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s he stared at the dead blocking the door.
“So,” he said, voice holding just a hint of anger. No surprise there, I guess, given anger seemed to be his go-to emotion. “You’re not the kind of shifter we’d presumed.”
“It’s not my fault you presumed wrong.” I leaned against the wall and briefly closed my eyes. Now that we were relatively safe, reaction set in, and it was all I could do not to collapse on the floor in a trembling, crying mess. Some of that reaction came from the ghosts milling around me, their collective energy so close and thick my skin tingled and jumped in reaction. I reassured them the best I could, praising them for the bravery and their skill in handling the vampires and protecting our home. After a few minutes, their fear began to ease and a few even gathered enough courage to drift closer to the pile of vampires. But they didn’t step beyond the light, and I can’t say I blamed them.
“What were you doing in Central?” Jonas asked. He’d finally lowered his weapon but hadn’t slipped the safety back on. Can’t say I blamed him for that, either.
“What were you doing following me?” I countered. “And how did you even know it was me, given the body shift?”
He half snorted. “I am—or was—a ranger. Following scents is something we do.”
And it was a generally accepted fact that a person’s scent never changed. Only it wasn’t exactly true—not for those of us created as lures. I could change scents if I so desired, but it took a lot of effort, and it made retaining the altered form all that much harder. Which was why many of us were simply relocated to a completely different area every new mission; it was easier than attempting to hold full body and scent transformations over weeks, or even months.
Of course, not altering my base scent was something that had almost killed me, after I’d been placed in a shifter camp that contained refugees from a camp I’d previously infiltrated. In fact, that mission going so wrong had been the reason I’d been here with the little ones when they’d unleashed the gas.
I thrust the bloody memories from my mind, then pushed away from the wall and stalked over to the smoldering mountain of flesh blocking the tunnel exit.
“Why were you following me in the first place? And how the hell did you even know I was going to be in Central?” I paused, looking over my shoulder, meeting his wary, angry gaze. “Nuri?”
He nodded. “She said you’d appear on the corner of Victory and Twelfth sometime after noon. She’s rarely wrong.”
Which made her far more than just a mind seeker. It meant she was a witch—a proper witch. One of the earth witches, who could not only read the future in the play of the world’s natural forces and energy, but control the magic within it as well. And that made her, as I’d guessed, far more dangerous than any of the shifters she seemed to command.
“And why would she order me followed when I made it perfectly clear I wanted nothing to do with either of you or your mission?”
I grabbed a body on top of the pile and dragged it down into the light, where it immediately erupted into flame. As the smell of burning flesh began to stain the air, a shadow lashed out from the space created, forming claws that slashed at my face. I jerked back, watching as the vamp’s arm exploded into fire the minute the light touched it, the ash of his skin swirling as he snatched the disintegrating limb back into the darkness. Grimly, I raised my weapons, aimed them through the small gap I’d created, and shot the hell out of the remaining vampires—or, at least, those who were too stupid to immediately run.
When both weapons clicked over to empty, I turned to find Jonas watching me, his usual angry expression touched by a hint of curiosity. It disappeared almost immediately, but it was, perhaps, a glimpse that there was more than anger to this man.
“You didn’t answer my question, ranger.”
I glanced up as Cat brought me fresh ammo unasked. I silently thanked her and reloaded the weapon before clipping it back onto its loop and heading for the exit. Jonas was here now, and short of throwing his ass back out into the night, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. Nor was it practical to pretend I only lived in this small section of the base. Penny would have no doubt mentioned the medical center and kitchen facilities. I might be able to get away with saying she’d been mistaken when it came to a museum entrance—they could search all they wanted, but they’d never find the tunnel I used; it was all but invisible when closed, and Penny had gone through it only when it was open—but there was no way they were going to believe everything she’d described had been little more than shock and imagination. Better to reveal the safer truths, while keeping others secret.
“She ordered you followed simply because she didn’t believe you’d let the matter lie.” Though I heard no sound of movement, his closeness pressed against my spine, an energy that was both unsettling and enticing. “That because of Penny, and because there were other children involved, you couldn’t let the matter lie.”
Nuri had understood altogether too much about me in the brief time I’d been in her presence.
The sensor light flashed as we approached the door, but it took several seconds for it to actually respond. With night upon us, all three generators would have now kicked in to fuel the main defense systems, lights, and air, but the secondary systems, like these doors, had power diverted to them only as required.
“How are you powering this place?” Jonas asked, as the door finally opened.
I shrugged. “I managed to get the old generators going. Finding parts was the hard bit.”
“Considering how old the technology here is, it must have taken quite a while.” There wasn’t suspicion in his voice, not exactly, but it was pretty obvious he wasn’t buying all that I was saying.
I met his gaze, seeing in the green depths the distrust I could feel. Seeing the awareness, however much he might be attempting to contain it. “It did.”
“And the medical scanners Penny mentioned? Did you get them up and running also?”
I smiled, though it contained very little in the way of humor. “No need. Once I got the power going, most of the remaining systems came online, although the kitchen and food facilities were pretty foul. It took a hell of a lot of scrubbing before I could even contemplate using them.”
His smile was an echo of my own, but, after a moment, he pulled his gaze from mine and looked around. A slight frown creased his weatherworn but handsome features as he studied the dusty old metal beds lining either side of the long room. “What was this place? Some kind of bunkhouse?”
An innocent enough question but one that could prove my downfall if I didn’t watch how I answered it. “According to the ghosts, this was the nursery.”
His gaze shot back to mine. “Nursery?”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised by his response. “Who did you think my little ones were? They’re all the ghosts of the children who were murdered in this place.”
