Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Maclin Security’s newest big client didn’t like our plan for upgrading the security system in his downtown offices, and I was trying my hardest to care.
“This proposal to close my entire office for four days to do the installation is twice as long as I thought it would be.” Gerald Hines, senior partner at Hines and Associates, stabbed at the stack of pages in front of him with his thick index finger and glared at me as if he wanted to poke my chest instead.
“Every day we’re closed is lost revenue for me. ”
“I am very aware of that.” I kept his voice even though my wolf bared his teeth in my mind.
My wolf had even less patience than usual with unreasonable clients today.
“I’ll have my crews in your office for twelve hours a day during that time.
We’ll work with your other contractors so as soon as each phase of our process is done they can start their finishing work.
This is an extensive upgrade. I assure you we’ll work as quickly as we can while ensuring we meet both our expectations of quality workmanship and yours. ”
Before hiring Maclin Security, Hines had interrogated both my business partner Ron Dormer and me, as well as current clients, about the level of work he could expect from our company.
He wanted the best and he was willing to pay well for it.
And yet for all his harping on quality workmanship he seemed to believe it should also be done during a single night and not interrupt his or his employees’ workdays whatsoever.
We’d been going around and around on this for nearly forty minutes already.
This was far from the first time I’d run into a client demanding I do my best quality work in a completely unrealistic timeline, but with the wolf pacing almost nonstop and no chance to shift and run off some of his tension, I had to dig deep to find the patience to deal with Hines—and even deeper for what I’d need to get through the two meetings I had scheduled after this one.
At least I could look forward to going to another job site this evening and ripping an old system out of the ceiling and walls with my bare hands.
That ought to take the edge off until I could figure out a way to calm my wolf that didn’t involve driving directly back to Alice’s house and knocking on her heavily warded door.
My wolf growled low. No knock. Break door.
I tried not to sigh aloud.
My phone buzzed on the table. The caller was local, but not in my contacts. My thumb hovered over the button that would send the call to voicemail, but it might be an emergency. Even if not, both our client and I would benefit from a moment’s pause.
“Excuse me,” I said to Hines. He grunted.
I answered the call and raised the phone to my ear. “This is Sean.”
At first, I heard nothing except some rustling and crackling. A pocket dial? A wrong number?
I raised my voice and tried again. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
More rustling, and then ragged, raspy breathing, a whimper, and a dull thump.
Whoever the caller was, they were in distress. Every cell in my body reacted in less time than it took my brain to process the information.
I jumped to my feet, my vision gold around the edges. I’d moved so fast my chair shot back across the carpet and hit the wall behind me. On the other side of the conference table, Hines slid his own chair back, clearly alarmed at my glowing golden eyes and low growl.
A whisper on the phone: “Help…”
Her voice was so weak and so desperate that I barely caught it. But I wasn’t the only one listening.
My wolf shoved me so powerfully that I staggered and hit the side of the table with my thigh. The pain barely registered.
MATE NEEDS US, my wolf snarled.
Alice.
I ran.
I burst through the conference room door and took off down the hall toward the front doors of Maclin Security. Hines was shouting behind me, but I ignored him. Ron was in the office; he could deal with our client. Alice needed me right the hell now.
Why call me instead of someone she knew better? The only possible explanation would be sheer desperation.
“Alice?” I called, my voice full of my wolf’s growl. “Alice!”
No answer came—only the sound of raspy, uneven breathing that gurgled in her lungs. Every rattling breath sounded like it might be her last. Fear and rage made my gut churn and my skin tingle.
My wolf howled in fury and paced, stiff-legged, ears flat and teeth bared.
I called Alice’s name a half-dozen more times and still she didn’t respond. She might have passed out.
I made it to my car and jumped in. But as I hit the ignition button, I realized had no idea where she was.
I dug a prepaid phone from its hiding place under my seat and dialed a number saved in its memory under Takeout.
I let it ring twice, ended the call, and took off in the direction of Alice’s house just so I could be doing something besides sitting in my car growling and listening to Alice’s raspy breathing over my car’s speakers.
The seconds ticked by as I drove, willing my prepaid phone to ring. Sometimes it took moments, and sometimes it took hours for a return call from this number. Alice’s life might depend on which it was today.
Miraculously, the prepaid phone rang only three minutes after my call. I answered midway through the first ring.
“Cyro, I need a location on a phone number that’s calling my cell right now,” I said without waiting for a greeting.
I provided Alice’s number, but in the background, computer keys were already clicking.
“Hold on.” Cyro’s voice was male but clearly artificially generated. The hacker used a different voice every time we’d spoken. Today’s iteration had a British accent.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
Alice was still breathing, but every time her inhalation hitched it sent a chill straight through my body.
Every so often she let out a wheeze or a wispy moan of protest and pain as if whatever had hurt her hadn’t stopped tormenting her.
I had to focus on not crushing either my phone or the steering wheel.
The bones in my hands creaked with my wolf’s fury and worry.
“I have an approximate address,” Cyro said after what felt like an eternity. The computerized voice named an area on the west side of the city, far from Alice’s own home on the east side.
“Thank you.” I ended the call, dropped the phone in a cupholder, took the next right, and raced toward the west side and the intersection Cyro had given me.
After that I’d have to try to find her car by going street by street.
Even Cyro’s resources, whatever they were, usually couldn’t give me an exact location.
Halfway to my destination, though, my phone beeped with a text message that included a precise address and a satellite image of a single-story house with what looked like a red Mustang and Alice’s little blue car parked in the driveway.
Cyro also sent the name of the homeowner, but the name Natalie Newton meant nothing to me. That could be Alice’s client, or it could be the person who’d hurt her. My wolf snarled at the thought.
I’d have spent more time wondering exactly how Cyro got those pieces of information if I hadn’t been focused on getting to that house before Alice stopped breathing.
When I turned onto the street, I spotted Alice’s car instantly. I swerved to the curb in front of Natalie Newton’s house, parked, and ran for the front door.
On the porch, I sensed wards on the house and recognized Alice’s magic instantly. These were a lighter, much less deadly version of the wards on her own home, but they would pose a problem for me nonetheless.
With the phone at my ear to make sure Alice was still alive, I banged on the door with my fist. The wards crackled against my skin at the force of my knock.
“Alice!” I shouted. “Ms. Newton! Alice!”
The house remained silent as a tomb.
The doorknob crackled with magic too, but it turned. The foyer inside was empty and the house was quiet.
I had no choice but to push through the wards and hope I came out the other side still on my feet. With any luck, Alice had set standard home protection wards designed to deter or disable unwelcome visitors but not fry them too badly.
I stuck my phone in my back pocket and reached through the open doorway. The wards seared my hand and arm, pushing me back. The pain wasn’t excruciating yet, but it would be if I kept going.
Somewhere in the back of the house, Alice groaned.
That sound, and the smell of blood and burned flesh—Alice’s blood and burned flesh—turned my world silent and dark with rage and desperation.
My wolf snarled and shoved me toward the crackling threshold.
SAVE HER, he demanded.
I lowered my shoulder and lunged forward as if I were trying to smash through the door itself rather than the invisible barrier Alice had placed on the house to protect its residents.
The pain would have stopped most humans and some shifters for certain. But I didn’t stop, even when I staggered and almost fell. Crossing these wards felt like what I imagined it would feel like to try to walk through a curtain made of shards of broken glass.
Alice was hurt. Alice might be dying. The fierce woman my wolf wanted as his mate for life could be slipping away from us forever. No wards would keep us out if Alice needed us.
I coughed and tasted my own blood. Warm drops of it ran from my nose and trickled from my ears.
My wolf gave me one final shove, and then I was through the wards.