“Then we’d better hurry, because if we are, we’re all damned.”
Getting dressed is more difficult than I expected. I move like an ancient shifter, wincing and groaning as I pull on a shirt and change my pants. At one point I consider going sock-less because bending over almost made me pass out.
If this was any other scenario, I’d admit I was too injured to go on a rescue mission. But there isn’t anything in the world that would keep me from finding Haven. Good thing I’m a fast healer with a high pain tolerance. Bad thing that we’re in the middle of New York City. If I could shift into my dragon form, it would speed up my healing, but there’s nowhere close for me to do that unseen.
I make it up to the strategy room just as Kade is starting the brief. There aren’t as many of us here as I expected, just a handful of humans and creatures. Less than a dozen. I recognize all of them.
They nod when I enter the room and take a seat next to Violet, the human who used to be part of the Florida chapter of the Order. She relocated to NYC after the battle in Central Park. I don’t know her well, but Talon and Locklyn are close with her. She gives me a wan smile as I settle, and I ignore the pity in her gaze.
“Thank you, everyone, for being willing to be part of this mission,” Kade starts. “As you all know by now, we failed in securing the asset, and now the demon has her. It’s our top priority to get her away from it. I won’t sugarcoat it. This mission is high risk. The demon’s powers are formidable, and we’ll be up against its followers as well. There’s a good chance we might all not come back from it. But securing the asset is of the utmost importance.”
I grit my teeth at Kade’s repeated reference to Haven as “the asset,” but I keep my mouth shut.
Jeremy, seated at the far end of the table, raises his hand. “If this objective is that important, why are there so few of us?”
Kade crosses his arms, his expression hardening. “Ideally, we’d go in there with a full contingent of members, but our organization has been breached. You’re the only ones I trust right now.”
There are murmurs around the table. By now, most of them must know about Ares.
“It’s not ideal,” Kade says, quieting the side conversations. “But if we’re going into this fight, I’d rather go into it with those I’m confident will have my back. This is a stealth mission. If all goes to plan, we’ll be in and out quickly with the asset and a large team won’t be necessary.”
“And if it doesn’t go to plan?” Jax asks, a young wolf shifter who’s a good fighter but a bit of a hothead.
Kade’s gaze slides over to him. “Then we’ll adapt. But keep in mind that if we don’t get the asset away from the demon, and soon, the world as we know it is over. Its power will be unparalleled, like nothing we’ve ever seen, and it will be gunning for every man, woman, and child on the planet.”
Silence follows that comment until someone speaks up. “Okay, where do we begin?”
Kade spends the next half-hour briefing us. The demon has been working with a vampire clan. He believes that is who has been feeding the demon information over the past year or so, trying to locate Haven. Kade’s had members of the clan tailed the last two weeks, and several were spotted coming and going from sewer entry points throughout the city. He believes that’s where the demon took Haven.
“How do we know he hasn’t already taken the asset’s power and killed her?” someone asks, and the question stabs a sharp pain to the middle of my chest.
“Besides the fact that we’re still alive?” Kade asks with a raised brow. “We think it might be waiting for a celestial event to ascend to its full power. Perhaps the lunar eclipse where there’s a blood moon, which is in two days. If this information is correct, then we have a little time.”
“And if we don’t?”
Kade stares the guy down. “Then we’re already dead.”
“Where did you get this information?” I ask, and Kade glances at me. The look on his face says I’m not going to like his answer.
“Ares.”
Yep. Don’t like that.
“And you trust him?”
“It’s the best intel we have at the moment.”
So no, but we don’t have any other choice.
“Something else you all need to be aware of is that the demon’s powers seem to have grown,” Kade says, addressing the room. “There has been a string of recent murders up and down the New England coast we think are linked to the demon. We didn’t initially put the pieces together because its M.O. changed from young women in their late teens or early twenties, to being far less discriminant. We think there’s a chance it’s killing to grow its magic.”
“Why do you think that?” Violet asks with a frown.
“I’ve seen it myself,” he says, his gaze tracking over to me. “Becks has experienced it.”
I nod and shift in my seat. Pain spikes in both my back and chest where I was struck. “It’s true. I fought it more than once. During the first interactions, it was strong, but this last time it unleashed some sort of dark magic it didn’t have before. Like a stream of dark smoke or mist. It dropped me in two hits, and that’s not easy to do.”
I glance around the table, noting that there are more humans here than creatures. If any of the humans take a direct hit, they won’t live to talk about it like I am now.
