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“In simple language?” Ash drawled at him.
Shane shrugged. “I’m in.”
“Jace?” Damon lifted a brow.
Jace steeled himself, drawing in a long breath. He wasn’t sure what made him hesitate, until finally, he sighed. “I was in the moment they held what I am against me, instead of favoring all that I’ve done.” He stepped forward. “Fuck it. I’m in.”
“Yes!” Trent hissed. “Avengers assemble.” He wiggled his fingers like he was a kid.
Damon glared. “Don’t ever fucking say that again.”
It took several hours more of discussion and negotiating before Damon and the rest of the division finally came to an agreement about how this would work. When Jace finally exited Shane’s office with David by his side, he couldn’t help the optimism coursing through him. Maybe theywouldactually pull this off. Clear his name, and then take down Headquarters for better or worse. Weirdly, he was okay with it.
The past several days, he’d seen the darkest parts of what the Execution Underground had become. It wasn’t something he wanted to be a part of, nor was it the dream he’d planned, but the plan he and his friends had formulated in its place was.
Hell, it just might make a fucking difference.
That’s all he’d wanted back in those early days. Back when he and Damon and Quinn and others like them had been out for vengeance for their families’ sakes.
All he’d ever really wanted was to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.
To protect others from his own brand of pain he’d experienced. At the abandonment of his supernatural old man. Ensure no shifter ever hurt a helpless human woman like his mother again. Or a defenseless child like he’d been.
“What’s going through your head right now, J?” David asked, suddenly interrupting his thoughts. They were headed to the other side of the university, where Jace had parked the Chevelle leading up to all this. Jace grinned. He had half-a-mind to tell David to park himself on a bench and he’d drive the car to him, considering he was still dragging that leg of his and would be for a while, but he didn’t think being coddled was something his friend would appreciate.
“Just thinking it’ll be like the old days again,” he said.
“It will be,” David agreed. “But there’s a storm coming, J. We need to be prepared for it.”
Jace knew that. Had felt it in the past few days more than most, but as he and David headed toward the Chevelle, to K9s, the club where Frankie had said she’d wait for him, he couldn’t bring himself to stamp down his own optimism.
16
Frankie had insisted on accompanying Jace and the other hunters to Headquarters, but deep down, she’d known she couldn’t risk it. Not when she’d been skirting her second in command for days, leaving the pack’s management in his, albeit capable, hands while she’d handled this quickly escalating...situation. But that didn’t mean she didn’t owe him and her inner circle an explanation, and her time, especially considering what she was about to spring on them.
Frankie exited her Mazarati, silently tossing her keys to the valet as she donned her packmaster face. She’d never show any hint of vulnerability here. Striding to club’s front entrance, her black stilettos clicked against the damp pavement. The five-inch Jimmy Choos were far more comfortable than they looked same as the strapless black minidress she wore, but when she was here, she needed to impress.
As packmaster, she had to be capable of the power plays every male before her had been, but she also had to do it in heels.
The line outside the club leading down to the basement entrance snaked around the building. A sign of the establishment’s trending popularity among the supernatural community. Among her own, it’d been a controversial decision to open K9’s exclusive doors to outsiders, to non-shifters, but the immediate influx of money it’d brought to the pack’s then dwindling funds had spoken for itself. She’d never once regretted the decision. Until tonight.
She really needed fewer eyes watching.
She cut around the waiting patrons to the chorus of a few disgruntled mutters, and descended below, to where pack security anticipated her.
“Packmaster,” Aidan purred, dropping his eyes to the ground before her.
She placed a tender hand on his cheek, then slid the back of her knuckles across the other side, marking him with her scent. “Aidan.” She smiled.
The bodyguard unclipped the velvet rope for her, before he opened the door. As she entered, Frankie paused near his ear, whispering to him. “There’ll be some hunters from the Execution Underground here in plain clothes, unarmed, later tonight. Have Tiberius bring them in through the back. Straight to me.”
Aidan’s eyes widened at the mention of hunters, but he didn’t protest. “Yes, packmaster.” He nodded dutifully.
She placed an affectionate hand on his cheek again, patting him gently, before she slipped inside.
The red neon lights which lit K9’s interior cast an ethereal, otherworldly glow, instantly transporting its patrons to another world. One where sin, and sex and money interplayed with greed, where the monsters that ruled Rochester’s nightlife took literal form amongst the shadows, circling, dealing and wheeling their unique brand of vice.
And whereshewas their queen.
