Chapter 24 Valens
Valens
After starting with a hell of a bang, the drive was quiet. We stopped for coffee, and I made a mental note of her order for future reference. Added it to the dragon’s hoard of information I was collecting on her preferences, big and small.
Garlic knots? Yes. In spades.
Flavored coffee? Hell no.
There was a weird tension hanging between us that I couldn’t quite read, even as we sipped our giant coffees in seemingly comfortable silence.
Something had shifted between us, though she was mum on what it was.
I decided not to push things further after putting my foot down first thing.
I didn’t want to scare her off. I wanted to treat her like the goddess she was.
I also wanted to put my boot up the ass of the alpha who’d adopted her and then treated her like shit to scrape off the bottom of his boot. I could see the cracks in her facade now that I’d gotten to know her a little better. The places bravado covered up insecurities born of mistreatment.
And every single one made me furious.
She deserved the fucking moon and stars, not to feel inferior. Unworthy.
I glared out the front window, trying to keep my wolf calm as he prowled in my chest. I couldn’t go into an investigation on a hair trigger, or I’d miss something or, worse, get one of us hurt.
I could have used that sparring session this morning more than I realized when we left. But Lucien and Kane both agreed that looking into the supernatural disappearances couldn’t wait. Fortunately, the closest location was just over an hour away.
Unfortunately, it was a lynx shifter clan.
Damn cat shifters.
I was a little surprised to find out they’d made their home so close to Kane’s father’s territory, but apparently, they liked the fringe benefits of having a large, strong wolf pack nearby.
Nobody would mess with their territory if they had to worry about Pack Caelestis patrols, that was for damn sure. Except… somebody had messed with them.
So they got a friendly visit from their mortal enemies.
Us.
Kane’s theory was that keeping our investigation party small—and sending me, with my ties to Lucien, who was technically still a member of the IGC, even though he wasn’t currently sitting on the council as he took over the Hungarian pack—would make it look less like pack business and more like neighborly concern from their closest council representative.
Me, on the other hand? I was pretty sure they’d be hissing and spitting the second we stepped foot in their territory.
Forty-five minutes later, my instincts were proven correct as we were stopped by four visibly angry lynxes. Two were in feline form, ears back and fangs bared as they hissed from the trees. The other two were on foot in human form, but their anger radiated just the same.
“Well, shit. We’re investigating the local clowder? Is that wise?”
“We’re here on friendly terms. Hopefully, they let us in.” I rolled down the window, adopting the friendliest expression I could muster for a man who reeked of cat. “Hey, there. How’s it going?”
I didn’t think it was possible for a human to hiss, but hiss he did. “Seriously? You know perfectly fucking well that it’s shit. One of our own is missing, and you moon chasers are the ones who took him!”
Okay, so we’re not off to a good start.
I held up both hands in a peacekeeping gesture.
“I’m Valens Farkas, second of the Hungarian pack.
You might have heard that our new Alpha is on the Interspecies Governing Council?
No? Okay, well, he is. And as your closest rep, he wanted to send us personally to see if we could find out anything about Leon’s disappearance. ”
Surprisingly, that seemed to knock his anger down a notch. He took a large step back from the window and gestured one of the other males over.
They conferred quietly for a moment, and then he came back.
“Apologies. I assumed you were with those cocksucker Caelestis wolves. We forget sometimes how many packs there are. If you’re here on official business”—he took a long, overdrawn look at Elodie that made me want to snap right back at him—“then we’ll let you in.”
“We are. My colleague actually hails from the Maiden’s Enclave. They’re trained in special cases like this.”
The lynx’s eyebrows went up incredulously.
“Damn. We’ve been getting stonewalled for almost two weeks by the council.
I’m glad to see us giving them hell has finally turned into something.
The IGC insisted he wasn’t kidnapped, but there were obvious signs of foul play.
Follow the driveway about another mile. I’ll radio down for someone to meet you and take you to Leon’s place. ”
“Thank you…?”
“Larson.”
“Thank you, Larson.”
“Thank you for giving a shit. Lynxes aren’t important enough to get any help most of the time.” He waved me through, lifting his radio as he turned his back on us.
“Well… that was an interesting greeting,” Elodie said, drumming her fingers on the armrest. “Lynxes aren’t the most populous of the cat species, but they are entitled to equal representation under the IGC. I wonder why they would have ruled it not a kidnapping.”
“I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.
” The tires ground over the gravel of the parking lot, where a heavily tattooed, blonde female lynx in camouflage pants waited for us.
She was visibly pissed, but remained silent as she watched us get out of the car.
I waited a beat for Elodie to settle her blade over her shoulder before turning to introduce myself.
“Hello, I’m—”
“I don’t care. You reek like wet dog, and the sooner you take your canine asses out of here, the better. This way.”
She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving us to follow or not. She clearly didn’t give a fuck.
Elodie and I exchanged a loaded look, but followed quickly. Official business or not, two wolves wandering unsupervised in a lynx clowder’s territory would end in bloodshed. Not mine or Elodie’s, but I still wanted to avoid it.
We walked deep into the forest, following a small footpath that could have been made by a deer as well as a human.
I didn’t mind it, besides the now-fading stench of cat piss.
Territory marking was less common among wolves, but many of the smaller apex predator species still acted on those instincts.
Our angry guide stopped so suddenly, I would have run into her back were it not for my canine reflexes.
Thirty yards away stood a humble cottage, tucked into a small clearing and surrounded by trees. It might have been paradise if it hadn’t been torched.
“Shit,” Elodie swore off to my side, clearly coming to the same conclusion I had. We weren’t going to find any evidence of use if the whole place had been burned.
“There were no bodies found inside?” I asked our guide, and her only response was a swift shake of the head.
“Okay. We’ll still look around, though I doubt we’ll find much given the fire damage.”
“Shocker,” she snapped. She tossed a piece of bubble gum into her mouth and looked down at her black-lacquered nails, sharpened to points like a cat’s claws.
“Okay, then. Ready to poke around?” I turned to Elodie, but she was already wandering toward the side of the cottage, instead of the front door. “Firecracker?”
“Shh,” she whispered, waving for me to be quiet as she continued around the side. She stopped in front of a glass window, shattered, presumably, from the fire. Silently, she continued around the small cottage, stopping at each of the four windows before returning to the first one.
I followed her in silence, not noticing anything more than broken glass.
But after a long moment, she turned and gestured me closer. “This is where they broke in.”
“How can you tell?” I asked, seeing no difference among the destroyed windows.
She pointed at our feet. “No glass. This window broke inward, probably before the fire started. All the other windows had glass in the grass outside, meaning the heat and pressure of the fire caused them to explode.”
“And this is the only one that didn’t. The glass had to have fallen inside. Excellent catch.” I threw an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, excited that we had at least one clue.
“That’s not all,” she whispered, glancing anxiously over my shoulder toward the waiting feline, doing her best to pretend like she couldn’t hear us. Her voice dropped so low, I could barely hear it over the morning breeze. “I sense pixies again. Just like with Sandrine.”
While I was insanely curious, I kept my expression neutral as I nodded, not commenting on the how of her being able to sense pixie magic.
I couldn’t tell anything at all about who’d broken the window.
After two weeks, multiple rains, and the lingering heavy coating of ash, there wasn’t any scent left for my wolf to pick up.
“Okay. Well, let’s poke around carefully inside and see if we can pick up anything else.”
She agreed, shooting another cautious glance toward our bored chaperone before pushing through the oddly hanging front door.
The inside of the cottage was destroyed so badly, I wasn’t sure how it was still standing. It seemed like the whole thing would go up in smoke with a single misplaced step. The urge to ask Elodie to wait outside in case of a collapse was strong, but I resisted.
She was the one sensing the magic here. And she obviously had a keen eye that we needed. I couldn’t hold her back to keep her safe. That wasn’t our agreement.
I had to trust her to handle herself in this situation. It went against every single instinct I had.
My wolf rumbled his agreement in my chest.
We swept the entire house in silence, both of us intently focused on the crime scene instead of each other. Though every creak and groan of the cottage kept me hyperaware of where she was and how long it would take me to throw myself over her if the roof came down.
I was in the back bedroom when she called my name.
“Look here,” she murmured, pointing at the back corner of a blackened closet. “What does that look like to you?”
I squatted down to get a closer look at the dull object. “Metal? I can’t tell what it was before the explosion.”
“I agree. But I think that thing is what caused the fire.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, craning my neck to look up at her. She was fidgety, picking at a nonexistent thread on the sleeve of her blue tunic.
“The magic is really concentrated over it. This is also the room with the broken-in window. There’s melted glass on the floor.
” She pointed to where, sure enough, the melted glass from the window had solidified after the fire.
After another look, I noticed that it was in a strange pattern, like whatever the thing in the closet was had exploded, moving anything loose away before the heat caught it.
A quick glance around, and I found the mangled remains of a curtain rod. I used it to poke at the lump of metal in the closet. No reaction.
Elodie hissed out a breath as I bent to pick it up, but it didn’t react as I lifted it from the rubble.
“What the heck was it?” she asked, leaning closer as if she’d see markings that survived the fire. I didn’t see anything but twisted metal.
“I don’t know. I think it might have been a circle before the explosion.” I held it up, the shape somewhat reminiscent of a badly dented bike wheel, only more melted and smaller. It was only about a foot across at the widest part.
“So you sense the magic on this?” I confirmed now that it was moved.
“All over it. Not just pixie, though… There’s dwarven magic there too.” She shrugged.
“Good enough for me. We’ll take it with us, see if anyone else has any ideas.”
“You don’t think the lynxes might have a problem with that?”
I glanced out the open window at the front of the cottage, visible through the bedroom door. “I don’t think she’s willing to deal with us long enough to stop us.”
Elodie snorted a laugh. “Fair. Did you see anything else?”
“No, nothing. You’re the MVP of this operation. Good thing you came along.” I playfully nudged her arm with my elbow, and she shot me a grin.
“Don’t you forget it.”