"And can't give them back. He,” she made a set of sarcastic air quotes, “‘needs the energy for healing.’"
Bran walked out of the room Tanni used for medical needs in time to hear that part. "He's not the only one who needs healing. We need to find Rey fast before something terrible happens."
His worry poured oil on the fire of my worries. Bran didn’t strike me as a person who worried about nothing.
Exactly how bad was an emotionless Rey for the rest of the world? Judging by Bran and Rissa, very bad.
I heartily wished Paul would be banished to Siberia when all of this was over. Far away from anyone. We needed to find Rey. We knew where he had started, and that he wasn’t to be trusted at the moment.
"We can track his scent," Rissa suggested. "I've already contacted our best trackers. The problem is, they’ll obey him if he gives them orders." She waved her phone to show she'd contacted them on it. "I’ve told them to get in touch with me when they get an idea of the direction he’s going, and then back way off. It's harder during the day when they could be seen in their wolf forms. LA isn't known for having tons of wolves roaming around the city."
"We need a plan," Cassie said. "We can't just sit here and wait for him to come back. We need to take action."
“In the old days, he’d head to the wilderness and hatch his plans. He was a lot crueler then,” Bran spoke quietly.
Rissa nodded. “He’s practically mellow now since he met Cathy. When we find him, I should approach him first? Or Bran. People who’ll be hurt if he attacks them should hang back.”
“What, he’s a fox. He’s hardly a tiger or bear…” My words trailed off at Rissa’s expression.
“Rey likes his fox form. He’s not the ruler of all the shapeshifters because he’s smart and tricky. He can take on any shape and kick the butt of anyone who challenges him.”
“Oh. Then we need to find a way to get his emotions back.” I swallowed.
Rissa’s smile was sharp enough that it hurt to see. “O King, may I avenge the assault on my leader and solve all our problems?”
“Let’s keep that as a backup plan,” Bran answered quietly. “If we’re going to integrate with humanity, we need to keep the killing to a minimum.”
I got up and paced, for lack of any constructive way to burn energy. I sympathized with Rissa wanting to kill Paul, but that wasn’t a modern-day solution.
As Bran’s phone rang, a horrible thought came to me. What if Rey thought the alchemists were a threat?
Bran answered the phone. "Help!" Whoever was on the other line screamed loud enough for all of us to hear, even with the phone not on speaker.
"Who is this?" Bran asked as an exhausted-looking Tanni led Paul out of her lab. Paul was still cuffed and now blindfolded, and I sincerely hoped he was still in pain. He deserved it.
"He's healed," she said over her shoulder, headed for the cot in her office. "I'm taking a nap now."
"Where are you?" Bran barked into the phone. I didn't hear the reply, but Bran began running for the doors as he hung up the phone. "Come on," he yelled over his shoulder. "Bring the muse."
If he was healed, could he give Rey’s emotions back?
16
REYNARD
I didn't havetime to deal with Cathy and Rissa. While they dealt with their badly regulated emotions, I'd be doing something proactive and finding the alchemists. I left them in the bathroom to figure out whatever had them so in a tizzy and stopped at the front porch.
Isengram's scent was still all over the ground. An hour or two ago I'd thought of him as my wolf, but now, for some reason, he was just a wolf. A wolf whose death I needed to avenge for... some reason. To reinforce the laws, I guessed,
His blood had soaked well into the ground, giving me plenty of fodder for my olfactory senses.
Shifting quickly, I shook out my fur and sneezed. Wolf form had a far better sense of smell than my preferred fox form, but I often wanted to sneeze. When my nose settled, I went back to smelling the ground. Oh, yeah. Now I could really get a grip on Isengram's scent. Now that I had what I needed, nothing was stopping me from going after Isengram's killers.
The alchemists. The ones who had ruined our entire lives. They'd banished us to Dream. They'd kept us from coming back.
I didn't normally track with my nose, and even more rarely in my wolf form. At this moment, I had no idea why I preferred the fox shape.
This was so easy. They'd gotten into a car, but that didn't matter. I could still track them. Isengram's scent was only slightly lessened by the vehicle. They'd killed him somewhere else and brought him here. I just had to track them in reverse.
