Most of the people they saw wore drab greens and khaki brown clothes. Wrinkled and messy, people were tired—it showed on their faces and the way many slumped over their desks. If anyone looked up as they passed, they just as quickly got back to what they were doing.
It’s as if they don’t care killers can just walk through the building.
“This is not a nice place,” Teilo whispered as they checked another closed office—it was empty.
“Hmm.” Spotting some stairs, Nico nudged Teilo with his elbow and both men strode towards them. “Ben’s brother seems to care about his work—the others, not so much.”
“Doesn’t the other brother work here, too?”
Nico didn’t know. He held up his hand as they approached a turn in the stairwell, ducking his head around the wall before they both kept going up. At the top of the tiled stairs was another long hallway that appeared to break into a T junction about halfway down.
“We’re close,” Teilo whispered.
Letting his mate take the lead, Nico stayed alert, watching for any attack. There weren’t as many people in the upstairs offices. As they passed one open office door, a man was yelling into the phone. When he noticed them, he got up and slammed his door shut before he continued yelling. Phrases like “I never touched her,” and “You can’t lock me out of my damn house, Marjorie,” followed them down the hallway.
Third door from the end, Teilo held his hand up and Nico stopped. “The lion came from this office,” Teilo said quietly, checking back down the hallway past Nico, making sure no one was noticing their interest.
Nico tested the door handle. Unlike the other office doors, it was locked. Standing casually,nothing to see here,Nico reached behind himself, and grabbed the door handle. A squeeze, a rotation and sharp tug, and the lock broke.
“Why would this one be locked, when the others weren’t?” Nico held up the remains of the door handle.
“Maybe Kylo did it. Maybe this lion was working on something secret.” Pushing open the door, Teilo peered around the frame, before ducking inside.
Nico followed him and then leaned on the door to keep it closed as Teilo went to the desk and opened the top drawer.
~/~/~/~
Teilo
He wasn’t going to learn anything from the pieces of paper the lion had kept in his drawer. Neither had gotten taught to read, so the writing and diagrams on the pages meant nothing to him. Using his enhanced senses, Teilo searched his other self for the lion’s essence. The office was drenched in it, so it wasn’t difficult.
Anger. Arrogance. Anxiety. The lion hadn’t been happy in his office. Tilting his head, Teilo sniffed at the desk, and then the drawer he had opened, before leaving it and sniffing over at a large wooden cupboard that sat against the wall.
The cupboard had two open shelves and Teilo scanned cups on stands and shiny plaques, but no… they weren’t important.
Underneath the open shelves were two doors with no handles. He brushed his fingers over the small inset locks and flicked out a claw. He looked up to see Nico smiling at him as he inserted his claw into the tiny opening, twisting it first left, and then right, until he felt the jolt of the lock tumblers resetting themselves. Using his claw in the lock as a hook, Teilo pulled the door open and groaned as he pulled his claw free and retracted it. “More paper.”
“Look for maps,” Nico urged. “Any sort of drawing, notes with numbers on. Pictures that you might recognize.”
That was easier said than done. The lion shifter wasn’t organized. There were three piles of papers stacked together along a shelf. Crouching down, Teilo rested his butt on his heels, as he quickly flicked through the first pile and then the second.
He was searching towards the bottom of the second pile when he felt Ben’s energies getting closer. “Our mate’s looking for us and he’s not happy,” he murmured as he kept flicking.
He saw a couple of pictures, drawings of hills and pictures with people in them, and pulled them out. Working on a hunch, Teilo checked the bottom of the third pile and found similar pages. Standing up, he edged the cupboard doors closed and leaned against them, studying the people in the pictures as Nico let Ben and Kylo into the room.
I think I’ve seen this one before.He tapped a face in the picture.
Chapter Eighteen
Ben
Feeling conflicted after his initial lack of support for Teilo, Ben couldn’t decide to be pissed or proud of their initiative. It was a hard call when his panther was pacing and urging him to find their mates.
When Ben stepped into what he assumed was the lion shifter’s office—it was the only place he could think his mates would go when Kylo had asked—Nico looked unconcerned. Teilo, on the other hand, gave off a sense of unease. He offered an apologetic smile, one Ben was sure he meant. Only Ben suspected that if they felt a situation warranted them doing their thing alone, they wouldn’t think twice. And it was sinking in that his mates were more than capable of taking care of themselves, no matter how it made his panther and him agitated.
Mates of mine we will talk later about the importance of communication.
Like this?Teilo questioned, a light in his eyes.
