She’s perfect. She’s ours. And no one but us will ever touch her again.
With my anger back on a leash, it’s easier to concentrate on Jack’s torture for the purpose of information instead of burning off some rage. Half an hour of deciphering his blubbering later, we have everything that he’s able to give us. His contacts, his system, and how he doesn’t keep records so that nothing could be traced back to him, and he didn’t really have a reason to, anyway. If an opportunity showed up, he jumped on it. Used the connections he had access to through working for us to scope for information, putting out feelers to see what packs were suddenly missing their girl, then making contact for reward money, or selling them off to the highest bidder.
“How long?”
I’m met with silence as he strives to surrender into unconscious oblivion, but driving my fist into his gut reminds him how to speak, even if it’s more of a wheeze. “About seven years.”
“Anything else you’d like to share?”
He shakes his head, tears flowing unrestrained. Kodi casually flicks his hand, the knife he tossed exploding into hundreds of slivers, leaving shallow cuts across Jack’s body before returning to reform into a perfect blade again in his palm. Tiny rivulets of blood coat Jack’s bruised skin, turning him into a macabre painting I’m tempted to display outside city limits as a warning.
But I know how to be patient.
Kodi follows me out, locking the door behind us with a metallic clang, sealing his fate with a foreboding echo of finality that has his head jerking up, eyes wide. “Wait,” he pleads. “Aren't you going to kill me?”
The dark, humorless laugh that echoes around his cell has him flinching. “And let you get off easy? Oh no, Jack. You’re here until we’ve tracked down and rescued every single person you fucked over, so you’d better get comfortable.”
***
Night’s fallen in fullforce again by the time we leave, the street lights guiding our path as we walk home rather than fly, needing a little longer to shake off our aggression before facing our sweet mate.
There are enough people still on the streets to blanch at the two of us leisurely strolling down the sidewalk covered in blood spatter, the scent of Jack’s terror and unwashed stench likely clinging to our skin and sending the shifters with sensitive noses abruptly changing direction. Everyone in Khalida is well-aware we aren’t a threat to them, typically meeting our gazes with smiles and appreciation. But no one wants to draw the attention of a dragon out for blood, and they give us a wide berth tonight.
Kodiak subtly scans our surroundings, searching for anything out of the ordinary. “So, how do you want to handle this?”
“Cross reference bank records of large deposits with phone calls the days leading up to it, see if there are any cameras near Jack’s apartment building, and how far back their footage is stored so we can identify as many faces as possible to run through a recognition software. It’s going to-” with a weary sigh, I rake a hand through my hair. “Fuck, it’s going to be one hell of an undertaking. You and Stone might need to take point on it until I’ve got things under control with our current situation. I’ve got a few plans in place now, but I’d like to get through as many files as possible before things come to a head so we aren’t blindsided. The more people we know are with or against us, where there are heavy concentrations of enemy packs or potential safe zones to regroup between battles, the better.”
He tilts his head, contemplating something before nodding to himself and suggesting, “Carina dragged Amara into her plot to have me hire one of the men at her gym so she could watch them dance for her amusement, but it might actually work in our favor. If you can assign a team from your office to comb through Jack’s records to identify our targets, I can put together a specialty team to handle retrieving them.”
My shoulders slump in relief. “That’s a fantastic idea, let’s do it. I’ll check in the morning what projects I can pull people from, and get them started within the next couple of days. I’d prefer tonight, but I,” trailing off, I stop myself from admitting it out loud, feeling like a selfish piece of shit.
“But you don’t have a level head,” Kodi smooths over in case anyone is eavesdropping. “And as much as we wish we could save everyone tonight, it’s just not possible. We need to be smart so we aren’t sending good men into hostile situations unprepared, so that the people that need our help don’t become casualties.”
The, ‘we need a night with our mate in our arms to reassure our beasts that she’s safe,’ goes unsaid, but we both know it. Know that we’re selfish enough to want some time with her before stretching ourselves even more thin, trying to save everyone that needs help and wrestling with the desire to say ‘fuck it,’ and leave the rest of the world to figure out its own problems. Because right now it’s pretty damn close, and I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I abandoned them.
I love Amara, and I would do anything for her. But I don’t want to sacrifice everything that’s important to me either unless there’s no other choice, and I don’t know how to come to terms with being selfish. I should be able to give my mate everything without a second thought, but...
She’d never ask me to turn my back on people that are suffering and I had the power to help. I just need to find a better way to balance my time so I’m not putting work before her.
Kodi breaks me out of my thoughts, a sly smirk on his face. “Amara has a good eye. Her assessments were better than those I’ve actually hired to handle initial interviews and weed out candidates for me. And even with the world going to shit, we’re still supposed to be wooing our mate. ‘Courting,’ as the good doctor called it, remember? But we did promise to show Amara the way that she should be treated, and letting her needs fall through the cracks while we’re busy putting out fires isn’t the way to do it. So maybe we need to start multitasking a bit.”
I narrow my eyes, recognizing that gleam in his gaze. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
Kodiak simply grins, pulling out his phone and rapid firing off texts on our way home without another word.
