Chapter 3 #2
“I want access to your intelligence network. Real access. Feral movement, supply chain disruptions, Konstantin’s operations. Not summaries. Primary data.”
“On a case-by-case basis,” Maximus says. “Reviewed by my people before it transfers.”
Erik considers this for half a second. He’s leaning forward. “Reviewed within twenty-four hours. And nothing gets cut before I see it.”
“Forty-eight hours. Two reviewers on my end. Nothing withheld.”
A pause. “Accepted.”
“When this escalates, you’ll want a seat at my war council,” Maximus says. “It’s yours.”
Erik’s face closes. He sits back.
“You’re not here because of credibility,” I say.
Erik holds my eyes.
“You’re here because ferals are killing humans near your territory and the news is calling them animal attacks.”
Erik puts down his glass.
“The last feral my people put down,” he says, “looked like a kid. Couldn’t have been more than a year or two past college age when someone turned him.” A pause. “My trackers found him half a mile from a middle school.”
He’s quiet for a second. His eyes go back to Maximus.
“Six confirmed incidents on Iron Claw territory in one month. Two of them in locations my wolves use for family gatherings. This isn’t bleed-over. Someone is placing them. This is targeted.” Maximus’s palm flattens against the wood.
“Konstantin is testing the alliance,” Maximus says.
“He’s testing whether there is one.” Erik’s voice stays level.
“Pick us off separately and nobody has to fight him directly. My wolves bleed out on ferals. Your vampires deal with whatever he’s doing on your end.
” He takes a drink. “He doesn’t need to beat us.
He needs to make sure we never sit in the same room. ”
He folds his arms. “I don’t trust vampires. I want to be clear about that.”
“I know,” Maximus says.
“I trust patterns. The pattern says whatever’s coming is bigger than species pride.” His attention shifts to me. “She’s right about the news. That’s the reason I’m here.”
His eyes move between us when he says it. Quick. Assessing.
“The territory recognition,” I say. “The northern buffer. What does Konstantin know about it?”
Erik’s expression sharpens slightly. “It’s disputed because the records show it as contested. Anyone who knows your political landscape knows it.”
“So he knows it’s a sticking point between you.”
Erik inclines his head. A single tilt.
“Then settling it now isn’t about territory. It’s about making sure Konstantin can’t hide behind the confusion anymore.”
Erik puts down his glass. Looks at me without blinking for one full second.
Maximus takes my hand under the table. One brief press. I don’t look at him.
“She does that,” Erik says.
“Does what?” Maximus asks.
“Sees the whole board.” He picks up his glass. “Good to have on your side.”
Maximus nods once. “I know.”
Erik pours a second measure of the amber liquid. Sets the bottle down. Reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a folded map.
He spreads it on the table.
Atlanta and the surrounding territories. Hand-drawn overlays on a printed base. Topography, highway corridors, dark green forested areas to the north where Iron Claw territory sits. Twelve points marked in red.
“Every confirmed incident. Every location my trackers documented.” He lets us look.
The twelve points aren’t scattered. They radiate outward from three central points, like spokes from three separate hubs. Spreading in directions that would eventually converge.
Oh.
“The three source points,” Maximus says.
“Not a natural spread,” Erik says. “Not a vampire who went feral and started wandering. These are placed. My best tracker mapped every approach vector.” He taps each point.
“Abandoned warehouse complex off I-285. Drainage infrastructure junction in DeKalb County.” He taps the third, north of the city. “That one is in the buffer zone.”
The third source point sits almost exactly on the disputed boundary line.
“He’s using the contested ground as cover,” Maximus says. “Ferals placed in disputed territory. Both species claiming jurisdictional confusion.”
“So neither acts fast enough,” Erik says.
“And the incidents accumulate.”
I look at the map. The three points. The twelve radiating marks.
Erik is quiet for a beat. His eyes drop to the map, then back to me.
“He’s done the same thing with the blood supply,” I say.
“Contaminate the distribution channels, accelerate the feral conversion rate, create a shortage that forces desperate decisions.” I move my finger above the paper, following the lines outward from each hub without touching it.
“Both fronts at once. Starve the vampires. Back the wolves into a corner. Then walk in with solutions when everyone’s desperate enough to take them. ”
Erik folds his hands on the table. Looks down. Then at me.
“After three months on this problem,” he says, “my people didn’t connect those two vectors.”
“Your people weren’t looking at the blood supply data.”
“No.” A pause. “They weren’t.”
Maximus leans forward. “The source points need surveillance. Not action. Not yet. Move too fast and he shifts the operation and we lose the trail.”
“My trackers can watch those locations without being detected,” Erik says. “That’s what they do.”
“Mine can access the supply chain records and map backward from the contamination sites.” Maximus looks down at the twelve red marks. “If the distribution points and the placement locations connect to the same operation, we have proof. Not guesswork.”
Erik nods. Once.
Erik extends his hand across the table. Maximus shakes it.
Erik looks at me.
I extend my hand. He shakes it.
“Moreau.”
“Erik.”
He stands, folds the map in tight clean lines, and slides it across the table to Maximus.
“My trackers’ notes are on the back. Your people will want them.” He moves toward the door. Stops with his hand on the frame.
“The buffer zone,” he says, without turning around. “There’s something else in those three square miles. My wolves won’t go past the eastern tree line. They don’t know why. They just won’t.” A pause. “Whatever Konstantin put there, it’s not only ferals.”
He walks out.
The door swings shut behind him. The sound of the bar returns, faint through the walls. The chair at the far end is still pulled out where he left it. His glass empty.
Delia’s voice carries in the corridor, low and even, directing someone.
“He’s been running this alone for three months,” I say.
“Not anymore.” Maximus takes my hand.
His fingers close around mine.
We stand. Maximus puts the map into his jacket. I follow him down the corridor and back into the bar.
The room has shifted since we went in. Fewer patrons. The Iron Claw wolves near the entrance have thinned to two. Delia is behind the bar again, talking to someone I can’t see.
Then I can.
He’s sitting at the bar with his back to us. Broad shoulders, dark hair, a build I recognize before I recognize anything else. Weight centered on the stool, hands loose. Fighter’s posture. I know that posture because I used to see it across the ring.
He turns.
Nico.
The face hasn’t changed. Strong jaw, dark eyes, the kind of handsome that’s been in fights and came out better for it.
He looks the same as the last time I saw him, which was a hotel room in Buckhead three years ago, when I was still human, and he was just a man who could take a hit and give one back.
One night. He’d wanted more. I didn’t. I had Simone to take care of and fights to win, and that was the whole of it.
He wasn’t just a man. I know that now. The low-level heat that wolf shifters carry hits me from across the room.
I’ve learned to identify it since Erik and Kael.
Nico fought in the underground circuit alongside humans, took their money, fought their fights, and never once let on that he was something else entirely.
A wolf. I slept with a wolf. Great. Add it to the list of things nobody told me.
His eyes find me. They move down once, slow, and back up. The look lasts for a second too long. Two seconds. Three. He takes me in like a man who already knows the shape of what he’s looking at.
Then his gaze shifts to Maximus.
The look changes. He straightens on the stool. His hands settle on the bar.
“Celeste.” His voice is the same. Low, a little rough. “Been a while.”
“Nico.”
“You look different.”
“I am different.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. He doesn’t look at Maximus again, but his body is angled away from me now.
“Good to see you,” he says. Nothing else.
“You too.”
I keep walking. Maximus’s hand is at the small of my back. His fingers haven’t moved, haven’t tightened, haven’t changed pressure by a fraction. Everything about him is exactly the same as before this brief conversation.
Except the shadows that flicker once at his fingertips and disappear.
We step through the laundromat door and into the night. Kyle has the car waiting.
I get in first. Maximus follows.
Silence.
Kyle pulls away from the curb. The city slides past the windows. I wait. He doesn’t speak. His hands are in his lap, one resting over the other, perfectly still. He’s looking straight ahead.
The compound is quiet when we get back. Kyle drops us at the front entrance and pulls away without a word. I follow Maximus through the main hall, the east corridor, past the closed doors.
His eyes stay forward.
He unlocks our door. Holds it open. I walk past him. The room is dark and I don’t reach for the lights.
The door clicks shut.
I take off my jacket. Drape it over the chair. The city comes through the window in thin bars. He’s behind me, not moving, not speaking.
I turn around.
He’s leaning against the door. Arms at his sides. He hasn’t taken off his jacket. The only light in the room is from the window and it cuts him in strips. Jaw. Shoulder. One hand hanging at his side.
“Nico,” he says.
“One night,” I say. “Three years ago. I was human. He was on the circuit. I didn’t know what he was.”