AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I could have told them that. “How powerful?” Max inquires.
Orson puts it into context, coining a new unit of measurement. “Collectively, about three and a half Simons.”
Three and a half? Shit. It’s worse than I thought.
“Splendid,” I say, drifting over towards the balcony. “Less than a Simon for us each to tackle.”
“But spread across several structures,” says Braxton. “Not a tactical nightmare, but not exactly an ideal situation.”
“Lemme see,” I say, reaching for the binoculars.
He narrates while I peer through their magnifying lenses. “You’ve got the main building, sittin’ pretty in the middle, but then surrounding it are about a half-dozen others. Likely housing support staff, maybe rooms for guest spillover. Then, of course, they’re keeping their hostages, your pack members, somewhere on the compound.”
“Where would be your guess?” Max asks.
“In the basement,” I suggest easily, recalling the dark, damp confines of my own imprisonment.
Braxton nods. “Valuable assets you keep close to the chest, stow them in the most fortified position.”
I don’t exactly like the idea of calling my pack members assets, but I guess they are here. And, I guess, I can’t exactly be too sensitive when we’re in the middle of a life-or-death mission.
“So, in order to free them, we have to penetrate deep into enemy territory,” Max states.
“After we get through my brother and a pack of Blood Mages,” I add.
“Sounds easy enough,” says Orson, shutting his computer.
Trouble suddenly races into the bedroom, having busied himself with the smells of every room in the rented house, and leaps onto the bed. He stares at his owner and barks once, as if delivering a brief missive. I stiffen. By now I’ve realized that Trouble isn’t like a normal dog. Everything he does is for a reason.
Braxton straightens his back, apparently having understood with perfect clarity the intention behind Trouble’s bark. “Someone’s here,” he says, his voice low.
Tension grips the room. In the silence that follows, we perk our lupine ears to foreign sounds, picking out the noises that don’t belong. When the doorbell rings, it might as well be a heavy metal pot clattering on the tile floor of the kitchen downstairs. I jump, then immediately clear my throat and don a scowl in an effort to conceal my skittishness.
Please don’t let it be them. It can’t be them. We’ve done nothing to give our position away. I need to calm down. I need to be logical, like my men.
Max’s gaze connects with each of ours before he moves into the hallway. We all fall in line behind him and descend quietly to the first floor. Max approaches the front door and the rest of us fan out like a squad of black ops soldiers.
Which, I suppose, is what we are, isn’t it?
A quiet growl emits from Trouble’s throat as he and his owner watch Max raise his hand to the lock. Orson stands beside me, his even breaths gently puffing against my neck. If we weren’t all expecting some kind of saboteur right now, I’d probably be turned on.
Alright, I’m a little turned on, anyway.
Sometimes the division between fear and arousal thins to the width of a razorblade.
“It’s just our contact,” Max says, peering through the opaque, diamond-shaped window in the top third of the door. “I’d recognize that frame anywhere.” He swings open the door and greets the man on the other side. “Thomas, come in.”
Thomas, the big, bald Enforcer with the booming voice, strides into the rented house and nods to each of us. “Evening,” he says.
Just the image of him takes me back to the day we’d come to that town. To the day when my brother had created that web around the town, filling the whole space with darkness. Bodies littered the ground. He nearly killed Max, and I learned that he was lost forever.
Braxton squeezes the back of my arm gently, and I refocus on the present, realizing that not only has my breathing grown ragged, but Trouble’s staring, sitting at attention in front of me. I reach down and pet the dog, grateful for the grounding presence of both him and my men.
Max invites Thomas into the living room with the sweep of his arm. Thomas plods from the foyer to the couch, taking up half of it when he sits down. “Wasn’t easy securing this place,” he says, as though we, the crew on a suicide mission, should be grateful for the accommodations.
I bet it’d cost you more if you were sending your men to die in that mansion. The Blood Mages are quietly causing problems all over our country, as an illegal cult that doesn’t fall into the bounds of any other group. These men should be kissing our feet for taking the bastards on for them.
But I don’t say any of that. It won’t do any good. Besides, I know that’s not why he’s here.
