“Ask,”the Voices prompt.
“What do you mean by that?”
Rana sighs, “The Owner does a lot of work with the supernatural that came to Derek’s compound and asked about you.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?” I ask.
“I don’t know. So much was happening. I know that’s not an excuse,” she replies, sounding unsure herself.
“No, it’s understandable,” I reply, because it’s more important that we find out what Casimir was doing with The Owner than it is to find out why Rana hasn’t mentioned it before. Especially since she has been through a lot, and some things may have genuinely slipped her mind. She has been in survival mode for a very long time, and that piece of information was not important to her survival. To be honest, we’re lucky that she remembered it at all.
I continue the line of questioning, “What did this supernatural do with The Owner?”
“He brought wolves mostly, although occasionally he brought a different kind of supernatural off of him. The Owner mostly has wolves, so I think he preferred them because there were more to choose from. The Owner brought this stuff off of him,” Rana explains.
At the mention of the stuff, and knowing that the person she is talking about is absolutely Casimir, I allow my mind to reach for Dimitri’s, finding it far easier than I should.
“Love,”Dimitri starts, surprise heavy in his tone.
“Just listen, I need your opinion. Can you hear what I can?”I ask. Sometimes he can and sometimes he can’t.
“One second,”he says, his interest piqued.“Yes, I can hear.”
“Do you know what the stuff did?” I ask Rana.
“It made the others obey him completely, even doing things that they wouldn’t normally do. It needed to be topped up regularly though. Trip explained the feeling to me in the rare moments where the serum didn’tlock his ability to talk freely down. He was aware of everything, but he had absolutely no control over what he was saying and doing,” she explains.
“Sounds like the same stuff that Casimir used on me, but a weaker version so he would get repeat customers more regularly,”Dimitri says through my mind.
“Thought so,”I reply to Dimitri and then refocus on Rana, “Thank you, Rana. I will let you know as soon as I know anything.”
“Thank you. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know,” she says, and then promptly hangs up.
If she actually stays put at the compound, it will surprise me.
“You’re working a case with Casimir?”Dimitri asks me. “I mean an extra one.”
“Yes, although we didn’t realize that at first, it seems that there are a lot of interwoven threads that we are only just beginning to discover,”I reply honestly.
“Be careful, Love. If you need me, just say the word, and I’ll be there,”he offers sincerely.
I decide not to point out the fact that he’s in a maximum-security prison and that if he escapes from it, not only will all hell break loose, but it wouldn’t do any good anyway because he has no idea where we are, and even if Kar tells him, he won’t be able to get to us in time.
“Thanks, Dimi,”I say softly, unable to stop the nickname from slipping through.
“Love . . .”he starts softly, and I shut the connection down.
I like having him in my head far too much, and it was far too easy for me to reach out to him.
Something inside me settles whenever I hear his voice, and then the reality of his situation kicks in, and I get angry as fuck.
A boom of thunder pulls me from my thoughts.
“I assume that you asked Dimitri’s opinion?” Coen says as his eyes move back from the window to watch me closely.
I nod and take a deep breath, closing my eyes briefly and calling my stray magic back to me.
The weather shifts back to cold and blustery, not thundery and stormy.
