Page 19 of Bound

“The crowds are the problem,” I reminded him. “We’re in a public relations war. The general public still believes the shapeshifter they call Athenawas responsible for the bombing back before Thanksgiving. If the fang-heads lure us out into a packed club, how much do you want to bet two or three of them will materialize in with assault rifles, kill a dozen people in the span of ten seconds, then ghost out before we can do a damn thing about it?”

Topher met my gaze from across the room, eyes dark, and I felt my cheeks heat. Quickly, I looked away. “If they wanted to do that, it would have been easy enough to take us out tonight. So why didn’t they?”

“Maybe they were worried about collecting the bounty without proof.” August reached over to scratch Castiel behind the ears, dropping a piece of romaine lettuce into his cage.

Brody snorted. “You know those things are high maintenance, right? They squeak and you come running with more vegetables than I have in my whole damn fridge.”

As if to prove his point, Dean emerged from a fleece tunnel like a multi-colored loofah, squawking indignantly upon discovering lettuce was being eaten and not by him. With a scornful look in my direction, he waddled over to Castiel’s side, indignantly picking up the other end of the lettuce leaf.

I smirked. “Says the person whose golden retriever eats an all-organic diet and goes to special doggie daycare for socialization and yoga.”

August bit back a grin. Brody shot me a dirty look. No one was supposed to know about the doga, which Brody claimed was improving Major’s relaxation and focus. On a positive note, the golden wonder had only eaten one of my library books the last time he’d been over, so maybe that was progress.

“How’s it any easier to pick one of us off at the club?” I asked.

“It’s not.” Brow furrowed, Brody rotated one of the pictures for a better look. “If we do this, we stay outside on the street. I don’t like the idea of us pinned down in a crowded room with no exits. The vamps have already proven they don’t care about collateral damage if it means taking one of us out.”

“What about Hayden?”

“She’s gonna have to cancel.”

River’s voice cut in over speakerphone. “You do that, and the undeads will just move the meeting to her gig the following night. Or next week. They found Topher effortlessly tonight. You’re fooling yourselves if you think they can’t get to him again.”

“Yeah,” Brody said. “Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way.”

The temperature in the room went arctic. “You think I organize their fucking day planners?”

“The Council had to know there was a hit out on Topher. Your information networks are state of the art. We’re your brothers, and you couldn’t even pick up the goddamn phone?”

“You really want to do this?” The scariest thing about River was that he didn’t lose control. Ethan and Dallas had once gotten into a brawl in the middle of Main Street that had backed up traffic for two blocks. Push River and… well, the last time someone had pushed River, we’d searched for him for two days only to learn he’d joined the Tracers.

“Let’s try to focus,” I said. “We’ve got six abductions out of Austin in the last six weeks, a hit out on Topher, and a ransom note for Kieran that was delivered an hour ago. This isn’t helping.”

And of course, did any of them listen?

“You know, I wondered why every time I had leave this past year and wanted to come home, no one would return my calls. I told myself it was because August was busy with the new job. That Dallas and Lacey were freaking out between finishing up renovations on the house and getting ready for the baby. Then after a while, it became clear you were all avoiding me. You didn’t want me to come home.”

“River—” I started.

“You want to know who finally called? Dallas.”

August and I exchanged a look. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Dallas had been exiled from the pack for four years when he was seventeen after accidentally infecting his human girlfriend with lycanthropy. He’d balked at the idea of shutting River out from the start.

“He said there was something going on with you,” River sneered. “That it wasn’t personal.”

Brody started to say something, but August cut a slashing motion across his throat in warning. He and River were only a year apart, the youngest out of all of us. They’d been all but inseparable from the day our parents had adopted August and later Ethan from foster care. River could read the innermost thoughts of everyone around him as effortlessly as if they were shouted in his face. He kept his own feelings tightly guarded from the world, August often the only one capable of getting inside his head, of cracking through the innumerable layers of armor he wore. It was the danger of knowing too many secrets. There was no one you could trust.

I shot off the couch, jabbing a finger in Brody’s direction and mouthing, don’t.

Which of course, Brody ignored. He and River had been butting heads for years, ever since the day Brody had asked River to become the pack second, and our youngest brother had left instead to join the Tracers.

“Grow up, River. You know why we couldn’t tell you. You’ve had a mole on the Council since last year. You were the one who warned us any information that got back to them could be compromised.”

“So you thought I couldn’t be trusted.”

“It’s the freaks you associate with that I don’t trust.”

August cringed, thumping his head against the bar. Oh, FFS. My phone buzzed with an incoming text.