18. Crypt Keeper
CRYPT KEEPER
Fucking hell, I wasn’t expecting to walk into that. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting. Certainly not Katalina sitting rigidly on the couch like she was enduring medieval torture while Zara sat behind her, tiny fingers working through a section of her dark hair.
The sight stopped me cold.
Katalina looked up. Our eyes met. Her expression went dark, and her gaze immediately narrowed. “Do not.”
She didn’t need to say it. I knew exactly what her warning meant, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.
Because I wanted to. God, I wanted to. The terrifying demon assassin looked one sarcastic comment away from murdering someone while a five-year-old braided her hair.
It was absurd, yet beautiful. Also, somehow strangely perfect.
My wolf immediately melted into a useless puddle. Mate. Child. Protect.
The thought hit so hard it nearly knocked the air from my lungs.
Mine.
The word echoed through me.
Not just Katalina. Zara too—and that thought scared the hell out of me. I’d known the kid less than a month.
Less than a month.
Yet every instinct I had looked at them and saw something that felt frighteningly close to family. Hack’s DNA results replayed through my head. Close relation. Not child. Not sibling. Not niece. Not anything that made sense.
So how?
How the hell did she share my blood?
“You’re staring.”
Katalina’s voice pulled me back, and I blinked.
“You look ridiculous.”
Zara gasped. “That’s what I told her!”
Traitor. Both of them. Still… my mouth twitched.
Katalina pointed a finger at me. “Don’t,” she repeated.
“I didn’t say anything.” I pressed my lips together.
“You were thinking it.” She glowered at me.
Fair. I shrugged. “Sue me.”
“Sue you? To get what? That thing you call a motorcycle?” she scoffed. Then a breeze drifted across my face, quickly followed by a thunk.
Slowly, I turned my head to see one of her elaborate daggers sticking out of the wood pillar next to my head. My jaw dropped. I hadn’t seen her move an inch.
“You could’ve taken my eye out!” I shouted.
It was her turn to smirk. “Not a chance. If I had wanted to hit you, I promise I would have.”
Zara snickered, and I pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you start either.”
After shooting a stern glare at both of them, I joined Mako at the bar. He was staring straight ahead as he appeared to be hiding a grin behind his glass. The thick, dark liquid ran into his mouth as the tips of his fangs clinked on the glass.
“Why don’t you just get that from the source?” I asked as I stared at him in confusion.
He grimaced as he glanced down into the deep red contents. “I promised Lyra I would refrain from that.”
I snorted a laugh. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“She’s having a hard time with the whole vampire thing,” he quietly muttered as he massaged his temple.
“How is that working for you?” I raised one brow as I waited for his answer.
“The alcoholic blood in a glass thing? Or her not being happy about the vampire thing?” He leaned back on his bar stool.
“Both.”
“Not so great.”
The rest of the afternoon should have felt normal. It didn’t.
Not after Dorian. Not after the warehouse. Not after those claw marks.
Every answer we found seemed to generate a million more questions. Why did Zara’s DNA connect to mine? Why did those claw marks look like mine? Why did Katalina fit so naturally into my life?
And the question I hated most? What if none of this was random?
Later that evening, I sat in church listening to Hack run through findings while my thoughts spiraled. Not dramatically. Quietly. Dangerously.
What if Zara was created from my bloodline somehow? What if Katalina being sent after me wasn’t random? What if Rafael had planned all of it?
My wolf didn’t like that theory. Neither did I.
“We’ve got something,” Hack’s voice snapped my attention back to the room.
Every head turned.
Hack pulled up satellite images on the monitor. An isolated stretch of land outside New Orleans. Old flood-control infrastructure. Mostly abandoned. Mostly.
“Massive underground power draw,” Hack explained. “Minimal traffic.”
Images changed. Thermal readings. Power fluctuations. Ward interference.
“Heavy magical disruption,” Hack continued.
Boomslang sat forward. “You think it’s a facility?”
Hack shrugged. “I think it’s worth checking.”
That was enough.
“I’m coming.” Katalina spoke immediately after we had concluded and gone back out to the main room to update our families.
Boomslang didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No?”
“Do you have no comprehension of the word? No,” Boomslang replied without batting an eye.
Silence ensued. Dangerous silence. The kind right before raging violence.
“We still don’t fully trust you,” Boomslang murmured.
Katalina looked ready to launch herself across the room.
I almost stepped in. Almost.
Then something small wrapped around Katalina’s leg.
Everyone froze.
Zara looked up with her bottom lip protruding. “Don’t go,” she begged.
The room went utterly silent. Because Zara hadn’t asked for anything since she’d been with us. Ever.
Katalina stared down at her. Completely frozen. For the first time since I’d met her, she genuinely looked unsure what to do next.
My wolf immediately growled. Stay. Protect. Home.
Absolutely not. I wasn’t acknowledging that. Not today. Not ever.
Fifteen minutes later, Mako and I were gearing up. Dexter and Thing One were already waiting outside in the truck.
Katalina stood nearby with her arms crossed. Unhappy. Which was putting it mildly.
“Be careful,” the words were directed at me.
I smiled slightly. “You worried about me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Sure, sweetheart,” I teased.
Her eyes narrowed. “Gideon,” she warned.
The room immediately went silent, and I groaned.
Mako barked out a laugh.
Zeus nearly choked on his drink.
“What did she just call you?” Bronx asked, staring at me like I had sprouted a dick on my forehead.
“Oh, this is good,” Zeus wheezed.
“Gideon?” Killswitch repeated. “I thought your name was Dallas.”
I pointed at Katalina. “Don’t fucking call me that.” Then I pointed at everyone else. “And shut the hell up.”
That only made them laugh harder. Fuckers. Every damn one of them.
Katalina looked entirely too pleased with herself, so I stepped closer to her. I didn’t stop until the toes of my boots touched hers. Then I leaned down so that when I quietly spoke, she could hear me but others couldn’t.
“You’re going to pay for that when I get back. You’re going to feel my hand against your ass,” I warned her.
Her pupils dilated, and the normally icy blue of her eyes went midnight. “Promises, promises,” she tauntingly whispered.
The flood tunnels were exactly the kind of place horror movies started. Dark. Silent. Wet.
The concrete and brick walls disappeared into shadow, while stale air drifted through the maze-like corridors.
Mako walked beside me, flashlight sweeping ahead. Roaches scattered as the light disturbed them. The sound of our wading boots sloshing through the sometimes knee-high water seemed to echo and distort as we moved.
“I fucking hate roaches,” Thing One grumbled.
“Guess we know there’s good oxygen down here,” Mako muttered as the roaches skittered off.
None of us spoke much. Something felt… off. The farther we went, the worse it became. Eventually, Mako lowered his flashlight, and his gaze scanned past Thing One, then Dexter, and then locked on mine.
“You guys got a bad feeling?” he quietly asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
That was putting it mildly. The wolf beneath my skin had gone from hair-raising to rigid. Alert. Predatory.
“I’m picking up really weird vibes,” Dexter announced as he stared down into the darkness ahead.
“Me too,” I agreed.
“Everyone stay alert,” Mako cautioned.
The floor of the tunnel made way from being an underground river to briefly soggy debris, then simply damp ground. Our flashlights caught on something.
Footprints.
“And they look fresh,” Dexter murmured. We followed them deeper underground.
Then we found blood. Not much. Just enough. A smear across brick that was easily over a hundred years old. Another near a rusted support beam. Then… restraints.
Silver-lined. Heavy-duty. Exactly like the ones from the warehouse. Extremely similar to the ones in my cage.
My stomach tightened. We were close. Too close.
The prints turned left down a side tunnel. I took the lead as we continued on in an uneasy silence.
The explosion hit without warning. A pulse of what seemed to be silver-infused magic erupted from the walls. Pain exploded through me as I was thrown farther down the tunnel before I hit the ground hard. My ears rang as I lay there, stunned.
Then came the sound. A high-pitched frequency that was like nails being driven into my skull. My wolf lost its mind. The beast surged forward inside me, snarling and thrashing.
I staggered upright.
Mako shouted something from back where he leaned against the wall. I couldn’t hear him. Behind him, Dexter was kneeling over Thing One, who didn’t appear to be moving. Both of them stared at me with shock in their wide eyes.
Another ward detonated. Concrete shattered. Smoke filled the tunnel. Then Mako disappeared.
One second he was there. The next—gone.
“Mako!”
No answer. Dust and smoke billowed, making me cough.
“Dexter!” I choked out.
Only echoes. And then footsteps. Slow. Measured. Approaching through the haze. I spun toward the sound, my wolf immediately demanding blood.
The figure emerged from the shadows. Tall. Controlled. Perfectly calm. Dark hair. Cold eyes.
Not a trace of concern.
He stopped a few feet away and simply watched me. Then smiled. Small. Almost amused. “Interesting,” he drawled.
Instantly, I hated him. The stranger studied me for a long moment. Like I was a specimen. Not a person.
Then he tilted his head. “You weren’t supposed to find this place yet. I thought my little cat would keep you occupied longer than this.”
The words sent ice through my veins because he sounded irritated. Not surprised. As though we’d interrupted a schedule.
His gaze traveled over me slowly. Evaluating. Calculating. “You’ve become much more fascinating than I anticipated,” he observed.
My stomach dropped. What was he talking about?
He knew something.
Something I didn’t.
The realization hit seconds before the darts did.
One. Two. Three.
Pain lanced into my neck and shoulder as my wolf howled. My eyes burned and my vision blurred.
Sedatives.
My wolf roared as I ripped one free. Too late, though. I tried to grab the next one, but my limbs grew heavier and my movements slower. Stumbling, I dropped to one knee.
Silver restraint nets shot from hidden launchers in the walls. They wrapped around me like a web. The more I tried to fight, the more trapped I became until I could barely move.
The world tilted. The stranger stepped closer. I’m not sure how it clicked together in my head, but that’s when it dawned on me, he wasn’t saying “cat,” he was saying “Kat.”
Rafael. It had to be. The man who trained Katalina. The man connected to Zara. The man tied to all of this.
As the sedative coursed through my bloodstream, everything began to dim.
The wolf inside me fought. Raged. Screamed. But the drugs kept surging. The darkness closed in. And my final thought wasn’t for myself.
Wasn’t fear.
Wasn’t pain.
It was Katalina.
Then Zara.
And the terrifying realization that neither of them was safe before everything went black.