrutiny later. I’ve got my spare passports from the safe deposit box, so I can return without triggering flags under my real name.”
“Gotcha.” She drew in the first deep breath she’d taken since this ordeal started that didn’t hurt her soul. “I love you.”
“Love you, too, baby. Kiss Adair for me. And please hand the phone back to Badger, because I need to talk to him again.”
She handed Badger the phone and flopped back on the bed, her hands covering her face, crying again.
This time in joy and relief.
He’s alive!
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ken
Ken still didn’t feel quite human yet—ironic, he thought, when surrounded by shifters—but several uninterrupted hours of sleep and a long, hot shower dramatically helped. The delicious aroma of coffee seeping into his brain wasn’t bad, either.
He dragged himself into the en suite bathroom, showered to wake up, shaved, and then headed downstairs. Peyton and Jake were already sitting at the table when Ken joined them.
Ken did a double-take when he looked at Jake. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” Ken said. “No offense, but you looked a lot scruffier yesterday.”
The man smiled. “None taken.” Yesterday, he’d looked like someone who’d spent at least a week primitive camping in the general admittance section of an outdoor music festival.
