Someone knocked on the door. Annoyed at the interruption, I almost told whoever it was to fuck off. But Phin was due in, so I regretfully left the warmth of Wyatt’s lap.
“Don’t think this conversation is over, Truman,” I said as I trotted to the door. Sure enough, Phin stood back far enough to be fully visible through the peephole. I unlocked the door, and he breezed inside without waiting for an invitation.
“Jenner called me,” he said. “I’m sorry about the Assembly. You deserved that information.”
I shrugged as I closed the door and relocked it. “The more I talk about it, Phin, the less sure I am that they’re in danger. I just …”
“What?”
“Something Jenner said that day in his office still bothers me—that line about fairy tales. What does that even mean?”
A smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “He was giving you a hint as to the identities of the bi-shifting Clans.”
“Really? Because as clues go, that one sucks.”
“We’ve been here a long time, Evy, long enough to have inspired quite a few myths and legends among humans.”
I flashed back to Tattoo the Halfie’s reaction to Phin on the gym roof. “Like angels?” I asked.
“Precisely.”
It made an odd kind of sense. Part man, part animal. Greek myth had a story about something half man and half horse. Huh. Maybe after this was over, I’d hit the library and try to guess which of the other Clans were bi- shifters. Or I’d make Wyatt do it; he was way better at the research thing. “Thank you, Phin.”
He nodded.
“Anyway, there’s nothing left to be done on that front.” I took a step closer, as he’d retreated deeper into the room. “Did you meet Call?”
“Yes.” Phin’s nostrils flared. His gaze flickered to Wyatt, still sitting comfortably in his chair, then back to me. What was …? Oh. Heightened sense of smell—a little bit of Wyatt must have rubbed off. I quirked an eyebrow at Phin.
He continued. “Average human male, about your age, lanky build, maybe three inches taller. Brown hair, dark eyes, no discernible scars or birthmarks. Pretty forgettable fellow, except that he’s cut like an Olympic swimmer.”
“No one you’ve ever seen before?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think so, or you know so?” Wyatt asked.
Phin narrowed his eyes. “I know I’ve never seen him before. From the way they talked, Call and Snow have a history. They sounded like old friends, comfortable with each other.”
“So looking into Snow’s past might be useful in conjuring up Call,” I said, giving Wyatt a meaningful glare.
Ignoring me, he said to Phin, “I don’t suppose you brought a snapshot?”
Phin shook his head. “I couldn’t manage one without being obvious. I do have other news. He wants to meet you.”
For a moment, I thought Phin just forgot to look at me. But he was gazing right at Wyatt, whose eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Me?” he asked at the same time I said, “Why?”
“He didn’t tell me why,” Phin said. “I never admitted I knew who or where you were; he just assumed. He said to bring you with me tonight.”
“Just Wyatt?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, Evy, not everyone knows that you’re alive—for the first time, and certainly not the second.”
“Maybe it means Call knows me,” Wyatt said.
He was actually considering it. I planted both hands on my hips. “Or Snow knows you and Call’s playing along, and one of them wants to put a bullet between your eyes. You can’t—”
“No?” He stood up, hands balled into fists. “He’s the big bad, Evy, and he wants to meet me face-to-face. How the hell often does that happen?”
“Like I said, usually before the bad guy kills the unsuspecting hero. Way to walk right into his plan, Wyatt.”
Something dangerous flittered across his face. “If Call had asked for you, you’d be the first one out the door, and my objections be damned.”
“I …”
What? He had me pegged, and we both knew it. Any protests I tossed at him would be deflected, because I had no good reasons for them. Just selfish ones. I didn’t like being the one on the outside looking in.
“If it helps at all,” Phin said, “I didn’t get the impression Call wishes to kill him. He seemed more interested in a conversation.”
“Did he hint at the topic of conversation?” Wyatt asked.
“He didn’t say much of anything at all. Snow did most of the talking. A lot of his same spiel about the races policing themselves and holding accountable those responsible for crimes against them.” His words held no direct accusation; Wyatt still flinched.
“Wyatt,” I said, “why would the Kitsune Elder tell me to ask you about Snow’s beef with the Triads? Why you, specifically? What did you do to the Kitsune Clan?”
My questions hung in the air like blocks of ice, chilling and impenetrable. Wyatt went perfectly still, his face utterly blank. I’d seen so many emotions there in such a short span of time that the emptiness startled me. He didn’t want to reveal something, and everything seemed to point toward that very secret.
“You,” Phin said. Eyes wide, something like shock in his tone as he stared at Wyatt. “You were the one who killed Rain.”
Wyatt paled and seemed to teeter on the edge of vomiting. I reached for him; he pulled away to the other side of the room. When he reached it, he froze. Then he pivoted, face blazing, hands shaking, every ounce of that fury targeted at Phin. “Yes, I killed her. I took the Neutralize order and carried it out myself, so no one else would have to know. Especially my Hunters.”
“Who’s Rain?” I asked.
“Were-fox, Kitsune, whatever you want to call her,” Wyatt replied, his voice as venomous as his expression. “It was four fucking years ago. Why does Snow care so much now?”
“I don’t know,” Phin said. “Snow mentioned the name once during his pitch. He used her death as an example of how the Triads were out of control.”
I looked back and forth between the two seething men. Getting answers out of them was like prying teeth with tweezers. “Why was she killed?” I asked.
Phin’s eyes narrowed, and his head twitched to the side. He looked like a bird of prey about to attack—more of an animal than I’d ever seen. He was deferring the question to Wyatt, who continued glaring at Phin. I wanted to knock their heads together until the answers spilled out and the testosterone was washed away.
“Officially?” Wyatt asked. “She was considered a threat to the preservation of the human race.”
I blanched. “You want to translate that unofficially?”
He fell silent. Phin picked up the slack and said, “She fell in love with a human, Evy. That was her crime. She wanted to love and marry outside of her species.”
The room felt ten degrees colder, the air thicker. Harder to breathe. Shock tore at my stomach, threatening to upset its meager contents. The brass had ordered the death of a woman because of who she chose to love. And Wyatt had requested the kill so he could hide it from the other Hunters. Hide the fact that such an order had ever come down.
If the woman had been a Blood, maybe I could understand. The risk of infection was too great to chance such a pairing, even if I believed vampires capable of loving humans, which I didn’t. Any other species was barely human—goblins, trolls, gargoyles—many of them little more than monsters. Therians had always seemed both more and less threatening—more because they could appear completely human; less because they chose to live among us without upsetting the status quo. How much could one woman’s love of a human truly hurt? What if Aurora had
