Chapter 47
ANGEL
Ivan’s words haunted me, but Xavier quieted him, a silent admission that other, less friendly ears were listening. Why had Xavier let him in at all?
I surged to my feet and pressed my hand flat on the cold metal of the door. “Ivan.” It was a raw sound, borne of Jude’s lingering desire to protect his little brother at all costs. Our eyes met through the reinforced window, and in them was a silent plea. Stay safe and remain in control.
Why? Because if I didn’t, none of us were going home.
I blinked back tears, surprised by their unfamiliar sting. The world blurred, then sharpened into a breathtaking web of interconnecting lines.
Threads.
Holy fuck. I was using Jude’s power.
Ivan’s web was nearly blinding, an array of color rivaling the spectrum of light itself.
A thick, vibrant cord tied him to me and the team—Jude’s final weave.
But there was another, a thin, vibrant strand of pale gold, snagged in a few places, but stubbornly persistent. It wove him directly to Xavier.
I blinked, my breath freezing in my lungs. Had Jude known?
No. He couldn’t have. His grasp of this ability had been too new. He would have freaked out seeing Xavier’s tapestry, a gnarled weave of immense power, ancient trauma, and frayed edges stretching into timeless distance. But to see his baby brother bound to a demigod by a future mate bond?
It explained everything. Xavier’s uncharacteristic protectiveness. The decision to parade Ivan under his wing instead of hiding him. Both a declaration and a warning to any who could see. This one is mine.
I swallowed hard. What would Jude want me to do? Protect Ivan, always. But in this? Xavier was the ultimate shield.
Xavier shifted, placing his body squarely between Ivan and me. “If you can control this, we can talk,” Xavier said. “If not…”
The warning hung in the air unspoken. It was clear he still held some sway even with the human authorities, but whatever had happened to me and the team had rattled him.
Xavier was expecting a monster, and an attack.
This was a test for the unseen eyes I knew were watching, and failure meant we all stayed in our cages, or worse.
“Is my team safe?” I had to know.
“For now,” Xavier agreed.
“Then open the door.” My tone sounded like a challenge, and while I glared at Xavier through the window in the door, I knew he heard it, though his expression remained unchanged.
He insisted Ivan be removed from the hall before the door was unlocked, and the kitsune twins escorted him out.
The lock disengaged with a heavy clunk. We stood face-to-face, the air thickening with the pressure of his restrained power.
“Did I hurt anyone?” I asked.
“Brandon Cassidy is dead,” Xavier offered.
“Yeah? But did I do that?” I’d have liked to kill him, but somehow I didn’t think I’d had the pleasure.
“That is a topic for the interrogation room.” Xavier took two measured steps back, gesturing down the hall. “Last door on the left. You’ll find a jumpsuit inside.”
I knew the drill. I’d been on the other side of it a couple dozen times, questioning some poor shifter who’d lost control after one too many drinks.
But I hadn’t been drinking. My mate had been torn from me.
The grief hit me with a fresh wave of agony, and I had to clamp my jaw to keep from screaming.
My fingertips throbbed, the bones aching with the warning of an imminent shift.
Fuck. I’d never had to work this hard to keep the leopard in its cage.
This new thing inside me was a raw, restless storm, and my control was paper-thin.
A flicker of warmth trailed up my spine. I closed my eyes, sinking into the familiar weight of Nox’s presence. Would he manifest as a tattoo on my skin, like he had for Jude? The heat of him soothed the jagged edges of my grief, muting the rising storm just enough to let me breathe.
When I opened my eyes, Xavier was no longer looking at me, but at a point just above my head, bland expression replaced by an unsettling sadness.
The realization hit me, I’d never asked if he’d lost mates before.
It was a horror no one ever gave voice to.
And I’d never imagined I’d find my own, only to lose him in the brutal span of a few weeks.
Was Ivan the first? And one he couldn’t yet have?
Or simply another in a long line of losses he’d have to hope to cherish in the short, mortal span of Ivan’s life?
The questions burned in my chest, but I ground my teeth to keep from snapping at him, a restrained mix of anger, sadness, and hopelessness filling my gut. Had he known how little time Jude and I would have?
Xavier’s gaze flipped back to me. “Ready?”
No. I gave a single, sharp nod. “As I’ll ever be.”
Without another word, I turned and started down the hall, feeling the weight of his stare between my shoulder blades with every step.
Each door I passed, my team stared out through the windows, all looking as heartbroken and worried as I felt.
Could I get them out of this? I might not have any hope to save myself, but at least my team had a chance, right?
The moment I crossed the threshold into the interrogation room, the door hissed shut behind me, the lock engaging with a sound of finality. The room was exactly as I remembered; sterile and cold. A gray jumpsuit was folded neatly on the bolted-down table.
A wall of windows gave me no privacy, though the other side remained dark, the two-way mirror hiding who watched as I tugged on the coarse fabric.
Once dressed, I pulled out the chair facing the windows and sat, staring at the glass, waiting.
My skin ached as if the change had left it oversensitive.
Or maybe it was the loss of my mate, adding a layer of pain as my soul began to unravel.
Fated mates came with heavy warnings for a reason.
I stared at the darkness, wondering how long it would take for my sanity to vanish, and hoped my team wouldn’t be dragged with me.
After the war, I’d gone a little feral. A death wish will do that.
Playing the compliant human might help my case, but I wasn’t sure it mattered.
They needed a scapegoat. And nothing makes a better target than a supernatural creature you can’t control.
Better me than my team, and without Jude, I was living on borrowed time anyway.
The wall of glass shimmered, opaque surface turning into a video feed from the holding cells. A grid with myself and the team, side by side.
Wade’s bear was a hulking giant, nearly twice the size I knew his other form to be, and his fur a deep smoky charcoal, like some sort of obsidian polar bear.
Ezra’s wolf, already one of legend as he was a dire wolf, paced the room, dripping drool and reflecting shadows as if he were made of darkness himself.
Victor appeared lost to his vampire half, glowing eyes, elongated fangs, and dagger-like claws.
And I should have been the easiest to identify as I was the only felid on our team, but what paced my cell was something easily three times the size of my leopard.
A beast of sharp angles, teeth like a sabertooth tiger, with claws that looked like shards of polished onyx.
It was the thing I had felt writhing under my skin, given form.
Not of this world, I realized. None of us. Not anymore. Forged in the crucible of a Weaver’s sacrifice into something the SED had never seen before.
A new, chilling thought crystallized. They were building a case. Not for containment, but for termination. We were no longer a team. We were a catalog of newly discovered, high-level threats. Could we be useful to them, or would it be easier to eliminate us?
Another door opened, opposite the one I’d entered, and Sergeant Hanna walked in. Her expression was professionally neutral, but the complete absence of fear in her posture was more terrifying than any weapon. As one of the dark fae, did she recognize what we became? Or was it beyond her, too?
She sat down with her back to the windows, facing me.
“Any sign of Jude?” I asked her.
“No.”
The word felt like a final door slamming shut, and my heart strained, searching for a reason to keep beating. She stared at me, her gaze a cool, assessing weight, willing a reaction from me I didn’t know how to give.
“Start from the beginning,” she demanded. “From your decision to search Bowman’s apartment to the disappearance of Jude Holt.”
How much did she really want me to say? That she was the one who gave us the files?
That she left us alone, hoping our interest would simply lapse?
Nothing I said would ever appease the cowards behind the glass.
I’d given them decades of service, bleeding to protect them from monsters.
Now I was the one under the microscope, waiting for the boot to drop.
I took a deep breath, used to following her lead, but she interrupted.
“And pray tell, why you decided to drag your team into this mess?”
The words triggered a visceral squeeze of my gut. The danger to them, and the weight of my minimal power. Did I have any power left? Was she trying to remind me?
“You’re surprisingly cognizant for a shifter variant whose mate has just been murdered,” she continued. “Xavier might claim you and the other shifters until your soul finally fades from the severed bond, but the rest of the team isn’t as fortunate.”
I stared at her, my heart a sluggish drum in my chest, my thoughts scattering like leaves in a storm.
Sergeant Hanna had never been a talker. She never needed to be.
Being High Court Dark Fae was a language all its own, one that scared the shit out of just about everyone—me included, if I was being honest. Yet, she had never played me false.
Not since that first day, in a room much like this on a dusty military base, when she’d found me shattered in the war’s aftermath and offered me a path forward.
An agreement of service for protection should the mortal realm erupt into chaos again, and I’d held up my end of the deal.
Bargains with the fae were the stuff of warnings, contracts etched in peril.
But I knew her. The words “Light” and “Dark” described their power, not their character.
She was Dark Fae. Her power, drawn from the night, was armor as much as a sword, and I trusted its stark honesty more than I would ever trust a lie gilded in light.
I’d used the threat to leave when the military had tried to take Jude.
Without him, at least I could protect his little brother and my team from whatever termination or torment the mortal authorities had planned for us.
They had taken my mate. They would take my team. They would take everything.
My service was over.
“I call upon our accord,” I said, my voice steady in the silent room, “and request you take me and mine across the Veil, to seek sanctuary in your Court.”