Page 56 of Hunted

8

River

BY THE TIME HALLOWEEN NIGHT ARRIVED three days later, I was climbing the walls. The static in my head was taking forever to clear. I could make out individual voices now, but only if I concentrated like it was the SAT’s. Naturally when I’d relayed that to Guillermo, he’d refused to clear me for field duty, forwarding me yet another mountain of reports to go through. Six days had passed since I’d fucked up trying to break through the vampire’s shielding and had been pulled as primary in the Rossi case. Fallon was relaying every report to me from the field, but I needed to be out there. Rossi was coming for me, for my uncle, for Ellie. It went against every instinct in my Alpha wolf blood to sit around and wait for him to hunt her down.

Now it was an hour before sunset, and I was standing outside August’s apartment with Ellie while she cooed at a plastic bag of fish, no doubt naming all of them even though the damn things were identical down to their little neon red and blue stripes, because that was just Ellie. My phone was blowing up with texts from my brothers asking what the status was on August and if I needed backup. Because, assholes.

River: Hey. We’re here. You ready?

August: I’m not really feeling up to it.

I groaned, wishing I’d brought Vlad to ghost us inside. After the last time I’d broken down August’s door, I was pretty sure he’d gotten the jamb reinforced and kicking those things in hurt like a bitch.

River: You know if I show up without you, Brody is going to come straight back here and haul your ass there even if he has to zip tie you like a calf at the rodeo.

I heard my brother’s sigh of frustration through the door.

August: They don’t use zip ties. Seriously. And you call yourself a Texan?

I began typing.

River: You’ve been ignoring my texts. Ghosting all of us for days. We’ve been trying to give you space, but if you think we’re going to let you shut us out, you must have forgotten how that turned out in the epic West sulk fest post-Yeti Festival.

August: How many times do I have to explain that I did not sabotage Nicodemus the ice dragon? Do we need another intervention?

River: Just open the damn door.

The lock clicked. The change in August’s scent hit my wolf nose immediately. I tried to contain my reaction, but my brother noticed. And when he flinched, I wanted to kick my own ass. He’d been on a low dose of Eclipse for a week now. Not only had he all but disappeared in the pack bond, but the slight musk that distinguished wolf scents from human was almost entirely gone from his skin.

Ellie quickly held up the bag of fish. “River remembered you needed some more neon tetras and there’s this great aquarium shop near my aunts’ house so we stopped by on the way here.”

I slid a hand to the small of her back, lightly tracing her spine. I’d rolled my eyes when she’d suggested stopping at the pet store, but wouldn’t you know, August’s eyes brightened for the first time in a week as he accepted the fish. My brother was sort of obsessed with fish, and had a giant fifty-gallon tank he was fastidiously fussy about.

“Thanks. I love neon tetras. West tried to warn me that the angelfish I fell in love with at the aquarium in Waco had a menacing aura, but I didn’t listen.” August led us into the apartment, going over to the tank and lifting the lid to gently float the bag on the surface to equalize the temperature. “Galadriel ate half my school of tetras like they were the seafood combo platter at Red Lobster. She’s in a different tank now.”

Because of course he’d named the thing.

“Oh dear,” Ellie said. “Poor tetras. I can see how they’d be easy targets, being so shimmery.”

“Rowan rechristened her Zara after that.”

“Perfect name for a murderous fish.” I took a look around his apartment. A few dishes were stacked in the sink, but nothing too bad. Laundry was waiting to be folded in a basket on the couch. Still, August usually couldn’t stand for chores to pile up, and had once tried to crawl to the bathroom to clean it because it was Thursday night and he kept to a schedule despite having had a seizure earlier that day.

“Give me ten minutes to shower,” my brother called. “Do you want anything to drink?”

I glanced at Ellie, who had wandered over to study the fish and waved a hand just as my phone vibrated with an incoming call. “We’re good.”

I swiped the screen. “Hey, Fallon.”

“We’re in position five miles outside the safe house in San Angelo,” she said, wasting no time with pleasantries.

“Any signs of Rossi?”

“No. We’ve been monitoring the site remotely for three days, but without being able to directly approach without him hearing our mental signatures, we can’t be sure. He could be jumping in and out using vampires.”

“That’s what I’d do if I were him.”

“You should know I’m getting pushback from some members of the team.” She hesitated for a beat. “We both know the Tracers have been divided for months over the Rossi issue and what to do about tensions with the Vampire Nation and aggression from the human government. Guillermo’s faction distrusts the vampires and thinks we need to try to make peace with the President. They hate that we’re going against direct orders to raid this site. The Alek supporters, who are pro-vampire and more militaristic, are pissed that the moment we got good intel, it was buried. They claim Guillermo is trying to shield Rossi for his own purposes, maybe to prevent Alek from mounting his own challenge for Alpha.”