Ambushed (27 page)

I
came back down a few minutes after sunset as he was cooking up
dinner. Taggart had been right about how quickly he'd bounce back
from his wounds. He wasn't quite a hundred percent yet, his movements
were still a little stiff, but he was up and moving around enough
that he'd started repairing some of the damage to the bunker.

I
arrived at a kitchen that had functional lighting for the first time
since I'd come down into the bunker.

"Wow,
how did you get the lights working again?"

Taggart
shrugged. "I scavenged some of the wire from elsewhere in the
bunker and ran new circuits."

"Where
did you learn how to do that?"

"I
worked as an electrician for a little while. You'd be surprised at
how much you can pick up over the course of a couple hundred years,
especially when you're around when something is invented."

His
words were polite, but there was something about his tone that told
me he wasn't a particularly happy camper.

"What's
wrong?"

Taggart
put a lid on the stew he'd been putting together and then looked up
at me.

"I've
spent most of the last day hitting up all of the contacts that I
could safely go to while still not at full strength. I haven't
managed to find a single person who's both able and willing to help
break Agony out of wherever it is the Coun'hij has him locked up.

"Everything
has become too static. That's part of how Agony and I have been able
to stay out of sight for so long, but now it's working against us.
All of the major players are too well known and the Coun'hij is
keeping too close of an eye on them."

Once
again I felt like I was swimming in waters that were too deep for my
level of skill and understanding.

"I
don't understand what you mean."

"I
originally thought Kaleb was being stupid to wait this long to move
Agony. If it had been me I would have moved him to one of the
Coun'hij's secret bases immediately so that it would be that much
harder for everyone to find him."

"Right,
that makes sense to me."

"Yeah,
it makes sense because you and I are both used to operating from a
position of weakness. We have to move quickly and keep a low profile
because if we don't we're unlikely to last for long. Kaleb doesn't
have that problem and it was a stroke of brilliance to wait like he
has. It means that he's got his people stationed at or near all of
the big packs that would otherwise be willing to help me out.

"He's
got wire taps up and running, he's monitoring their e-mails and
texts, he's controlling the flow of information and he's basically
got a knife to the throat of anyone who's ever even thought about
resisting him."

I
opened and closed my mouth a couple of times and still couldn't come
up with anything truly helpful to say.

"There
has to be some way to do this, something we haven't thought of yet."

Taggart
shook his head, looking truly defeated for the first time since I'd
met him. "I've gone over it inside of my head again and again
and I can't come up with anything. I've thought about every single
pack and come up dry, there's nothing any of them can do to help.

"The
vampires can't be trusted even assuming I was willing to try and
recruit them, which I'm not. The werewolves are barely even sentient
and even if I had a way of getting them to the right spot and the
right time there's no guarantee that Puppeteer wouldn't be there
waiting to take control of them."

I
interrupted him before he could say anything else. "What about
the jaguars?"

"No,
I thought of that too. The jaguars hate all wolves equally. They'd
sooner sit back and watch us kill each other than lift a finger to
help any of us."

"Sorry,
Taggart, I said that wrong. What I should have said is what about
a
jaguar. The girl I told you about, the one from Minnesota, the one
who tried to warn me away from Jackson. What if I asked her to help
us?"

"It's
better than nothing, but one shape shifter isn't going to make much
difference either way."

"But
what if she isn't by herself anymore?"

I
had his attention now.

"Why,
did she say something about having joined another group?"

"No,
but she was really different this last time when I saw her. She
looked healthier, like she'd been eating more regularly, and she
seemed less scared—like maybe she's found somewhere safe."

Taggart
started moving some of the dishes over to the sink, buying himself
time to think.

"It's
worth a try, but I don't think you should try to do a bunch of
negotiating by yourself in the dream. There's too much you still
don't know. We'd pretty much have to meet up in the real world with
her and her friends."

"So
that's a risk, right? But saving your friend would be worth taking
that kind of risk, wouldn't it?"

Taggart's
nod was reluctant, but we were back to having at least the beginnings
of a plan.

"Yes,
a real-life meeting is worth the risk, but try to arrange it so that
it's just me who meets with them. There isn't any reason to risk both
of us."

I
looked at him doubtfully. "I don't think she'll go for that."

"I
know, but at least try. It will help me sleep at night to know that
we did everything we could to keep you out of the line of fire."

"Okay,
I'll try and get her to meet with just you. It feels good to have a
plan again."

"Yes,
for however long it lasts."

I
stepped closer and put my hand on his arm. "If this doesn't work
then we'll find something else."

"I
hope so. If we can't then I'll have no choice but to ally with Alec
Graves and that will probably be the death of us all."

There
was something about his voice. It told me more than he would have
chosen to.

"You've
talked to him, haven't you?"

"Yes,
just a short time ago. I've had so much time asleep lately that I'd
managed to talk to everyone I needed to so I went to him."

"How
did you form a new connection so quickly? Usually it takes you a
month of trying to find someone new."

"I'm
sorry, Adri. I let you think that I didn't have a connection to him,
but I sought him out years ago. I thought that it would be prudent to
be able to spy on Kaleb's heir and when the necessity arose I might
not have time to waste trying to establish a new connection."

I
wanted to be mad, but at the same time I was almost giddy at the fact
that I finally had some connection, indirect though it might be, to
him.

"What
did he say? Did he ask about me?"

"It
wasn't exactly that kind of conversation."

My
anger was starting to move to the forefront now. "What kind of
conversation was it exactly?"

"A
very strained one. We nearly came to blows on a couple of occasions.
I'm sorry. I tried, I really did, but he just reminded me too much of
his father. It wasn't just his face, it was the way he moved and his
certainty that he was right. We struck sparks off of each other in
ways that I hadn't anticipated."

"You
didn't hurt each other then?"

"No,
but there is something you should know."

I
held a hand up to block his words, and talked fast in the hopes that
he'd be too much the gentleman to interrupt me.

"I
know you don't trust him, Taggart, but I do. I talked to him when he
was at his lowest and I was nobody. There wasn't any reason for him
to believe that he'd ever see me again or that I'd ever be any kind
of player in his world. He doesn't trust his father."

Taggart
sighed. "Nobody trusts his father. Even the rest of the Coun'hij
doesn't trust Kaleb to do anything that isn't in Kaleb's best
interest. I'm sorry, Adri, but that really doesn't prove anything."

My
bottom lip was quivering, but I wasn't going to cry. I hadn't been a
child in almost a decade and I wasn't about to start crying just
because Taggart didn't agree with me.

"I
understand why you don't trust him. You have a lot of bad history
with his dad and there's a lot at stake, but you're not going to stop
me from believing in him. There's a bond between the two of us that I
can't even begin to describe. It's like nothing else I've ever felt.
All I can say is that I think we are somehow meant for each other."

Taggart
closed his eyes as though gathering his strength. "That's what
I've been trying to tell you. You haven't said so in so many words,
but I could tell that your encounter with him was more than just a
run-of-the-mill meeting. It's been obvious from the way your
expression shifts whenever you talk about him that you feel strongly
about him, but he doesn't feel the same way."

"You
don't know that! There isn't any way you could possibly know how he
feels."

I
turned to go, but Taggart grabbed my arm. The grip was gentle despite
the strength underlying his grip, but it was the first time I could
ever remember Taggart physically forcing me to do anything.

"He's
got another girl with him. She looks a little like you, but that's
not the worst part. He's addicted her to his touch."

"I
don't understand."

I
was impressed with myself. The words came out almost normal despite
the fact that it felt like I was dying inside.

"It's
another side effect of being a shape shifter. We transmit a kind of
low-level energy whenever we touch someone. With other shape shifters
it's pleasant but hardly noticeable. For humans it's more than that.
A human who has prolonged exposure to the touch of any one shape
shifter almost always becomes addicted to the sensation. It's like
they become heroin addicts, junkies who will do anything for another
fix.

"He
was dreaming of her when I first made contact with him. The signs
were obvious. The way she was hanging off of him…it was
shameful. No decent man, shape shifter or otherwise, would do
something like that."

"I
refuse to believe it is as bad as you're making it out to be. It was
some kind of accident. They came together by mistake and now he's too
good an individual to just send her away."

The
compassion in Taggart's eyes was enough to finally push my tears over
the edge and they started running down my face.

"He
was ashamed of her, of what she represented. As soon as he realized
he wasn't alone, he banished her in an attempt to try and hide what
he'd done. That's better than if he was so far gone that he didn't
care, but it's still not a good sign.

"I
wanted to be wrong about him, wanted him to be a decent man, for your
sake if for no other reason, but I'm afraid he deceived you just as
he's trying to deceive everyone who is fighting against the Coun'hij.
I think that's what pushed me over the edge with him right from the
very start. I can understand trying to entrap the resistance, Kaleb
has been trying to do much the same thing for decades now, but there
was no need to shatter your heart along the way."

I
turned and ran out of the kitchen without looking back. Taggart
called after me, but I didn't stop running until I got to the small
bedroom just outside of the master suite and locked the door.

Later
I would go to sleep and do my best to contact Dominic. I'd hate
myself for being able to function and do my duty when it felt like my
insides were shattering into a million pieces, but I would do it. For
now I was just going to cry.

Alec Graves
Two blocks from the Rest Easy Hotel
Rio Rico, Arizona

Going from the cold of the Tennessee mountains to the dry heat of southern
Arizona was a bigger shock than I'd expected it to be. For all
practical intents and purposes it just meant that we made another
quick shopping trip to make sure that Brindi had some clothes that
would help her avoid heatstroke, but the heat seemed to drag at me
with surprising strength.

I
hadn't noticed the same kind of issue the last time I'd been in Rio
Rico, which made me think that it was all in my head. Coming back,
even after just a few weeks' absence, was harder than I'd expected it
to be.

Part
of that was the fact that we were walking back into the lion's den,
but that wasn't the only reason. Purposefully putting myself within a
mile of Brandon was a good reason to be jittery, but Rio Rico was
more than just a place where I'd spent a week or two in between
combat missions. Rio Rico was where everything had started to change
for me.

I'd
been here when I'd found out that my mother was lying to me and when
I'd realized that Kaleb and Brandon were massacring people and then
blaming the deaths on the jaguars. Even before that I'd told myself
that Kaleb was a bad guy, someone who couldn't be trusted, someone
who was capable of terrible things, but it was Rio Rico that had
finally opened my eyes completely.

Rio
Rico had even been where the seeds of Rachel's near-captivity to
Vincent had been planted. Kaleb had been putting Brandon off until
our pyrrhic victory at the end of my time down there had caused
Brandon to start pushing Kaleb harder.

Everything
had changed in Rio Rico and if I'd had my way I never would have come
back, but I couldn't stay away and still pay off the debt I'd
incurred while I'd been down here. I probably would have sat there
lost in my thoughts, Brindi at my side, for hours if my phone hadn't
started ringing. It was Jack.

"It's
done, you're good to move forward with your side of things."

"Thank
you, Jack. Your wolf got out okay then?"

There
was a long pause as Jack tried to decide how much it was safe to tell
me over an unsecured line.

"Yeah,
so far. There have already been a couple of close calls, and none of
us are in the clear yet, but the contingency plans we worked out
should be enough to make sure that we get a clean getaway unless they
chase us down in the next hour or so."