Page 76 of Hunted

DB? she called mentally, focusing on the amulet around her neck. If you can hear me, I might need some backup after all.

In the meantime, she had to stall. If only they hadn’t given her disinhibiting drugs, she might be able to control her smart mouth.

Oh, hell, who was she kidding? She couldn’t even do that sober.

“What are you planning in your evil nefarious brain?” she asked. “I assume you wanted to be alone with me for a reason?”

Oops. That sounded bad. Luckily, Thanatos seemed oblivious to double entendres. The only person she’d ever hung out with who was.

“First,” he said, “What did you do with the child?”

“Sent her away where she’ll be safe. And out of your clutches.”

He gazed at her—or she thought he did—but to her surprise, he didn’t object. Maybe the little girl’s safety was all he was concerned with.

But that didn’t mean he was concerned with her own safety. Thanatos did good things, but he wasn’t necessarily a good guy.

He said to her, “I recalled you here because you have information I have long been searching for—the whereabouts of a certain wolf named Tristan Barnes.”

Say what? She would have expected him to ask for inside Enforcer information—intelligence info, passwords, databases. Deployments and defenses. But Uncle Tristan? Most people on earth had forgotten he existed. “What do you want with Tristan?”

“That’s not your concern,” Thanatos said. “It has recently come to my attention that he is still alive, and that you—as a relative—not only know where he is, but how to get in touch with him.”

Of course she did—her Draken communication device was still with her stuff in Chicago. And DB was probably on his way from the Al-Maddeiri territory right now. But there was no way she was telling Thanatos any of that.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “It’s a secret.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said in measured tones. “And I’m also aware that you’re very stubborn, and it will take extraordinary measures to get the information from you.”

That didn’t sound at all good. Especially since he’d started out by drugging her. She said, “You do see the irony here, don’t you? On the one hand, you think I can’t be trusted to keep the secret of your location. On the other hand, you’re totally sure I won’t give up Tristan. So you do know I can be trusted.”

Thanatos ignored that. “I also know that there are such things as mind probes. Even if you do not wish to give up information about our whereabouts, it doesn’t mean you won’t. Fortunately for me, the same applies to the whereabouts of Tristan Barnes.”

He gestured behind him, and a man stepped out of the shadows. “This man here is a leading expert in extracting information from unwilling minds. You will give me this information, or he will go into your mind and take it from you.”

Michelangela narrowed her eyes. The fact that she was part white wolf—and that she had been trained in certain kinds of mind work—was not in her official files. Very few people knew about it. Thanatos might have figured it out, since her uncle was a white wolf. But she was pretty sure he really had no idea what he was dealing with. Especially with an unknown drug in the mix. This could get real ugly, real fast.

She said, “Maybe he can, maybe he can’t. But even if you get the information, you won’t be able to use it. Nobody finds Uncle Tristan unless he wants to be found.”

Thanatos said coolly, “He will want to be found—if he knows I have you. Once I get what I want from him, you will be returned.”

“Just like that?” It couldn’t be that simple.

“Just like that. Your memories of this place—and of Gunnar Jorgenson—will be wiped out, and you will go on with your life.”

Michelangela felt like the floor had been cut from under her. He was going to try to wipe her fated mate out of her mind? Could that even be done?

Behind her, the wolves were stirring uneasily.

She said, “Do you have any idea what that will do to Gunn?”

“He will return to his responsibilities,” Thanatos said.

Michelangela wanted to jump over the table and beat some sense into his shadowy head. “We’re mates, you idiot,” she said. “We’re bonded. His wolf won’t get over that. And he certainly won’t work for you.”

“The call of the pack will hold him here.” He sounded so certain—and he had no fucking idea what he was talking about.

“You’re evil,” she said.