“Professor Shaw is actually pretty cool,” Leo mutters. Often Grayson’s chaperone in those early days, Leo had enjoyed his Earth professor’s lemon shortbread cookies on more than one occasion.
“We’re being followed.”
There’s a kerfuffle on the other end of the line, then abrupt silence.
“Did it occur to you to head to Sentinel? Or the Guarda? Or any other place than an abandoned parking lot?” Gideon’s voice is a little bitter, no doubt pissed that for the second time this week, he’s going to be denied making someone bleed.
A muscle ticks in Jay’s jaw, and Grayson can tell it’s more than anger. Something deeper rolls through him, straightening his shoulders, like the part of him that knows he is Pack Alpha of a magnificent and growing pack. It seems to fill him. His chest expands on a breath.
“I am done letting them tell me how this is going to go, Gideon,” he declares.
Grayson feels it in his soul. They’re not cornered. They’re choosing to stand their ground.
“We’re in enough trouble as it is, and I just got awarded my new extended pack status. But, it’s time they learn Grayson isn’t alone in this.”
Gideon sighs on the other end of the phone. “I can’t even tell you you’re wrong. Dammit. Okay. We’re headed into the safe room in case they get any ideas about added leverage. I will wait exactly one hour, and then I will see you there.”
“Stay with the kids, Gid,” Grayson says. He can see the signage for Ruckus up ahead. They’re almost there. “We gotta go. Love you.”
Jay kills the connection.
“You said two magical signatures, and given the vehicle, no more than four more. Leo, when we stop, take my keys and get inside with Nix.”
Nix growls in protest. “Fuck that, James. I am immune to magic if you recall, and the last time someone came formypack—” He stops abruptly, a grimace flashing over his face for a brief second.
The memory of Dill Pickle’s violent death—or Withers’s—isn’t a pleasant one for him. It isn’t something he wears like a trophy. It’s a scar, not a boast. When Nix says it, he’s not bragging about taking a life. He’s stating a boundary that the world has already tested too many times.
They all should remember, no one here is as fast or as deadly as Nix Rhodes when his pack is threatened. Not Jay. Not Grayson. And certainly not anyone in that SUV. Add four months of Sentinel training to instincts honed across lifetimes, and he is not posturing. He is prepared.
Especially if there’s a mind manipulation talent in that SUV—that will make Jay and Leo most vulnerable.
Leo rolls into the lot with the same controlled patience he’s used since the SUV appeared in their mirrors. Ruckus fills the right side of the space in a blaze of color. It’s hand-painted murals reflecting the urban street art that’s always inspired him. The converted warehouse is all brick and glass. It’s Grayson’s vision made real, but the lot itself is quiet, the new asphalt stilldark, the brand new white lines almost too bright in the noon sun.
Driving past the building, he takes them to the back, where the lot runs parallel to the busy street but somehow feels cut off from it. To their left sits the cistern Gideon uses to irrigate his ridiculous herb beds. The rear of the sedan settles against the fence and shrubs, the engine ticking in the stillness.
This is as strategic a location as any.
Grayson
“See you soon,” Nix whispers, and slips out the passenger door before Grayson can grab his wrist.
He blows Grayson a kiss—bright, ridiculous, beloved—and then he’s gone into the shrubs like he’s made of sunlight and bad intentions. One second there, the next swallowed by green.
The black SUV pauses at the mouth of the lot, as if waiting for Grayson to do something unexpected. After a moment, it glides along the bright white lines as if whoever is inside knows the lot as well as they do, its tinted windows swallowing any hint of faces, the vehicle’s body reflecting the mural colors in smeared, ugly patches.
Grayson’s fingers tighten on his knees before he realizes they’re shaking. He reaches for The Plain out of instinct, the vast place where colors swirl and glitter, roiling over each other in every shade.
While he can’t see Nix, he can feel his heart and their bond wide open. His soulmate isn’t worried or anxious. He’s anticipatory.
Jay is still as stone, his breath measured, with his shoulders seemingly broader than usual, as if the car cannot contain him. Leo’s scent is burnt cinnamon, with a simmering anger he reserves for the world’s injustices.
“Stay here,” Jay grunts as he opens his door.
Fuck that.
Grayson is already moving before his brain catches up, body following Jay like the pull of gravity. He steps out into the late morning heat, the air brighter than it has any right to be, and the first thing he notices is the smell of sun on asphalt and warm paint. The faint sound of far-off police sirens and local traffic gives it that weird, mundane, everyday feeling when this is anything but.
They’re poised for a moment on the edge of something, where time has slowed to a crawl. Then the SUV’s door opens, and everything picks up speed.
