Chapter 18
eiGhteeN
MY HOUSE BUZZED LIKE a beehive but I was still sitting on the couch, Roul posted up in front of me. I kept my head down, my wrists resting on my knees.
Bacon and Nuke arrived some time ago and the crowd immediately bombarded them with questions and platters of sugar.
Bacon took it all in stride, hopping onto the counter and double-fisting cookies.
Meanosaurus was oddly quiet for once. He walked toward me like he was hyped up on caffeine—fast feet, twitchy head, all nerves. He pecked at my foot but I didn't move.
"What's with him?" he asked Roul, twisting his craned neck to look between us.
Roul just growled and snapped at the poultry, causing him to scamper back to Bacon. I heard the chicken mutter something before tattling on Roul like a toddler with talons.
Normally I would find the chicken telling on Roul hilarious. I was too numb to feel any emotion aside from worry and guilt. Lots of guilt.
We got sporadic updates as Zeus worked to "spring Haven," as he put it.
Kragen said something about "a great idea," but the rest blurred through the static in my head.
Nanna had moved on to cooking what appeared to be an entire cow.
The noise overwhelmed me and I jumped up, bumping chests with Roul. "I need some air."
He stepped back with a grunt and followed me outside. I walked a few feet from my porch and tilted my nose to the sky, taking a deep breath. Then another. After the fourth I scanned a slow circle, searching for any flash of blue. I found none.
"Do you see the lights?"
Roul grunted. "No, but I wish I did." He sighed. "The others can feel when their mates are in pain. It would go a long way to easing my mind if I knew she was physically okay."
I nodded. "I hated them—until they vanished. Now I hate not having them." I turned to face him. "Is that weird?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just dumb muscle, Quin, but I don't think it's weird. All we can do is trust our gut, right? What does your instinct tell you?"
"That she's mine."
He nodded. "Yeah..." His voice trailed off as he stared into the woods. "Don't let her slip away."
I took another deep breath. "What if she's a trap? I can't be the one to get us captured. I..." The words clawed at my throat. "I can't be the fuck-up."
He rounded on me with a snarl. "No one thinks you're a fuck-up, Quin."
I was building a case when one of Supe Sec's trademark SUVs pulled up. Haven bounced out, a determined look on her face. She marched into my house without a backward glance. Zeus patted me on the back and laughed.
"She's a keeper."
I followed him into my living room and found Haven standing in the center, her eyes darting around the space. When they fell on me, they lit up, and I relaxed.
"There you are! I have a plan."
Why did those four words strike fear and excitement in equal measure?
"A ... plan?"
She nodded. Started to speak, then I watched her eyes widen and dart around the space. Mine followed. Along with my five brothers, Kendal, Jade, Nanna, Bacon and the woman I assumed was Jackal Division's scientist crowded around, all staring at Haven.
She spoke to Zeus. "Um... I guess this is the expert you talked about?"
He nodded. "Let me introduce you." He started closest to her and made his way around the room. "I believe you've met Bacon, Jackal Division's tech specialist." He paused for Haven's nod before moving on. "This is Sasha Rourke—Jackal Division's scientist."
"Call me Nuke. Everybody does."
The tall, slender woman with choppy auburn hair had a backpack leaned against her legs and wore a shirt that said I void warranties professionally.
"I usually test artifacts in a stuffy basement lab all day, but they let me out to see about your situation."
Haven and I shared a look, but before either of us could ask a question, she kept going.
"I'm bioenergetic, which should mean that I can control energy fields but in my particular case it means they more often control me.
" She waved a hand and started digging in her backpack.
"Which is neither here nor there in this case.
What's relevant is that I can see when a supernatural isn't behaving the way it should.
Makes me an excellent recruiter for Jackal Division, but it also means that I can see power linkages before they're fully formed. Take, for instance, mate bonds."
She grinned as she stood upright, clutching an oddly wave-shaped object. "Right now, I can see two fully formed mate bonds and one that seems incomplete, but not like, 'you haven't bitten her yet' incomplete. More like, it doesn't know what shape it's supposed to take."
Haven moved into my side as she approached.
"Anomalous bonds—manufactured or not fully formed ones, especially—behave a lot like cursed artifacts. They are unpredictable, reactive, and prone to blowing up."
She held the object out. "I need you both to catch this. I can't touch you, but you both need to be touching it. Got it?"
We shared another look, then meekly held out our hands, palms up. She dropped the object and we caught it, then almost dropped it twice as it changed shape. We dropped it when it grew spikes. It bounced, then returned to its original wave shape.
Nuke retrieved it from the floor. "Right. Given the results of the tests I ran on your blood sample," she picked it up while looking at Haven, "and the reaction of The Mawglass Relic, someone screwed with your basic biology. The bond isn't entirely natural."
"What does that mean—not entirely natural?" I pulled Haven closer, like someone was going to snatch her away at any moment.
Nuke put the shape-shifting blob back in her backpack and hopped up on the counter next to Bacon. "It means that a mate bond can't be fully manufactured, but someone has absolutely tinkered with her DNA to amplify any bond that was lurking."
Haven stiffened next to me. "How could they have done that without my knowledge?"
"Oh, that part's easy. A regular injection would do it."
"How regular?"
"Once a year, maybe a little less. It would have to be done slowly. They'd want to give the gene restructuring a chance to settle before adding the next step to lessen the chance of adverse side effects."
Haven stumbled to the couch and sat. "Like a flu shot."
Nuke nodded. "Exactly like a flu shot. That's kind of brilliant."
Everybody in the room turned to stare at her.
"I mean, in a totally diabolical way."
"So I am a trap."
Haven's voice was soft, but it echoed through the quiet room like a roar. After several heartbeats, she looked up at me. Determination shone in her eyes and her tone.
"My plan is to go to work, pretend I don't remember what happened in my house, and root these fuckers out."