I feel her swoon as if she physically did, the emotional bond she put in place between us a strange adjustment, though I absolutely love it. There’s no wondering if she’s being honest, if she’s upset and trying to hide it. Though admittedly, it’s weird to suddenly get a heart boner when she looks at one of us. I like the others, sure, but not quite that much.
Squeezing my arm once before pulling away, she slips her hand into the bear’s, and I just smile like a love-struck fool. Even with as hard as the two idiots have made everything, she knows exactly what they need, doesn’t hesitate to step in where she’s most needed without second guessing herself.
“You don’t know where you’re going. The only logical choice is to send Hawk in as the canary to the coal mine first and then follow him,” she chirps.
Ian returns, sipping his coffee and looking better than he even did in Shady Grove. “I don’t even care if we’re murdered now,” he sighs blissfully.
There’s a small chirp that has us all pausing. Esmerelda slides her backpack off of her shoulder, digging in the side pocket to withdraw her phone. After reading the text, she releases a heavy breath before powering it off, removing the SIM card and battery.
Passing it over to Rheyas, she asks, “Care to do the honors?” When he looks at her in confusion she elaborates, “Burner phones only work because you ditch them so they can’t be traced.”
With a nod, he crushes it in his hand easily, taking the battery from her next and walking over to a nearby trashcan to drop the pieces. The SIM card Rel takes more care in pulverizing under her boot, ensuring it’s thoroughly destroyed beyond recognition.
“What did the text say?”
She bites the inside of her cheek, eyes flitting nervously to Ian. “Rin knew they’d be tracking you, so to try and throw them off the trail and make everything easier paperwork wise, she…reported you as dead.”
Ian takes a long drink of his coffee, nodding to himself and looking far less shocked by the development than I’d imagine he would. “Rin’s the executor of my will anyway, so it’ll make things easier. And if the people hunting you think I’m dead, they won’t be using me to try and track you, will have to find a new lead assuming you killed me to cover your tracks and bolted.”
“You’re taking this awfully well,” I point out, wondering what the hell they’re slipping in the coffee these days. If I can get my hands on some of those chill pills, I can just keep spiking the mage’s food.
“You kidding me?” He actually grins. “Guess who doesn’t have to pay taxes anymore?”
Chuckling, Rel takes Rhey’s hand again and I lead the group through the factory, waving and nodding at familiar faces in greeting without stopping to chit chat. We have a firm rule that anything potentially sensitive is never discussed on the floor. No matter how the machinery helps to muffle sound, if you can hear someone else, there’s a possibility another is eavesdropping. And with the aroma of coffee permeating the air, it’s nearly impossible to be certain there isn’t someone hanging around that shouldn’t be.
Inputting a key code, I pull open a door and usher them through, the heavy weight of it slamming shut behind us echoing down the hallway. There are a couple of offices here, but we bypass them all and follow the bend before reaching another door. A new code for this one, and another series of doors lining the hall.
Taking the one to the basement, we descend the cement stairwell, spiraling down. The lights are already on in the huge storage space, shelves lining the walls laden with supplies and pallets in rows throughout the rest of the space. It has a high ceiling to combat the claustrophobia of being underground, because as damn near any shifter will tell you, feeling cramped or confined makes us twitchy. We were born to run, to tear through nature and stretch our legs, not live in the human’s concrete jungles or small spaces.
“Ah yes, the ever popular murder basement.” Ian finishes off his coffee, tossing it in the trashcan beside the stairs. “So what’ll it be, wolf? Lotion pit? Dungeon?”
Rel snorts. “Glad to see you’re back to your delightful self. Ian’s not Ian without caffeine.”
He tucks his hands in his pockets, kissing her cheek as he returns to the group. “Coffee and finally getting here certainly helps, but I don’t know, there’s just something incredibly… relieving, about dying. No more expectations or obligations, stressing about bill deadlines. A dead man doesn’t have to pay for car insurance. I left the city because I was trying to remove myself from society and all of its bullshit.”
“You were kidnapped, I thought,” Rheyas interjects and Ian rolls his eyes.
“At first, but I had to go back for my stuff and terminate my lease. It’s just-“ he rakes a hand through his dark hair “- freeing, I suppose.”
The look my mate gives him may only be a fraction of the relief that the mage is feeling, but it still causes me to rub the heel of my hand over my chest. A strange combination of pride, hope, and a bone-deep ache that I don’t really understand.
Why so sad?
“Not really sure. Maybe that he lost everything because of me?”
He doesn’t seem upset about that though, he looks better than I’ve ever seen the stress-ball.
She hesitates a moment, struggling to gather her thoughts into something sensical instead of emotional.“I think I’m just jealous, maybe? I lost everything and became so bitter and cynical because of it. Yet he’s taking it in stride so easily.”
Ah, that makes sense. But you’ve got to see, love, the situations were completely different. You were cheated out of a life and blacklisted for not doing anything wrong. People hurt you and abandoned you; you have every right to be spiteful because of that.
Ian chose to walk away from his old life before Rin faked his death. He closed that chapter to move onto the next, with you. Of course he’s going to be in a good mood when not only he’s leaving all of the things that stressed him out behind, but you’re waiting for him in this next chapter of his life.
A low rumbling jerks my gaze upward, Rheyas’ violet eyes darkening with annoyance. “I don’t like that. No secrets.”
Gently raking her nails down his arm, Esmerelda draws his attention back to her. “Just being happy without wanting to sound like a sap, no secrets.”
His posture is rigid under her influence and I grin, crossing the room to the wall on the far right. Reaching behind the small boxes of sample sized bags, I rap my knuckles against the painted, brick wall. A moment later, one of them is removed, just a dark hole.
