Escaping Death

Ace

I could barely focus on today’s job. While Tate and Solana dismantled Lobo Tech from the inside, we set out to eliminate the cops they have on their payroll and make sure the case file Tate is building against them ends up on the desk of someone who won’t be bought.

The more I tried not to think about Solana the deeper she became rooted in my mind. I found myself wondering if I should have brought her with me instead of letting her go with Tate. I know Tate will keep her safe — I know that.

But she’s such a wild card I don’t know if she’ll let him, and that’s what has my teeth grinding themselves flat.

I have half a mind to leave the guys here to finish tying up loose ends just to get back home and make sure they’re back and that everything went well, but I can’t race back home without everyone wondering exactly why.

Hunter rescues me from my obsessive thoughts with a firm slap on the back. “You good, man? You seem…preoccupied.”

“I’m fine,” I dismiss his concern. “The sooner we tie up these last jobs the sooner we can start hunting Nightshade and hopefully get Solana out of our hair.”

Hunter flinches like he’s been punched and I silently curse at myself. I’m sure that however hard it is for me to have her around it’s arguably just as hard for him. She still won’t go near him unless absolutely necessary, I don’t think she’s even said a word directly to him yet.

It’s a constant goddamn war. I can’t have her and my pack — best case scenario I irreparably traumatize Eli and Hunter as she’d be a daily reminder of a love they couldn’t have. Worst case scenario, Hunter and I come to blows over her. My wolf unable to get over their history and Hunter unable to accept that she indisputably belongs with me.

It’s not that I don’t want her, I won’t deny feeling drawn to her like a shark to blood. Even if I could trust that accepting my mate wouldn’t leave me fractured like Eli or Hunter, claiming her would bring about the death of Death. But then again I don’t want her to leave and find someone else either.

Like I said… a constant war.

“Hunter,” my tone is firm and unyielding, “you know she can’t stay.”

His wolf wants to challenge me, he doesn’t want to be told what can and can not happen with her, but he knows better than to act on that impulse. A born Beta, he knows when to call me out on my shit and he knows when to stand the fuck down.

“Let’s get this wrapped up,” I exhale smoke through my nose, impatience is wearing on my nerves.

Tate will be upset he’s missing this, he’s the one with the insatiable blood lust. He enjoys the hunt almost as much as he enjoys the kill. Dean is indifferent to it. He will take out our enemies without a breath of hesitation and he won’t lose any sleep over it, but unlike his little brother he doesn’t make a sport of it.

Next to Tate, Hunter is the most skilled assassin among us. His gift affords him many creative options by which to torture and kill, but he doesn’t relish in what sometimes must be done. He does what is required, but I know it weighs on him. This isn’t the life he would have chosen for himself, but he’s making the best of it knowing he has few other choices. And then there’s Eli – the baby of the pack – who works like he lives; footloose and fancy free.

Me? I don’t pretend like this life is glamorous, I don’t portray myself as someone to be feared, but people do…and they should. Because I don’t mind bloodying my hands — and I never fail.

I leave the warehouse fuming. My wolf’s anger and anxiety is tearing my mind to shreds. The last time Solana was left alone with one of the guys she ended up in a closed room with a prominent breeder. Today she’s at the corporate headquarters of the biggest underground organization of human and supernatural traffickers on the East Coast.

I can’t deny that she definitely held her own on the yacht. She got herself and Eli down past the guards, she was the one who knocked out the Alpha and his Beta. But she shouldn’t have had to do that, she shouldn’t have been put in a position where she needed to protect herself. No wonder her fathers wanted her protected, my girl has a penchant for the dark and dangerous. Someone has to save her from herself.

The ride home is silent. While Hunter drives, Dean and Eli argue over who had the cleaner kill today and I’m left waiting for Tate to text me that they’re home. But no text comes.

“They’re not back yet?” Hunter asks me, finding the situation just as questionable as I do. Tate should have beat us home and he knows to text us when he’s back. If he was on his own I wouldn’t worry, Tate comes and goes sometimes for days at a time but he always comes back. He always comes home.

“I honestly don’t know. There’s no message, but it’s Tate.” My answer satisfies Hunter for now.

Tate and Solana didn’t take a car, they flew, so seeing Tate’s car and Sol’s bike in the driveway doesn’t mean that they’re home. My wolf sighs with relief when I’m out of the car and he catches both of their scents nearby indicating that they’re either in the house or in the backyard.

“Tate?” I call out when I get inside. The living room and kitchen are empty and I don’t hear anything upstairs. There’s only one other place they could be. “Hunter, they’re out back. Send them in.”

“Where’s my girl?” Eli calls out cheerfully making Hunter’s frustration flare through our pack bond. I won’t force Hunter to tell the guys who Sol is to him, they all know his story… they just don’t know that it’s her. But then again I know it wouldn’t stop Eli from pursuing her, if anything it would make the game all the more appealing for him.

“Oh that’s how it’s going to be, Sunshine?” Eli scoffs playfully when he passes Tate and Solana walking into the house hand in hand.

“What happened on the boat stays on the boat,” Solana quips back with a beautifully coy smile.

Tate sports a shit eating grin but Eli doesn’t let him take the win that easily and pulls Solana out of Tate’s grasp and into his arms. “What if I want it to happen again, Sunshine?” I watch her breath catch in her throat as he whispers his intentions against her skin.

“Fuck off, Eli,” Tate warns him with no heat but I don’t miss the way Solana slips right back into Tate’s waiting arms when he motions for her to keep following him over to me.

Like the lust sick puppy he is, Eli trails after them back towards where I’m seated. Tate takes up residence in his usual armchair but when he offers his lap for Solana to sit on, her eyes ensnare me making it impossible for me to look away. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she wanted me to witness for myself that she wasn’t choosing anyone else over me. That she may flirt and she may play but she knows better than to return the affections of her admirers in front of me.

I keep my focus trained on her as she moves towards me. I know Tate’s had his hands on her, it’s impossible to miss how his scent blankets her skin. “Did she give you any trouble today, T?”

“You mean other than blowing up the building and decapitating a civilian?”

At this I look past Solana towards where Tate is seated behind her and pin him with an unimpressed and unamused look. I’m already competing with my wolf for control, he’d do well not to test the limits of my patience right now.

“Relax, Alpha. Sol was brilliant.”

Solana breezes gently past me but I don’t stop her. She’s safe for another day. Now I need to know what Tate found on their servers.

“Talk to me, T.” I invite Tate to begin.

He slips his laptop onto the table and starts clacking away at the keys. No one taught him how to do what he does, he taught himself. And no matter how many times I tell him how bright he really is, he always undervalues himself.

“Their money has been rerouted to dummy accounts. In three days it’ll be clean and transferred to our accounts. Receipts and other correspondence referencing the transactions have been sent to the new police chiefs and copies have been saved on our servers for collateral in the unlikely event they try to sweep it under the rug. These files may or may not have also ended up in the Underdark.” He explains matter-of-factly.

“Nice work. The pigs have been dealt with, whoever is stepping up as police chief won’t be able to cover this up.” I give praise where praise is due. “Did you run into any issues in the tower?”

Tate shrugs, his threshold for what he considers to be an issue is far higher than mine. But with his killer instincts and ability to disappear in an instant he can afford to be riskier – just not where my mate is concerned.

“No, I wouldn’t say we had any issues.” Tate says honestly, his attention dedicated to the computer screen in front of him. I sigh internally knowing that if I want to find out what happened today I’m going to have to ask Solana myself.

“I did a little extra credit while I was there,” Tate says cryptically just as I stand up to find Sol.

“Elaborate.”

“There’s no mention of Nightshade or the names of his recent kills anywhere on the Lobo servers,” Tate says and it feels like there’s an unspoken ‘but’ punctuating his sentence. “But, I may have found some info in the Underdark.”

I gesture for Tate to continue explaining.

“There’s next to nothing about him. He’s a well kept secret, like a shadow. They say he works in the darkness, some reference him as a ghost. Like fog or vapor.”

“Is this going to start making sense soon?”

“Do you know what the Latin word for darkness is? It’s the same word for fog, mist, and vapor…”

A wicked smile cracks along Tate’s mouth. I know that look. It’s the look of a hunter who has finally cornered his kill.

“Caligo.”