Predatory

DRAKE POV

“Coming in for a landing. Brace yourselves,” Mina orders into the intercom that addresses everyone on the Turbo Frog. But I’ve been braced, ever since Rika told us what the top brass is planning. I don’t think my body could get any more tense.

“Right on,” Xander replies. Out the windshield, a lone figure, eerily familiar, is waiting for us at a set of glossy white docks in a cavern emblazoned with the WASP logo.

“Any idea who that is?” Callum asks me.

“No, but I expect we’ll find out. Rika said something about a guide. Doesn’t matter who it is as long as they get us where we need to go,” I mutter. All I want is to get into wherever they’re keeping Sasha, get her out, and then burn this place to the fucking ground.

“WASP rotten,” Sasha’s voice echoes in my head. “Take more than one…to do what you say.”

She was right, it would seem. No organization that would consider genocide a viable option has any redeemable qualities left in it.

What else has she been right about, that I’ve been arguing with her on?

Can’t think about that now. Get in, destroy WASP, get us all out alive.

Despite Mina’s warning, the Turbo Frog glides easily up to the dock and stops smoothly. She’s a damn good pilot.

“Good job, Mina,” I commend her, tousling her hair.

“Stop that! I did not bring you here safely for you to ruin my look,” Mina glowers, but there’s a smile under her scolding. “All right troops, move out. I’ll be here with your support staff, ready to get you out of here once the mission’s wrapped.”

Logan and I meet in the corridor between the main bay and the cockpit as the Turbo Frog’s exterior doors hiss open. His troops are behind him, weapons in hand, ready for action. Outside stands the eerily familiar figure. I’m sure I’ve never seen his elven features before, but there’s something about his aura that I recognize.

“Ah, you again. Rika failed to mention that,” he says, appraising me with cool eyes.

“Do we know you?” Xander demands.

The figure flickers for a moment, and for a second I see the pointy ears and teeth and turquoise eyes of one of the fae from that warehouse. As soon as I blink, though, he’s resumed the look of some elven pencil-pusher or lackey in a crisp white uniform.

“Speak only when necessary. I’m here to take you where you’re meant to go.” He touches his ear, where there sees to be some sort of tiny headset piece. Rika. “Packages acquired. Moving at your direction.”

“This guy safe, bro?” Logan whispers to me. “Something seems off about him.”

“Not sure. But better just the one of him than a whole welcoming committee,” I reply in turn.

“Right. Follow me. Batches of five to ten. Move as quietly as possible. Surveillance equipment is still around, whatever boss has done to it. Don’t make any sudden moves,” the fake elf directs.

“You heard him, men,” Logan tells his unit.

“Guess we’s doin’ this,” Callum remarks, glancing meaningfully at the tablet in my hands.

No sense keeping that out. Gotta be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. And there’s nothing I can do about whatever shit she’s facing til we get there, anyway.

I slide the tablet into my backpack and start following our guide into a sterile white hallway.

Almost there. Almost. There.

***~O~***

ZOE POV

“All right, Zoe,” Rika’s voice crackles in my ear. I’m crouching in a space the size of a suitcase, just outside the main doors to the Inner Sanctum, a hiding place created by Ariadne so that I can be right on hand when Sasha needs me. “Are you in position?”

“Yes,” I whisper. She’s entrusted me with one of her tablets, letting me keep tabs on the situation inside the Inner Sanctum. Sasha’s been asking some really pointed questions of these experts, who evidently weren’t expecting so shrewd an audience. Berach’s patience is wearing thin, based on the look on his face, while the others seem to be disparate combinations of bored and impressed.

“Tempest has just picked up the shock troops in the low docks. Special Ops are in position at almost every door. Stand by for pandemonium.”

“Copy.”

As the words leave my lips, some sort of alarm starts going off on some device in front of Berach.

“Unauthorized perimeter breaches,” he mutters, sounding crackly and incredulous through my earpiece. The presentation from the climate experts continues, making it difficult to hear him. He taps a few things on his screen. “Dispatching all security staff. Secure every door. We are putting HQ on lockdown.”

Anisha leans closer to Berach, seeming to ask him something. He waves a hand dismissively, resumes glaring at Sasha. He hasn’t realized the extent of the threat.

More alarm sounds from his tablet, this time loud enough to take Sasha’s attention away from the climate experts.

“Begging your pardon, but is everything all right?” she asks, all solicitous concern. If I didn’t know any better, I’d never suspect she has anything to do with whatever’s causing the alarms.

But Berach is far more paranoid than I am. His sharp eyes scan the tablet and then fixate on Sasha again with suspicious fury.

“Why don’t you tell me, Sukoshku? Does it sound like everything is all right?” he hisses.

“I cannot be sure, and thus I asked. I have not spent overmuch time in HQ, and I don’t recall what that particular alert is meant to denote—”

“Enough dissembling! You are plenty astute when it suits you. I think you know full well what is amiss, because it’s your doing—”

“What is my doing? You know as well as I that I’ve been here since you summoned me, completely focused on our business at hand. What is it you think I’ve done—”

The alarms aren’t just coming through Berach’s tablet anymore. They’re echoing through the corridors of HQ, accompanied by red flashing lights. An elf aide bursts into the room through a secret door behind the Ruling Council’s desk.

“Breaches, Your Excellency, all over the facility,” the elf pants. “They’re mowing down our security operatives like it’s nothing—”

“I’m aware,” Berach snarls through gritted teeth. “But who are they, exactly? This video feed is not—”

“Can’t be sure. All black clothes, black masks. All sorts of weapons and techniques. They seem to be capturing and restraining noncombatants, rather than killing them, but—”

“WASP HQ is under attack?” Sasha wonders. “Should I go deal with the threat, or—”

“You will stay exactly where you are,” Berach snaps, his steely gaze laser-focused on her once again. Anisha, Najwa, and Ruadh are all busy with their own devices, trying to mobilize their own personal bodyguards to meet the threat, according to Rika’s murmurings in my earpiece, but it won’t be enough. We planned for this.

Sasha is stiff as a board, meeting Berach’s eyes with innocent confusion. It’s hard to tell, from the crappy camera feed in the room, but she might be having trouble breathing.

“I don’t know how, but this is your doing. You’ve been stalling us, and now we’re caught in some sort of trap. It wasn’t enough for you to kill Anselm. You wanted all of our heads on a platter, wanted to control all of WASP yourself,” Berach continues. “Such a pity you’ll never get the chance. Whatever else happens here today, as you have said, your life is forfeit. Your journey ends now.”

Reflexively, I start to move, planning to burst out of hiding without waiting for Rika’s signal, but then—

CRASH!

A painting hits the floor behind Berach’s seat, and a gunmetal gray wolf leaps through an opening the painting concealed, flying straight for the ancient fae’s throat.