“Fine.” Deville doesn’t do a great job at hiding his victorious grin, pulling us into the road and heading away from the shore and out of Newport.
The cu-sith prowls after us, having no issue keeping up with the car. Though DeVille is careful to follow the lowered speed limits while in town. Unless the universe lends the cu-sith some ability to walk unnoticed — as it does me — or the beast’s own nature keeps him concealed, sightings are certain to be streaming into the MC. Thankfully, any nulls likely won’t notice the beast at all, and any shifters in the area will know to look — and move quickly — in the opposite direction.
I sink into my seat, content to just enjoy the normalcy that comes from hanging out with the teens. When they’re not being actively threatened, at least.
Eight
The boundary wards surrounding the Outcast pack house allow all of us in the car through unimpeded, but they give the cu-sith some trouble. I turn around to shake my head at the beast as he paces the mouth of the drive behind us, trying to strongly suggest he not tear through the layers of essence stopping him from following.
But even if the cu-sith saw and understood my caution, I’m not certain he’ll heed my directive.
“Shouldn’t we be sneaking in?” DeVille asks. “We did that the other times we visited Bellamy, like through the tunnels connecting the house to the utility building.”
‘Utility building’ is an interesting euphemism for the garage that I assume also masquerades as a command center, featuring holding cells designed to contain shifters — and currently holding a dire awry.
DeVille has presumably picked up that description from his stepfather, the Outcast. It isn’t unheard of for a shifter pack — whether or not they’re also a motorcycle club — to have such cells in or near their main pack house. There are plenty of reasons why a shifter might need to be held for their own safety. And for the safety of others.
Bellamy isn’t a shifter, however, and therefore isn’t subject to the Outcast’s laws and regulations — neither the shifter nor the motorcycle club of the same name. Granted, the null police force can’t handle a dire awry either. Had he wanted to punish Bellamy for all the shit she pulled against his club and his pack, the Outcast would have handed her over to the Authority.
Which means he’s holding her for another reason. Leverage, maybe. But against who?
“I doubt you snuck anywhere,” I say, quietly reprimanding the teens. “The runes etched throughout the house, plus the totems set outside it, likely allow the Outcast to stretch his senses across the entire property.” Not to mention that a shifter of the Outcast’s power might be able to track people, especially any shifters bound to him, even beyond that.
“What?” Presh squeaks. “Like, he knows … everything that happens on the property?”
“He knows.”
“Fuck,” DeVille mutters. “But that means —”
The ornately carved, double-wide front door of the large house, its wooden siding graying and unadorned, opens. The Outcast steps out, flanked by Grinder and another slightly older shifter wearing an Outcast cut. The three of them, even with Grinder and the other shifter tucked slightly behind the Outcast, are so huge that they block the full doorway behind them and more.
DeVille slams on the brakes, jerking us harshly against our seat belts, though we weren’t rolling up the driveway terribly quickly.
“Ouch, Andy!” Presh cries.
“You said you wouldn’t call me that anymore!” he snaps, not taking his eyes off the three imposing, leather-clad shifters awaiting our arrival.
“That’s what you’re concerned about right now?” she growls back at him.
I open the car door, stepping out.
DeVille shuts off the engine, hastily following me. Presh slips out behind him.
I pause a few feet away from the trio of shifters, offering Grinder a grin. “I understand I owe Pinky a thank you.”
Grinder doesn’t smile back, but he’s not unfriendly either. Just serious. The gray in his dark hair and beard, both clipped short, is stark against his dark skin. “That was a debt owed, Conduit. And more than willingly paid.”
I settle my gaze on the Outcast. “It was a risk.”
Grinder huffs doubtfully, but it’s the ire flitting across the Outcast’s expression that I’m watching for. I need to know how to handle him — both in this specific moment and in our relationship beyond this.
“Whatever the Outcast MC could do to secure your safety, Conduit,” the Outcast says, standing tall and stiff but without his cane, “it was gladly done.” His starburst eyes, scarred from when my aunt rejected his soul bond, I now believe, catch in the sunlight for a moment before they settle on me.
I hum, allowing just a little of my disbelief to filter through. I don’t believe that the Outcast had anything to do with the favor Pinky called in for me when she reached out to her former sister-in-law, Angie, and through her, Jewels. The elder shifter might not have even known about that series of conversations until after the fact. As a mage, and even with her connection to Grinder, Pinky isn’t tied to the Outcast as tightly as a shifter of his pack would be.
I don’t quite understand my own uneasiness regarding my soul-bound mates’ uncle. It might be the rejected soul bond with my aunt that I’m subconsciously picking up that irks my senses. It might be all the lies he fed my mates, confirming my apparent death thirteen years before even though he had to know I was still alive.
Either way, the two of us stare at each other for a long moment. Then I deliberately close my eyes and tip my head back to just breathe. “The air here is different,” I murmur truthfully. “Replenishing.”
