“Leave it.” Midas made it an order, and he helped me to my feet. “We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way.”
“The kids are the priority.” He brushed the hair from my eyes. “Let’s focus on finding them.”
The gwyllgi teens would be the first of many victims if we didn’t get this drug under control, but I couldn’t do a frakking thing without Ambrose, and he wouldn’t tackle that ward again tonight if I gave him an entire box of La Madeline au Truffle straight from Danish chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt’s own kitchen.
The reminder of the pack’s involvement did make me curious. “Who told you about Faete?”
“The pack frequents bars all over the city, and we tip well.”
And in return, I imagined, the bartenders called when pack kids found trouble or trouble found them.
We linked hands, more to keep track of one another in the crowd than for the romance, but it was still nice.
An hour slipped through our fingers, but we combed every inch of Crescent Avenue Northeast with no luck. About to expand our search, I noticed a young woman standing still as others swirled around her.
“Hey.” I tugged on his arm. “That girl looks familiar.”
Zeroing in on the crowd, he picked the lone sober face from among the dizzying crush. “That’s Krista.”
“Looks like she’s alone.” I began weaving through the bodies, dragging him in my wake. “She can have the pleasure of ratting out her friends.”
Drugs were just as illegal for para teens as human ones. Even a blip in their control could cost someone their life. These kids were getting spanked once Tisdale got ahold of them. Their parents wouldn’t be too thrilled either.
“She smells strange.” Moving into position beside her, he filled his lungs then sneezed at the smell. “Not like pack.”
“Maybe that’s why you and Ares couldn’t find them earlier?”
“Maybe,” he allowed, “but the implications are dangerous.”
Aside from the obvious inability to track them, I didn’t get his worry. “What do you mean?”
“The core Atlanta pack is enormous, and its satellite packs are healthy sizes too. Even I don’t know all the extended members by name or face. I know them by smell, though. This drug, if that’s what’s causing this, has erased the one form of identity guaranteed to keep them safe.”
“Are they in immediate danger?”
“No adult gwyllgi will attack a child unless the adult is sick, but older teens exist in the limbo of pack hierarchy. All it takes is one aggressive adult who thinks they’ve discovered a trespasser for blood to spill. It’s our nature, and it’s usually a death sentence for the younger gwyllgi.”
The unwelcome news set a clock ticking over our heads, as if we needed more incentive.
“Krista,” I called over the noise. “Hey, girl.”
Whipping her head toward my voice, Krista beamed for the split second before she recognized me. Then it registered I wasn’t whoever had earned that smile, and the flush drained from her cheeks. Panic bright in her eyes, she bolted around the corner.
“I’ve had a long day,” I grumped, “but I don’t smell that bad, do I?”
Midas leaned in, ran his nose along my jaw, his breath warm on my skin. “You smell like—”
“Woo later.” I ducked out of his reach then broke into a jog. “Chase now.”
Unable to stop the grin from spreading, I didn’t fight it. The hunt was in my blood, the same as his.
Nudging me aside, he took point and followed his nose. Now that he had a lock on Krista’s scent, he could track her. She must be terrified to have Midas on her trail, but she wasn’t doing herself any favors by running.
“That girl should try out for the Olympics,” I panted. “Are you sure she’s not a gazelle shifter?”
Laughter tickling the back of his throat, he called back to me, “Our foremothers ate most of those before they migrated to Earth from Faerie.”
I stumbled, but then I narrowed my eyes on his back. “You aren’t serious.”
Pretending not to hear me, he didn’t answer, just kept shouldering through the masses.
“They were people, right?” As I hit my stride, my breathing evened out. “You ate people?”
“I’ve eaten people,” he confessed, now that I was at his elbow. “How about you?”
“Um, no.” I had devoured victims’ essences but not their flesh. “I don’t eat people. I am people.”
“You live through hard enough times, and that ceases to matter.”
Without knowing his age or much of his history, I was in no place to judge him for what he had done to survive.
“People are safe from me as a food group unless they start coming chocolate-covered or bacon-wrapped.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Then all bets are off.”
The look he shot me gave me ideas about other things I wouldn’t mind tasting covered in chocolate.
Ambrose wavered into being, a watery echo of his usual self, to protest the dirty turn of my thoughts.
That’s what you get for listening in, perv.
Krista led us a good mile away from the clubs in Midtown before she stumbled and tipped into a wall. I put on a burst of speed, but she was too far ahead, and I couldn’t catch her without Ambrose to loan me extra oomph.
As if coming to the same conclusion, Midas unleashed his inner beast, let it claim his skin, and used those precious seconds while Krista recovered to corner her. Carefully, he took her wrist in his jaws while he waited on me to catch up to them.
“I’m sorry.” Krista went limp in his grip and sagged over his furry shoulder. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
Midas didn’t see the hand she slipped into her pocket, but I did, and I lunged for her. I captured her wrist, twisted it, and watched a hypodermic needle full of goddess knows what hit the pavement. Faete, most likely.
“Cooperate,”
