Rogan pulls my face to his and rests his forehead against mine, breathing me in for a moment like he needs the touch to ground him just as badly as I do. “You jumped us out of there. I have no idea how you did it. You were dead before we could even hit the ground. One second, I’m feeling you die, and the next we’re in the middle of unfamiliar woods with a couple of angry lycans growling at us.”
My eyes dart back to Riggs and Viv, and I watch as Riggs reaches over to his mate and threads his fingers with hers, a loving smile stretched wide across his face. I try to shoot Rogan a discreet look, asking if they’re officially in the know about what we can do, but as I do, I realize I’m stupid for even questioning it. Ididjust wake up in front of them, and Rogan’s not exactly whispering phrases likeyou were dead andI felt you die, so my superior deductive reasoning skills are telling me they are officially in the loop.
“Elon and Prek?” I ask, worry percolating in my stomach.
“We’re on our way to meet them now,” Rogan reassures me.
“Tad?” I add, hoping Rogan has at least called him so he’s not pacing around the empty house in his finest yoga gear, stressing.
“My cousin Cohen is picking him up and bringing him here.”
I tense at those words, terrified of what could happen if Tad and this Cohen dude somehow walk into an Order trap like we just did. Rogan rubs my arms and drops a kiss to my shoulder.
“They’re safe, I promise. Cohen is a force to be reckoned with, and I doubt the High Council would be looking for either of them. They’ll be here soon, don’t worry.”
I want to point out that Rogan also thought the smear campaign against the High Council would buy us time to prepare for a fight with them, but I save theI told you sofor later when I’m not still reeling over the clusterfuck we barely escaped. I look around again, the darkness outside making it incredibly difficult to get my bearings.
And here I was thinking waking up in a morgue was difficult.
“Where ishere?” I ask, fixing my disoriented gaze back on Rogan. “How long was I down this time? What’s going on?” I add, looking down at myself and then back over to the lycan alphas.
I’m not wearing the clothes I left the house in this morning. My blood-soaked jeans and tee are missing, and in their place is a gray oversized hoodie and a matching pair of sweatpants that I’m more or less swimming in. Rogan releases a sigh, the skin around his eyes tightening, and I immediately want to pull him to me and try to soothe the tension radiating out from every inch of him.
“Did you know there was a ley line that ran up behind Rigg’s pack land?” Rogan asks me, his green eyes astute and careful.
I’m taken aback by the question. “No. I’ve only been to his pack that one time with you. I never noticed anything.”
Rogan nods like he expected this answer, but for some reason, it makes him look even more troubled. I search for his emotions, trying to understand the look on his face, but frustratingly, I run up against a wall.
“The line is apparently unregistered. I didn’t even know it was there. The pack uses it for business purposes,” Rogan starts to explain, and my brow furrows with confusion.
When I woke up, he said that I had jumped us from the ley line we were being attacked at to somewhere else. Somewhere that happened to have patrolling wolves nearby. My eyes dart around the dark car one more time, seeing our current circumstances in a more concerning light.
Are we in trouble or something?I wonder but then dismiss it. He said we were meeting the others, and I know for a fact he would never put them in danger for any reason, so that can’t be it.
“Okay, so I apparated us to a line nobody knows about on pack land,” I recap, trying to understand Rogan’s obvious worry. “I mean, if you’re wondering how I did that, your guess is going to be as good as mine,” I tell him, a frantic chuckle spilling out of my mouth. “I was a little busy dying, so I don’t know if my magic did the thing it does where it just instinctually guides me to take action. It’s been doing a lot of weird things since I woke up, so maybe that’s it,” I tell him, and when his jaw tightens at my casual declaration, my stomach drops.
He thinks something’s up with my magic.
“What aren’t you telling me, Rogan?” I ask flatly, and his unsettled gaze snaps to mine.
“What he’s hesitant to worry you about, Osteomancer,” Riggs cuts in to say, “is that the only people who know about the line you rode in on, is my pack and a clan of demons who pay us generously to keep it that way. We’ve been tossing around all kinds of theories, but I’m dying to know how you did it,” Riggs adds excitedly.
Well, shit...that makes two of us.
16
“Wait. But why do demons know about your secret ley line?” I ask, running my fingers through my curls only to snag them on what I’m pretty sure is matted dried blood and a whole nest of tangles.
Distracted, I begin to feel around my skull for an entry and exit wound. With the way my chest is scarred, I know there should be something, and as expected, I find a fingertip-sized circle of smooth healed tissue above the top of my ear, and another at the back of my head about three inches shy of the top. Hopefully, my curls will hide them both.
“We source goods to anyone and everyone,” Riggs declares as though that answers my question.
It doesn’t, but I get he has a business to run, and it seems part of that business is being cagey about it.
I turn to Rogan and shrug, doing my best to hide my hurt over the fact that he’s closed himself off. I tell myself that he probably has a good reason and that reason might not even be me. He just watched his best friend die. Maybe he doesn’t want to overwhelm me with that pain and loss.
Unease settles in my stomach, but I try hard not to focus on it.
