“No!” He denied in unison with his twin.
“Yes!” Melinda rounded on them both. “We agreed.”
Oui, they had, but only to appease her. His brother had to know that.
Gabriel shrugged. “D’accord.You have an agreement, but I won’t be charging you, Melinda. I’ll take it out of my brothers’ hides on the training mats if I have to.”
Louis groaned. “Trust me, Melinda. Gabe will get his due. He won’t go easy on us because he’s our brother. He’s a bigconnardand neither of us, not even if Pierre and I work together, have defeated him yet.”
Pierre rubbed his ribs. “I still have bruises from last time. From before Christmas.”
Gabe grinned. “Sure, you do.”
“You should come and watch, Melinda,” said Stefanie, winking at their mate. “Hot and sweaty men, naked from the waist up, pounding on each other. Mm-mm.”
“Count me in,” said Annabelle.
Louis rolled his eyes. They didn’t need their help seducing their mate. Or maybe they did. With what was bound to go down today, they could use all the help they could get. Including the backup his brother was offering.
“Stay close, but out of sight,” Pierre said to Gabe. “We may not need you, but who knows what resources we’re up against. And we don’t want to spook Melinda’s client. If she runs, we may never find her. Melinda, when does your client want to meet?”
“In an hour.”
Louis slid the container of steaming-hot takeout across the bench and handed her a fork. “Plenty of time. We skipped breakfast. You need to eat first.”
Melinda pried the lid off the container. She glanced up, a question in her eyes.
“Shacha noodles, just how you like them.”
Vulnerability flashed across her face. “They’re my favorite. How did you…?”
Louis rounded the counter and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “The day we ran into you in the elevator. Remember?”
That softening in her eyes again, this time directed at him.
“Thank you, Louis.”
Louis.Again, she’d identified the correct twin. He shared a look with his brother. Hope flared in Pierre’s eyes. If they could neutralize Cordelia, if Melinda were to see her client for who, what, she truly was… They would still have one challenge, but they would have time to woo their little mate, let her get to know them, come to trust them before the big reveal. The situation was salvageable.
Chapter Seventeen
Pierre surveyed the dilapidated building from down the street. Dogpatch was indeed a mix of industrial and residential, as Annabelle had described. At the other end was a row of million-dollar condos with water views. This end had yet to be gentrified. A few abandoned dock warehouses remained, surrounded by chain-link fencing with Keep Out signs at intervals, faced off with disused mooring points and wharfs jutting into the San Francisco Bay. Except for a stray dog picking through rubbish, the place appeared deserted.
Melinda’s unease tickled his senses. They’d done an online search on the address before they’d left the penthouse, and dug into the sale records. The buildingwaslisted as owned by a Robert King. A man who, he’d discovered with a little digging, had died in nineteen seventy-six and whose sudden resurrection this morning didn’t come as a surprise. According to Annabelle, Cordelia didn’t have a husband. Lots of family, who she ruled over with ruthless authority, but no husband. It was a running joke in the coven she’d mated with the devil himself, and her progeny were the spawn of hell.
The Robert King identity was flimsy—a rush job. He’d cracked it in minutes. By silent agreement between him, his twin and Gabe, they hadn’t told Melinda. There was a chance Cordelia would be there. A small chance, but they had nothing else to go on.
Melinda peered through the car’s windscreen. “Are we sure this is the building?”
The satellite view hadn’t come close to conveying the emptiness, the abandoned air that hung over the four warehouses in front of them. She flipped open her laptop and double checked the address. “This is it. The address she gave me.”
If she’d wanted to call a halt to this, to turn around and go back to the penthouse suite, he wouldn’t have blamed her. Instead, she squared her shoulders and stepped out of the car. She might be slight, and barely reach their shoulders, but their little mate had courage and determination packed into that tiny body of hers.
The crisp bay air hit him as he stepped out onto the bitumen, and Pierre opened up his senses. No hint of a ward, but there was something else. A slight deadening of sensation he’d come to associate with the presence of wolfsbane. Faucherians? Maybe. But Cordelia had to know of their weaknesses, too.
Wolfsbane, the curse of their existence. An herb with a pretty purple flower, it had a devastating impact on werewolves. Unlike humans, they didn’t have to ingest it to feel its effects. In small doses, it dulled their senses, neutralizing the advantage they had over humans. In larger quantities, it took away any control they had over their form. They would continue to shift from human to wolf and back again until they escaped the presence of the herb. Or until their body used up all energy and they died.
The warehouse was a trap. Of course it was. They’d known it would be. The only one who thought differently was Melinda.
