“Her profile is perfect for it. She’s a widow who came out of retirement in exchange for Lucian rescuing her young grandson from his mother’s clutches and having full custody transferred to her. It could appear that you threatened Addison to make her comply. It’d give you more credibility with her, too, showing results.”
“So long as you give me good tidbits to pass on.” That reminded me of another potential issue. “What about the spy eyes? With only Arabesque to watch, they’ll all converge on her now, and she’ll notice that immediately.”
“They have a limited amount of power, which will be running out any day now. They self-destruct, too. When they’re down to an hour of magical battery, they bury themselves six inches deep in dirt. Once their magic dissipates, the parts dismantle and dissolve.”
“Ko thought of everything,” I smirked, not surprised. Nobody in the supernatural world was marrying technology and magic like the youngest Cimmerian.
“My brother’s a tech genius with trust issues. Makes for excellent surveillance equipment.”
I glanced at my watch. I needed to get moving if I was going to make it back to the homestead in time to burn Austin’s remains and bury the ashes before I had to return to the rogue encampment. Couldn’t leave them alone too long or my ‘army’ started eating each other.
“I gotta go, Z. Need to call my other employer.”
“Tell King Julian we saidaloha,” he laughed, then his voice suddenly went serious. “Hey, Fosterama, you okay, man?”
“I told you, Eluned wasn’t—”
“Nother. The kid. Austin.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“Since when do dhampirs play therapist?” I growled once I recovered.
“Since a lunar witch looked at three monsters and kissed them anyway. Listen, hang in there, Fossman. We appreciate what you’re doing. All of us, including Seri.”
I only grunted and hung up, uncomfortable with the gratitude. This wasn’t about appreciation or doing the right thing. This was about survival. Mine and, incidentally, theirs. The sooner Arabesque was permanently removed from the picture, the sooner I could go back to my own life.
Whatever the hell that’s supposed to look like now.
A part of me wanted out of this spy role. The Moon Mother only knew how much longer it would be before Arabesque discovered I was working for not one, but two of her enemies. Then my pelt was as good as skinned. Arabesque didn’t waste time with quick deaths. She’d drag it out, make an example of me. She’d probably collect my screams in one of those little crystal vials she kept in her study, save them for a rainy day when she needed the sound of betrayal for some twisted spell.
I tossed my empty coffee cup into the passenger footwell and pulled back onto the road, driving aimlessly while the sun climbed higher. The cooler seemed to have its own gravity, pulling my gaze toward it every few minutes. The heart of a kid who’d just wanted to escape his family’s legacy of violence.
Working as a double agent, triple agent at this point, was a special kind of exhausting. The Cimmerians thought I was their inside man with Arabesque. King Julian thought I was reporting exclusively to him. Arabesque believed I was her loyal enforcer, overseeing her rogues and carrying out her every command.
The truth was, I wasn’t loyal to any of them. Not really.
I’d joined Arabesque’s circle because King Julian asked me to find out why rogues were massing in the area. In exchange for feedinghim information, he’d provide protection when the witch eventually fell.
I wasn’t stupid enough to refuse a king, and for a while, I’d even enjoyed it. No pack politics, no alpha posturing, just me doing what I did best: Adapting, surviving, moving through the shadows.
Enter the Cimmerians and their new bride. I’d been friends with the brothers for years now, so when they reached out, asking for eyes and ears on Arabesque Harrow, I’d agreed since I was already on site anyway. They’d proposed their own ‘reward,’ too: Once the dust settled, they’d ensure I had a safe place to call home.
So here I am, neck-deep in everyone’s schemes, just trying to keep my head above water.
I was a lot of things, but a martyr wasn’t one of them. Self-preservation had always been my guiding principle. Do what you need to survive, worry about the rest later. But lately, “the rest” had been getting harder to ignore.
The other part of me, though, wanted to see this through to the end. There were a few of the rogues I’d save if I could. Three pups, each barely eighteen, who’d either been born into trouble or caught in something that wasn’t their fault. Just like Austin Cho.
Cosmo, with his shock of white-blond hair and perpetually haunted eyes. His father had been Claudio Kane’s beta, killed during a territorial dispute. The kid had nowhere else to go, so he’d stayed, doing menial tasks around the encampment, trying to be invisible. He flinched at loud noises and stared too long at exit doors.
Next was Devi, all quiet defiance wrapped in a tiny frame. She’d been captured during a raid on a faraway pack, originally intended as leverage. When the pack refused to negotiate, Claudio Kane kept her, amused by her spirit. The girl had adapted, learned to appear compliant while watching, waiting, full of raw determination to escape. She was the hardest to protect, and the remains of the last wolf who’d tried to touch her were now spread across three counties, his fangs in my collection jar.
Then came Elio, who’d stumbled into camp half-starved and delirious after his pack was decimated by hunters. He had a gift for languages and an impressive memory. He was the smartest of the three, but also the most vulnerable. His keen mind recognized exactly how precarious his situation was, making him panic more often than not.
Finally, there was Dominic, only a couple of years younger than me. He’d had to kill his mate after she went insane from being poisoned with silver and wolfsbane by their luna. I didn’t know his whole story, but I could tell the dude had no business here among realrogues. He moved like someone carrying a ghost on his back, going through the motions of living without actually being alive. His eyes reminded me of my own, seeing too much and yet nothing at all.
None of them belonged in Arabesque’s twisted world. They’d been pulled in by circumstance, not choice, and leaving them to whatever fate awaited them when Arabesque finally went down? Yeah, that felt wrong in a way I wasn’t entirely comfortable examining.
