Chapter 23
ROWEN
“Stop tapping.”
Sage’s voice cuts through the noise. I glance down to find my fingers drumming against the table—again—and flatten my hand against the surface.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” Ivy says, smiling over her drink. “You’ve been doing it since we got here.”
“That or mangling straw wrappers like they insulted your mother,” Grant adds.
I roll the last of the shredded paper into a tight ball and flick it across the table, hitting him between the eyes. “I’m fine.”
Sage raises a subtle brow at me, communicating without words that he knows exactly why I’m restless.
Hell, they all do. But I can’t think about that right now.
The memory of Tobias’ expression when I said I was leaving twists something painful in my chest. I’d promised this trip wouldn’t take long, and here I am, breaking that promise.
We’re going on six hours in this fucking city, and I’m over it.
There’s a restless hum under my skin, like my wolf is ready to rip free. It’s not nerves exactly—more like a deep urge to do something. Prodigy always hits me like this—fills me with energy but no purpose. It’s why I love and hate coming here.
Jericho arranged for us to meet Kaine at a place called The Rookery.
It’s a bar-slash-restaurant in the heart of downtown, which means it’s right in the thick of the mage energy.
All the walls shimmer faintly with wardlight, runes and sigils shifting like heat ripples under the deep blue paint.
The air hums to the upbeat background music, and beads of color float lazily over each table, bursting into soft glows as the servers make their rounds.
It’s also one of the best places to get mixed drinks with blood in it. Perfect for vamps.
We’ve shared two pitchers of beer in the time we’ve been here, and Jericho is slowly working his way through a blood cocktail that glitters faintly with gold. I’m surprised he can stomach it, since I haven’t seen him eat any other human food. It’s probably mostly blood.
A swift, sharp buzz captures my attention, and I turn just in time to witness a purple-haired pixie steal a tip from a recently vacated table.
“Hey!” I snap, but the little bastard flies away before I can stop them. Damn pixies. I hate them.
At the table next to us, a shifter is in wolf form, keeping watch beside his alpha. Probably using his heightened senses to compensate for the noise. It’s impossible to hear anything here. Around us, humans and supernaturals chatter excitedly, and a few of them are dancing in the corner.
It’s the perfect place for a meeting no one should overhear.
“Any sign of them?” I ask Jericho.
He checks his phone. “Nothing.”
“For fuck’s—they’re the ones who called this meeting!” Grant’s tone could cut glass. “How are they late?”
Because they’re Kaine and Willow, that’s how. I don’t say it, but everyone knows. Kaine does everything on his own terms.
“Actually, Kaine tried to tell me what he learned over the phone,” Jericho says. “I insisted you guys be here for it.”
Forest seems pleased, tipping his head at Jericho. “In a city this size, it’s not uncommon to be a little late. Let’s be kind when they get here.”
Grant’s jaw ticks as he stares at the empty doorway. His loathing for Kaine could not run any deeper. But tonight we need him to put that disdain aside—because Kaine has information we need.
“Fucking finally,” he mutters, as he gets to his feet to wave them over.
Kaine looks like he just crashed through a fae portal, despite not having an ounce of fae blood in his system.
His long white-silver hair is windswept and messy, and his blood-red shirt is half-buttoned, like he just rolled out of a fight.
Willow’s in a plain purple hoodie, and her blue hair sticks to her damp face, but otherwise she seems fine.
“Where the hell have you been?” Grant asks as they pull out some chairs.
Kaine flips his around to straddle it backwards. “Nice to see you too, jerkface.”
When he sees Jericho’s drink, he snags it and downs it in two gulps.
“You’d better pay for that,” Jericho says.
Kaine wipes his mouth, hand coming away streaked with red. “Sorry. Needed the boost. Now—where were we?”
The table falls silent, and the buzz in my veins sharpens. “You were going to tell us where you found one of them?”
“Right.” He waves a server down to order two pints of blood for him and Willow.
Grant grumbles loudly. “Get on with it, vamp.”
As soon as we’re alone again, Kaine leans in to say, “We’ve found Trivanka.”
Jericho’s reaction is immediate—a ripple of remembered pain flashing across his face. “She’s the one who attacked me,” he says quietly. “The pixie-blooded one.”
Kaine nods. “That’s the one. Wicked little devil. She’s holed up at the Fisherman’s Rest, which is a small hotel near the river bend.”
Willow leans back. “She’s alone too, from what we can tell. She doesn’t look like she’s expecting company.”
“You’re saying you don’t think she’s with Foxx anymore?” Forest asks.
“Doesn’t appear to be.”
Grant shakes his head. “Foxx wouldn’t let one of his possessions go.” He glances at Jericho to prove his point. If Foxx wasn’t obsessed with the vampires he created, he would’ve stopped hunting Jericho months ago.
Willow leans in. “Well, I think she either got away, or he banished her.”
“Foxx wouldn’t banish anyone. He’d kill them,” I say.
“Then she’s in hiding. There’s no other explanation. Because we’ve seen no one.”
Grant crosses his arms. “She could be bait,” he says simply. “Foxx could’ve planted her to draw us out.”
Kaine hums, shaking his head. “That’s very unlikely. She’s too far out of town and on the opposite side from where your land is. Foxx knows where you are, right? He’d plant her closer to you if he was trying to draw you out.”
Forest scrubs his face, seeming just as unsettled by this news as I feel. Why would one of Foxx’s vamps suddenly separate from them?
“How’d you find her?”
Kaine smiles without shame. “Funny you should ask. Met a guy on a hook-up app who happened to take me to her shady ass apartment.”
Whether that’s the truth or he’s just trying to get under Grant’s skin, it works. Grant is clearly disgusted.
A table near us bursts into laughter, drowning out our conversation. The lights above flicker.
“You sure about this?” I ask.
“Pretty sure.” Willow eyes a tray of blood-infused candy sticks as a waitress walks by.
She’s even younger than Jericho, though.
I doubt she can eat any human food yet. “We’ve been watching her for over a week, and we’ve seen nothing.
She never leaves, never has any visitors, and there’ve been no signs of any other coven members. I really think she’s alone.”
“Why doesn’t she just leave?”
Willow shrugs. “Money? Or maybe she knows someone in the city and is trying to stay close? Who knows.”
Jericho shifts in his seat, stretching an arm across the back of Evan’s chair. “What makes you think Foxx isn’t hiding with her? He rarely left the club. Maybe he’s repeating the pattern and hiding out there too.”
She shakes her head. “Because we’ve seen in her room, through the window. It’s just her. And besides, from what I heard when I was stuck in the club? Foxx doesn’t like Trivanka. He was angry with her. Like, furious even. She left the day before I was there.”
Jericho’s brows furrow. “Come to think of it, she wasn’t there the night of the fight.”
“Exactly. My guess is she hasn’t been with Foxx since that night.”
The energy in my chest pulses. “I say we go.”
Forest sighs, as if he’d expected this. “Rowen—”
“I’m serious.” I lean forward. “This is exactly the kind of lead we’ve been hoping for. Someone who knows Foxx but isn’t caught up in his bullshit games anymore. If she’s alone, then maybe we can talk to her.”
“I doubt that. She won’t want to talk to us.”
“Then we force her to. Nine of us against one vamp? We could have answers before midnight.”
“And if she’s not alone?” he asks. “If we’re walking into a trap?”
“Like I said, there’s nine of us.”
Grant lets out a low, warning growl. “You’re not thinking clearly, Ro. We don’t know what’s going on yet or what she’s capable of. We don’t know her gift.”
“That’s not true.”
All eyes turn to Jericho.
“I’ve seen what she’s capable of. That woman can fly. She has wings, but they’re fragile. Like glass. And her nails are like tiny daggers, so don’t get too close or she’ll shred you.” He rubs his arm, as if he speaks from experience.
“Those wings grow back too,” Willow says. “We’ve seen it.”
“I’m with Rowen,” Jericho says. “If it’s only her, we can easily corner her and get her to talk.”
Sage’s gaze flicks between us. “Again, we don’t know that she’s alone. We’re just going by what you say,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Kaine. His distrust of Kaine is equal to Grant’s. The two men despise him.
“We’re certain she is,” Willow says.
“Still. Until we can see that for ourselves? I’m not willing to go in,” Grant says. “She could kill us.”
“She won’t,” Jericho says flatly.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. I’ve seen her in action. She’s strong, but not too strong. We can overpower her.”
Forest’s patience snaps. “None of this matters. We’re not going tonight.”
My pulse spikes hard enough to make my vision shimmer. We don’t have time to wait. Every hour we do nothing is another hour Tobias’ life is on the line. Another hour I’m failing him.
I slam my hand against the table, making the floating lights above us quiver. “Why not?”
Heads turn from nearby tables, and Forest’s glare warns me to lower my voice.
“If this woman knows where Foxx is, then why wait? It’s the lead we’ve been waiting for, Alpha.”
“We did come for answers,” Ivy says hesitantly. “I have to admit, this feels plausible. I’ve seen that woman in action too. We can do this.”
Our leader locks eyes with his second, and the two share a private conversation without words. Years of leading together have made them capable of forming entire strategies with barely more than a nod.
Dad had been the same way before he died.
“Fine,” Forest says finally, voice tight. “We’ll have someone scout the place. Quietly. But no one engages. Not yet.”
“We should all go,” I say.
His aura presses against me, making the hair on the back of my neck bristle. “Rowen—”
“We can split up. See the building. The more perspectives, the better.”
Before the argument can boil over, a brawl erupts on the far side of the room—a mix of fur and fangs. My wolf surges, ready to leap into the mess, to tear, to do something. I swallow it back so hard my teeth ache.
A black wolf lunges at a spindly man with receding hair just as his friend whacks the wolf over the head with a chair. The wolf collapses. The floating beads of light scatter like pearls as two more shifters get up from a table, muscles taut.
“Time to leave,” Grant says, already grabbing Ivy’s arm.
We all hurry outside before we’re pulled into a fight that isn’t ours.
Outside, the night air tastes of exhaust and day-old French fries. Puddles splash onto the sidewalk as cars whizz by. Prodigy’s skyline glows miles above—glass towers laced with magic sigils pulsing like veins. The urge to shift ripples through me, but I tamp it down.
When we reach the parking lot, Forest sighs.
“Fine. We’ll all follow Kaine to the hotel. But we are not going near her tonight. You hear me? If anyone goes in without my permission, I’ll hang their pelt in my office.”
He studies me for a long moment, like that threat was more for me than anyone else.
Kaine starts toward the alley where he parked, with Willow trailing behind.
“I’ll go with them, so I can text directions if needed,” Jericho says.
As we pile into cars, I look up at the city lights one last time, and Tobias’s face flashes in my mind. Just go, Rowen. I’ll see you when you get back.
Moons above. That was so long ago now, and we never even said goodbye.
I shove the thought down and head after the others. This could be the clue to setting him free.