Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) (19 page)

“You do that.” I was glad one of us could. “Graeson and I will resume surveillance of the gas station.”

“After you eat.” His tone brooked no argument. “You have to refuel or you won’t have the energy to shift when you need to.”

“He makes a good point.” A haunted expression ribboned across Thierry’s features. “We should both top off before the ball gets rolling.”

I eased closer to her. “Would you like to join us?”

“No.” Her voice went gritty. “I should feed alone.”

Chills swept down my arms. Feed? I didn’t want to know. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

“You kids go have fun.” A faint smile lifted her lips. “I have a date with Shaw.” She waggled her phone. “Whatever passes for Chinese around here and Skype.”

I smiled back, hoping he could shake her grim mood. “Where are you staying?”

“Here. I figured it would be easiest.” She glanced around the room. “I’m one floor up, room two twelve.”

“We’ll leave you to it then.” Graeson held the door for us, pulling it closed behind him and testing it as if not quite convinced he ought to trust Thierry. Or maybe his mistrust had morphed into something else seeing as how she supported my Cam-as-bait plan. “Good night,” he told her, almost managing not to snap. “We’ll plan on meeting across the street at six in the morning.”

“So early?” Thierry groaned. “Okay. Fine. Yeah. Six works.”

We left her to make her calls and went in search of dinner and the patience to wait out Charybdis.

* * *

F
ull of burgers and fries
, we resumed our position on the bench in front of the general store. Night had fallen, and a cool breeze whisked away the day’s heat. Light poured through the grimy windows of the gas station, casting slanted rectangles onto the pavement. One of the bulbs had blown over the pumps, but the other valiantly held back the night for wayward drivers in need of fuel.

“There is another option that might net us quicker results,” Graeson rumbled from beside me.

“You mean Bianca?” I sipped at my drink and rechecked my gut. “I can’t do that to her. I can’t invite Charybdis back into her body, not after what he did—what he made her do—last time.”

Tension eased from his shoulders, a sure indication he was relieved I had chosen to spare her more pain.

“By now he must know Aunt Dot and Isaac are gone.” Any hope of getting the drop on him had vanished.

“It might work in our favor.” Graeson crossed his ankle over his knee. “We need him desperate. We need him to make a mistake. We need him to underestimate us.”

Watching his plans unravel a second time might be all it took. “I agree.”

Shift change came and went, the teen clerk replaced by an older man with a ring full of keys hanging from his belt that screamed supervisor. I’d had enough. I stood and twisted out the kinks. “I say we head back to our room and crash while we can.”

“We do have eight hours before shift changes again.” A smile tipped his lips. “I don’t know about sleep, but I’m definitely ready for bed.”

Flush riding my cheeks, I took his hand and led him back to the hotel.

The night passed too quickly.

M
orning arrived
between one blink of my eyes and the next. Confident we had the shift changes down at the gas station, Graeson and I headed out to breakfast. Cheeks flushed and eyes shining, Thierry joined us only ten minutes after six. Feeding, whatever it entailed, agreed with her even if she didn’t agree with it.

“You guys are morning people.” She plunked down on the bench seat across from us. “Ugh.” She gestured to the waitress and indicated she wanted coffee. Lots and lots of it. “Tell me something good.”

“I wish we could.” I toyed with the paper banding my utensils. “We bombed last night.”

“Shift change is in forty-five minutes,” Graeson reminded me.

“How about you?” I asked Thierry. “Tell me your night went better than ours.”

“I suppose it did.” A somber thread wove through her voice, and she flexed her rune-marked fingers. “I do have some good news.” She reached in a pocket and flashed three green postal receipts stamped with a wizard’s hat. “Pointed Hat Deliveries made a pit stop last night around midnight. We’re set on that end.”

“Pointed Hat?” Graeson asked, puzzling over the slips of paper. “As in a witch delivery service?”

“Ha.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Um, no. The conclave’s pockets are deep, but they’re not that deep. Pointed Hat is operated by a gremlin couple. Harris is an avid Harry Potter fan. The patch on his shirt says
Harris Potter
.”

“Order up,” a cheery voice intruded.

“We haven’t ordered…” I glanced up and sweat popped down my spine, “…yet.”

Under the table, I rested my hand on Graeson’s thigh, cursing myself a thousand times for not taking the aisle seat. Across from us, Thierry’s runes glittered emerald green.

“I saw you last night,” the waitress continued, all smiles. “You were waiting for the boy, but I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.” She plunked down one of the plates on her tray, black eyes gleaming. “He had a heart condition. Who knew?”

“Why didn’t you approach us?” I inched closer to Graeson, until our thighs were plastered together.

“Approach a conclave agent and her warg lover in the middle of the night?” She clicked her tongue. “Come now, I do have some sense of self-preservation.” She kept unloading her tray. “I thought meeting this morning, as you’ve done the past two mornings, would make the most sense.” She surveyed the area, ignoring an elderly man attempting to flag her down for a coffee refill. “Witnesses abound.”

Hmm. This was new. If she cared about witnesses, that meant she was vulnerable, didn’t it? Too bad there were no obvious means of capitalizing on her weakness. “What do you want?”

“You’re the one who came looking for me.” Her speech pattern was much more human and natural. A show for the customers? A result of spending enough time in this world to adapt to its people? Or had Charybdis been making a point by speaking to me formally before? “What is it, Camille Ellis, that
you
want?”

“I want you to release Harlow Bevans.” And die a horrible, fiery death for what he had done to those girls, to Bianca and Jensen, the gas station clerk, all his victims.

“Releasing her will cost me an avatar.” The waitress pulled straws from her pockets and tossed them at us, clearly relishing the role. “Are you offering a substitute?” Her gaze lit on Thierry. “Not that one. No.” She retreated a half step. “Your lineage is as clear as the runes branded on your skin.” She whipped her head toward Graeson. “That one, though. He’s strong. He would last. For a while.” She snaked her hand over the table toward Graeson, chest heaving at the shock of terror radiating from me. “Yes. This one will do—”

“No.” I stabbed a fork through the back of her hand. “He won’t.”

The waitress’s expression didn’t change as she ripped out the fork and tucked her hand in her pocket before we created a scene. More of a scene. “There is something to be said for mated wargs,” she mused, voice losing its modern edge. “Once I claim you, his mind will shatter.” She grinned at him. “She has no idea how close you are to the edge. How losing her would shove you over it.”

A cold ache took root in my belly. Graeson was healing. He was moving on from his sister’s death. He loved me. Losing me to the same killer, especially if my physical body were still viable, might force him back several dangerous steps in his recovery.

Unless I told him the truth, that Charybdis had been hunting me all along. That Marie was a casualty of his greed, that her blood was on my hands. Once I told him that, he might not care what the murderous fae had in store for me.

Coward that I was, I caged that admission behind my teeth. I wanted to enjoy Graeson for as long as I had him. It was selfish and wrong of me, but there it was. There would be time enough for him to hate me later, once this was done.

His warm hand covered mine where my nails dug into his thigh.
“She’s trying to get under your skin. Don’t let her.”

“So we have a deal?” I forced her attention back on me.

“I would shake hands—” her grin flashed dimples, “—but I might get too eager.” Fetching her order pad out of her front pocket, she flipped to a clean page and brought out her bloody hand with a pencil gripped between those fingers. “Meet me here, at midnight.” She scribbled. “You have the rest of the day to say your goodbyes.” She tore off the top sheaf and slapped it on the table. “Come alone, or the changeling will be a gibbering fool by the time you wrest her from me.”

“Understood.” I tucked the paper with precise coordinates into my pocket.

Spinning on her heel, the waitress crossed the room and entered the kitchen. I tossed a handful of bills on the table to cover the food we hadn’t ordered, and we exited the building before the police got called. Assaulting an innocent woman in a restaurant was not my brightest move ever, but my she-wolf had been a whisper away from bursting from my skin since Charybdis revealed himself.

The three of us hotfooted it back to the hotel. Thierry had work to do, so she left us to spend the final hours together while she figured out logistics of the area the coordinates indicated.

With more than twelve hours to go until midnight, I made phone calls to Mom and Dad and then to Dr. Wayne to check on Aunt Dot, Isaac and Theo. Too antsy to stay cooped up in our rooms a minute longer, Graeson and I went for a drive to visit the pack. He needed to see his people, and I did too. Dell had been blowing up my mind wanting details on Isaac, and I hoped reporting in person might help the details stick. She had managed to slip in jabs of concern for me too, but when I was in her head, the walls were painted the clear blue of his eyes.

Stone’s Throw RV Park was cramped and lacked the polish of the site the pack had abandoned in Chattanooga. But it was quiet, and the view was spectacular if mountains and forest were your thing. Needless to say, for a warg pack it was exactly their thing.

The pack, minus Bianca and Zed, who was pulling guard duty, met us in the parking lot. Graeson took my hand and led me forward when my knees threatened to lock with uncertainty. A transient childhood meant I feared absence hadn’t made their hearts fonder but forgetful. He guided me through the gauntlet of hugs, and I ignored when the guys sniffed my hair or exhaled their relief against my skin that I was home.

Home.

Muscles relaxing, heart lightening, I breathed out my own blissful sigh. This place did feel like home. The familiar trailers had nothing to do with it. These people made it—made me—feel that way.

“Cam.” Dell smashed into me, squeezing me until my eyes bulged. “I’m so glad you came.” She pushed me back to better read my expression. “You are staying, right?”

“I can’t.” Tension met my announcement, crackling in the air. “I have a meeting tonight. After that, if all goes well, we can put this behind us.”

Several faces turned toward the trailer where Bianca rested. Point taken. We would never move past Jensen’s absence, never look at Bianca without remembering it all over again. We would have to address her care and the baby’s when this was finished, when she was truly safe and could begin healing.

“This meeting sounds serious.” Dell studied me. “Do you need extra eyes or ears or…” she peeled back her upper lip, “…teeth?”

“I can’t risk you.” I glanced around the tightly packed gathering. “Any of you.”

“You’re alpha,” Abram rumbled. “We can’t risk you, either.”

Graeson slung his arm around my waist and anchored us together at the hips. “We’ve brought in outside help that’s not susceptible to the tricks this fae employs.” He kissed my temple. “Ellis won’t be alone.”

I heard a deeper meaning in his voice and pondered it, deciding I would have to extract a promise that, no matter how sure he was that his idea was better than mine, that he was in the right to protect me, he had to trust me to handle business this time.

Behind us a horn honked. We turned as one to greet a pickup with a lit sign decorated with a pizza slice on top.

“Come to momma.” Dell rubbed her hands together. “We decided to have a welcome-home feast in your honor.”

“That was generous of you.” I aimed the remark at Graeson, who appeared as innocent as a lamb among wolves. I got the feeling he was so intent on stuffing me that I would have to waddle out to meet Charybdis.

The guys rushed the delivery driver, who did a double take at being crowded by such large men with a singular interest. He shoved the boxes into their hands and retreated a few steps, until his back pressed against the side of his car. Cash was shoved into his trembling palms, and the guy hopped in his ride and left without a backward glance.

Graeson and I passed several hours in the company of friends, eating and joking and eating some more. We ran together to burn off the jitters making us all antsy. By the time we finished, the tightness in my shoulders had lessened. I was leaning against Graeson’s side, hand resting over his steady heart, when my phone pinged.

“I don’t want to get that,” I confided in him.

“We can’t afford not to.” He tipped my head back with his finger under my chin and kissed me. “Thierry might need us.”

Knowing he was right, I checked my messages. “She’s got the location mapped.” I swiped my thumb over the attached graphic. “She wants to meet and discuss strategy.”

“Then we should go.” He stood and pulled me up with him. “I want tonight to go off without a hitch.”

“Me too.”

I wanted tonight to be the end of Charybdis’s reign and the start of our new beginning.

* * *

T
hierry met
us at the door of her hotel room with her hair in a bun, a pencil clamped between her teeth and a gas station map folded in her hand.
Vindication
. I wished Theo was here to see her going paper versus digital. It sprung to mind that perhaps since we’d had the same training we gravitated toward using the same means of deductive reasoning, but I took victories where I could find them.

“We have about two hours until go time.” She tucked the pencil behind her ear. “It takes about thirty minutes to reach our destination, so that cuts us down to an hour and a half.” She ushered us inside and gestured toward her bed, which was covered in electronics and scribbled-on paper maps. “He wants to meet in this area, on Watauga Lake. I mean literally on the lake.” She indicated the map at the foot of the mattress. “The coordinates are for a section of pier at the marina.”

Graeson tapped a few buttons on the laptop and switched from the road map to earth view. “This limits Thierry’s line of sight.” Sailboats and pontoon boats crowded the dock, making it difficult to isolate the exact spot Charybdis had specified. “This tells me he’s been out there before and knows the lay of the land.” He straightened with a scowl. “He could hide a dozen hosts in those boats, and we would never know.” He shook his head. “This is too dangerous. There are too many unknowns.”

“I know you wanted to end this tonight,” Thierry chimed in, “but he’s got a point.”

“This is why he agreed so easily.” The first phase of my plan had backfired. Instead of making him sweat, I had tipped our hand. “He used that extra time while we were staking out the gas station last night to set this up.”

“We’ll have other opportunities.” Graeson reached for me.

“At what cost?” I skirted his grasp. “Who will be next?”

The flattening of his lips before he glanced aside confirmed he suspected it would be him. Me? I knew it would be. He was the most precious thing I had left.

“Please,” I begged him. “We can do this. We can still turn this in our favor.”

“Thierry?” That he looked to her for advice cut me.

“We have an hour.” She cleared off room for us to sit. “No promises, but let’s put our heads together, and see what we come up with.”

“I debated giving this to you.” He removed a crumpled foil ball from the back pocket of his jeans. The imprint on the material told me it was a used gum wrapper. “I’m not sure why you asked your parents for some of these, but maybe one is enough?”

The thin metal crinkled as I folded back the edges, revealing a gem the size of my thumb. “I thought this was lost.” It was the stone I had found in Aunt Dot’s pocket. “You’re sneaky.” No wonder he hadn’t reacted to the dryad’s news. “Very sneaky.” The metal dampened its magic to a bearable level, unlike the porous fabric I’d used. “You told me to leave this.”