I sink my fangs into her without hesitation, and she moans in response, stroking my hair as I take what I need. Her lycan blood is warm and familiar, easing the itch of my thirst with every pull from her vein.
When I raise my head again, she’s got that glazed look in her eyes that tells me she wants to take things upstairs to our room. I want that too, but it’s not going to happen.
“I’ve got to find Frost and his band of merry rebels,” I groan, rising to my elbows and pressing a soft, apologetic kiss to the side of her pretty, black-painted lips. “I hate it, but we don’t have time right now.”
Mia’s pout is almost comical, but she nods anyway. “Have you got any new leads?”
I shake my head while prodding at my injured side with my fingers, testing the healing ribs. “I haven’t looked yet. Let’s start with security footage from their getaway. Maybe we’ll find something new.”
Mia grabs her tablet from the table and leans back against me, dragging the hideous blanket she knitted for us over our laps as she does so. A few taps of her fingers and she’s into the Court’s security footage.
“That’s the van,” I mutter. “I can see the ghoul in the front.” We watch in silence as the traitors leave the building, carrying… “Why is she unconscious? She was on her own two feet before. Go back.”
Mia shoves her short dark bangs out of her face as she flicks between scenes, revealing the tiny stars tattooed just below the outer corners of her eyes. Before our eyes, the alpha drugs Evie and the brute catches her.
“Perhaps she wasn’t as willing as we assumed,” I mutter.
“You think she’s in trouble?”
I scoff. “Evie’s more than capable of getting herself out of it, if she is. She’s thefavourite, after all.”
Mia frowns. “You’re not concerned?”
“When have I ever cared what happened to anyone in my fucked up family? They all deserve whatever they get.”
She shrugs. “You always seem kind of sad whenever you mention her, that’s all.”
My cheek hurts and it takes me a second to realise it’s because I’m biting the inside of it. Every reminder of just how many secrets I’ve told Mia makes me worry. I keep almost nothing from my girlfriend, but if Cain ever finds out just how much she knows…
As far as my sire is concerned, I bunk in the compound with the lycan soldiers because he put me there “with the other mad dogs.” As far as he knows, Mia is my teammate and roomie, helpful for tracking down my targets, and nothing more.
Maybe it even started out that way, but it’s so much more now. There’s only one person in the world I give a shit about, and it’s the beta female snuggling up to me like I’m a teddy bear—and not a bloodsucking killer—as she waits for me to talk.
“Evie was never cruel, not like Callie and Bella can be,” I finally admit. “We’re not close, but that’s more my doing than hers. I hate everything she stood for.”
Mia nods. “You could never like her, because you hated everything vampire.”Even yourself. She doesn’t have to say the words, but they’re there.
I don’t answer. Instead, I flick my fingers across the tablet, playing the video again.
“Wait,” Mia orders, and I do as she asks, pausing the video as the door to the van slides closed. “Rewind, slower.”
I frown but do as she asks, going frame by frame.
“Who is that?” she asks, taking over and zooming in on the inside of the van. “He’s new.”
I frown as I study the man, hidden half in shadow, on the screen. His glasses reflect the light, but even then, he’s definitely not someone I’ve seen before. A new member of Frost’s band of merry men, or just a merc they hired for the job? I flick through the traitors in my mind, watching them get in the van, one by one.
Frost is in the driver’s seat and the pack greets both him and the stranger with the same level of familiarity. Casual pats and nods that scream intimacy beyond that you’d expect of mere acquaintances. Yes, Lycans are casual about touch, but only within their packs. He’s got to be connected to them on some deeper level to warrant any kind of physical affection. It’s the pat on the back he receives from the alpha, Gideon, that confirms it.
“He must be with them. I’ll clean up the image and run a scan through the databanks.”
“He’s lycan,” Mia mutters, and I don’t question her. Her kind always seems to be able to identify one another, even in pictures.
I set the scan to start and grin at her. “Well, there’s nothing else to do while the scan runs, and it could take an hour or more to check every person on the list. Want to help me shower?”
Mia’s smile makes my dead heart thud a little louder. “Race you,” she calls, already halfway there.
Chapter Twenty-Four
