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My eyes flash open, and I touch my lips, realizing that I’m smiling. Simon was such a cute kid, and that was just one of a thousand memories. Most of which involved him being the responsible older brother and me being the troublesome younger sister. Because, even with Isabella being the youngest, I was always the troublemaker.
And now Isabella is dead, and Simon is gone.
The pungent stink of wet dog wriggles through the otherwise delightful potpourri of the woods, preceding the arrival of Trouble. He plods over towards me where I sit with my back against the trunk of a large oak tree.Christ, not now, dog.
Despite how exhausted he is, that little nub of a tail dances frantically back and forth. He lays down beside me and places his head in my lap, rolling his puppy-dog eyes up to meet mine. “Mangy mutt.” But I pat his golden head all the same and find I don’t mind it so much. It’s something to keep me awake after searching through the day and night for my brother.
Simon slipped through the Enforcers’ perimeter. It’s the first time a Blood Pack member escaped since I partnered with Max. The mood is palpably dour. I tried,reallytried, to find Simon, but he left no tracks, no scent trail to trace, nothing.
Guilt held off until dawn, when sunlight trickled into the sky and I began to berate myself for losing him.Again. Whether I see him as a dangerous person, or my brother who desperately needs my help, he’s someone I shouldn’t have let slip through my fingers. If I’d just made another choice, if I’d just done things differently, I’d have him now.
Right?
As I replay everything that happened with him, I’m still left unsure. But what else could I have done?
You know what you could have done…
I shiver. The grim answer is one I refuse to accept. I would never kill Simon. Even though I fear more carnage may happen because of him, I could never kill my brother. That fact separated me from the monster the Blood Mages tried to turn me into. I was confident in that logic.
Once it becomes easy to kill, you’re no better than the monsters that made you.I sense the pull around me suddenly. The almost-whisper of the dark magic that beckons me. I pet Trouble just a little harder, my heart hammering, then force myself to push the call away, to ignore it until it almost disappears.
Almost.
The Blood Mages may have tried to make me like them, but I refuse to do it. Either by answering the call of the dark magic, or by killing with ease. Both things seem to have led to the destruction of my other pack members. I need to learn from their mistakes.
I’m less confident that Braxton sees what I did that way. Recognition flickered in his eyes just after Simon ran off, like he knew I’d let my brother go, or maybe like he saw me give up. I’m not sure which. I look over towards the mobile command center, basically a collection of laptops and personnel gathered around portable tables housed within an open tent. Braxton stands over his brother, preoccupied with Max’s injury for the moment.
Not that I’m happy Max got hurt, but I’m grateful Braxton has something else to worry about.
Despite getting stabbed with a noxious spear, Max pressed on through the night. Enforcer medics had quickly dressed the wound, pushing through an IV infusion to accelerate his shifter healing, and had some blood donated by Braxton to make up for the blood loss, before joining the search. He looks a little weak now, but less pallid, his eyes wide and alert despite the bags hanging beneath them.
“That man is a machine,” I think aloud. “A sexy, fine-ass machine.” He and his brother were cut from the same cloth in those respects. Flashes of our threesome dance through my mind, which I struggle to push to the fringe.There are serious matters at hand, Asha.
I wonder if they’re thinking about it, too, but it’s hard to believe anything sexy is happening behind those solemn expressions. Max sits at one of the tables with Thomas, the Enforcer running point on this operation, the two of them reviewing data on a computer screen. Braxton hovers over them, arms crossed, biceps bulging, squinty eyes boring through the screen. I try to imagine what could possibly merit such scrutiny, but it bores me to even hazard a guess.
That’s what my plight is to the Enforcers. A tactical map. A mission brief. Flattened and displayed on a fourteen-inch screen. They don’t know, couldn’t even comprehend the pain and suffering the Blood Mages put us through. They don’t know the people beneath the dark magic. To them, my kind are simply dangerous.
Not people.
Not victims of a terrible crime.
Maybe it’s for the best they don’t know. If they could understand what it felt like to have their homes burned, their loved ones killed in front of them, and to suffer months of torture… they wouldn’t be able to do their job. Like me, they’d be a broken thing with too many jagged edges to touch. Maybe just strong enough to be of some small use.
Not that I was today.
Trouble lifts and resettles his head on my lap. My eyes trace the many scars hidden beneath his golden coat as I continue petting him. “You’ve been through hell, too, huh? Nobody cares, do they?”
He draws in a deep breath, then sighs. I guess his way of commiserating.
Did I call this guy a mutt? “You’re not so bad.”
He rubs his head against me, and I pet him behind the ears, my heart lifting, if only by a little.
The sound of rolling wheels pulls my attention to the road, where an SUV with blacked-out windows approaches the camp. Trouble lifts his head and perks his ears, but we seem to be the only ones interested. The rest of their personnel are busy with the mission. The doors pop open and two men hop out of the vehicle, the driver and one passenger.
While the driver, dressed in the familiar Enforcer uniform like someone from Men In Black, marches towards the tent the passenger hangs back, idly kicking rocks beside the car. With long, sandy blond hair, a golden tan, and a slim yet muscular build, my first thought issurfer dude. Actually, my first thought is that this guy is fucking hot, but I suppose those arrive in tandem.
But on the heels of my attraction comes my suspicion.Who is this guy?He’s not dressed like the others. He’s wearing a pale blue button-up shirt, left untucked, and dark jeans. His dark boots are scuffed and look worn, and there’s something about his clothes that feels old and used.
