Page 27 of Chased

And the land told Sanchez’s wolf.

Nobody knew what kind of shifter Thanatos was. Nobody ever even saw his face. Sanchez always figured he was some kind of mythical monster—a dragon or a basilisk or a fucking troll, if they existed.

Something ancient and powerful, whose magic permeated the land they called their territory and became a part of it.

Wolves became part of their territory too, but for them, it was the contours of the land and the things that grew on top of it, and the energy of the creatures that lived in it that mattered.

He suspected that for Thanatos—or whatever his real name was—it went deeper than that. A lot deeper, to the heart of the earth, the layers of rock, maybe even the molten magma underneath it.

The Adirondacks were old mountains, old like the Scottish Highlands, worn down by millennia of weather and time.

Old land spawned some weird-ass creatures, and Thanatos was one.

Didn’t matter to Sanchez. Thanatos had picked his job—ridding the world of vermin no one else could—and he got the job done.

And he’d gotten Sanchez and his cousins off the streets, giving them safety, purpose, and a place to belong.

Sanchez was never going to have any serious problems with Thanatos. He owed him big. But he still questioned the wisdom of him opening the Ridge to outsiders. Then again, he was pretty sure Thanatos questioned the wisdom of it too.

But sometimes things changed in ways you never anticipated. When that happened on a mission, you had to just accept the new reality and adapt—or you died.

In life it was pretty much the same.

Almost always, Thanatos saw people in what the soldiers called the Throne Room—a deep underground cavern designed to make him look like a cross between Batman and a fucking vampire.

But he didn’t bother with all that when it was just Sanchez. He knew Sanchez knew he was some kind of weird-ass monster, and didn’t really care. Weren’t they all, in one way or another?

He also knew Sanchez wasn’t intimidated by him, and intimidation was pretty much the point of the Throne Room.

Instead, Sugar showed him into Thanatos’ palatial study on the second floor. It ran down the whole back of the house, looking out on the forest, and was full of dark wood furniture and dark wood paneling and red and blue Persian carpets that were also—well, dark.

In the winter the three windows let in some sun, but the rest of the year the light was a watery green, coming through the leaves on the trees.

As usual, Thanatos was wearing a dark brown robe with a deep hood, so that his face was hidden in its depths.

“Mr. Sanchez,” Thanatos said. “What an unexpected surprise.”

His voice was low and gravelly, like rocks tumbling together, and his tone was dry. Thanatos was never happy to see anyone. As usual, he was working on something at his desk—probably figuring out who in the world to go after next, and how to take their money.

Sanchez had no quarrel with that.

“Hey,” Sanchez said by way of greeting. He walked in and sat in the leather chair across from Thanatos without being invited. Thanatos liked to play Vampire Lord of the Manor, but he’d accepted the fact that Sanchez had no patience with that shit. But he wouldn’t put up with Sanchez dicking around with small talk, either.

“This new girl they hired to work in the office,” he said. “Madison Fontaine. What’s up with her?”

Thanatos said, “You could have saved yourself the walk and asked Miss Carter.” Miss Carter being Breanna. Thanatos didn’t hold with any of this modern ‘Ms.’ bullshit.

“I’m asking you. You might be letting Gunn and Mikey and Breanna do the hiring, but don’t tell me you haven’t done an independent background check on every candidate, because I’ll laugh in your face.”

Thanatos sat back in his chair, his fingers laced together. In the Throne Room you couldn’t see it in the dark, but they were rough and scaly, like a lizard or a troll, or some creature made out of stone.

He’d sometimes wondered if Thanatos’ dick was made of rock too. That could be great for the ladies, but it would suck when you had to pee.

Thanatos said, “Miss Fontaine is from a fox shifter enclave in Colorado. Originally French, so they call themselves by the French word for foxes—Renards. Capitalized, because they think quite well of themselves. Very clannish and patriarchal. Females kept very much in their place.”

“Sounds like your kind of town,” Sanchez said.

“As you know, my kind of community has no females in it at all. But I digress.” He moved his fingers so that the tips pressed together one by one. Index finger. Middle finger. Ring finger. Pinkie.