After leaving the farmhouse, she‘d dropped Wells off in a convenient town. When she told him she was keeping his car, he‘d shrugged and called it a fair trade for his life. He‘d said, as if he‘d just discovered the fact, "You really are a werelion."
Almost able to smile, she‘d given him Lachlan‘s words, hearing again the young voice saying, ‗ Some people call us Daonain or shifters. Me, I prefer werecats."
Then Wells had asked her what she‘d do. His open concern felt…odd. Nice.
She slid out of the car and heard the engine ping as it cooled. She‘d told him she‘d be all right. Maybe, eventually, that wouldn‘t be a lie. She‘d made errors over the past months, stupid mistakes due to her background, her fears. People had been hurt because of her poor decisions.
She‘d been hurt.
Breathing in the cold, clean air, she stripped, locked her clothes in the trunk, and gave herself a good scratch. She itched all over—apparently Alec hadn‘t bullshitted about the effects of being surrounded by metal. After pulling off her bandages, she checked the bullet hole. The bleeding had not only stopped, but the wound looked a couple of days old. Shifters healed fast.
Good.
Time to move on. She‘d fixed everything she could. Now she had to confront her own fears and decide what came next.
Through the long night‘s drive, she had remembered what Calum had said in the cave of the hot-springs, ‗ The silence of the mountains serves me well when I am troubled.‘ Now, tilting her head back, she looked upward where the rising sun lit the snow-topped peaks of the huge mountain range.
And she shifted.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Calum paced around the shelves, unable to settle. At the front of the bookstore, Thorson sat at his desk, listening to Alec. With a jolt of pain, Calum saw how the newest grief had aged the old man. Last week, when he‘d heard about Victoria‘s betrayal from Angie, Thorson had disappeared into the mountains.
He‘d only returned today.
Calum paced back to the counter as Alec related the events at Vidal‘s farmhouse. "...after Vicki and Wells got away, we burned the building."
Thorson leaned back in his chair with a disbelieving expression. "You two couldn‘t catch a car on a dirt road?"
"We tried," Calum said. "Almost caught up, and then she threw something out the window.
What did you call it, Alec?"
"A flash-bang. Good name for it."
Thorson snorted out a laugh. "I‘ve read about them. Blinding light, deafening noise?"
"Precisely." Calum rubbed his ears, the memory still painful. "In cat form and at night, it‘s quite intense. By the time we could see again, they were gone."
"She‘s a cool cookie," Thorson said.
Alec slammed a fist on the counter as his temper, so long under control, ignited like the bloody flash-bang. "Damn you, Thorson, she‘s not a cool anything. She betrayed us. And that spymaster she saved will do everything in his power to hand us over to the government. She chose him over us."
Calum understood his reaction. Seeing Victoria choose the enemy had knotted his guts like a meal of rotting carrion. And yet…
Thorson turned his head away, his face tight.
Calum leaned against the counter wearily. Too many sleepless nights. He‘d tried to get over the pain of her loss, to see past his anger. The clan waited for him to declare Victoria‘s life forfeit, and he…couldn‘t. Something bothered him, kept him from taking that step, and he couldn‘t tell whether his emotions were swaying him or if he‘d missed an essential fact. "If you don‘t mind, Joe, I would like to go through this together. I am not seeing clearly, I fear."
Thorson‘s face tightened, increasing Calum‘s guilt, and then he nodded. "All right. Start with when she first appeared. With my Lachlan."
"Swane and Vidal had captured him," Alec said. His hands were still clenched, but he was making the effort.
Calum moved up beside him, shoulder rubbing shoulder, and felt his brother‘s anger diminish. "Did she truly assist in Lachlan‘s escape or fake it to gain her entry with us?"
Thorson shook his head. "Lachlan Gifted her. The boy had the ability to read people. He wouldn‘t have made a mistake, and an enemy wouldn‘t have stood still for the ritual. Truth, Cosantir. It was a true Gifting."
Thorson would not have been fooled. "Yes."
"Got herself hired into the bar to collect information. Can‘t get around that," Alec said.
"She saved Jamie that day," Calum put in softly. He could never forget that. "But when we caught her the night of the Gathering, she lied. She told us she was looking for you, Thorson. Not that she was investigating shifters."
"There‘s no law against killing two birds with one paw," Thorson admitted, the growl gone from his voice. "I do believe Lachlan gave her that task. There was no lie in her scent—or her sorrow."
Calum thought back to that night in Thorson‘s home where Victoria had first told them how Lachlan died. Her grief had been real. "Aye."
"My boy…he‘d have been terrified of exposing us," Thorson said. "He probably made her promise to keep silent."
"But she‘s an agent for the CIA. She admitted that, and we know Wells is her handler."
Calum‘s brows drew together. "So this spy has just found out about creatures she‘d never seen before. What‘s her first action?"
Alec‘s mouth twisted. "Tell her boss."
"No, dammit," Thorson snapped. His eyes had brightened. "Stupid cub. Are we flooded with government agents?"
"No," Alec said slowly. "Aside from Vidal‘s men, only Wells showed up."
Calum leaned on the counter for support. "Could she have acted independently? Checked us out on her own?"
"You two know her better than I do," Thorson said. "Would that little werecat go running to her boss with a fairytale story? Especially if she promised to keep us a secret?"
Calum remembered when Jamie was two. " Do it myself, Daddy.” Victoria would have been much, much worse. "No. I have a feeling she‘d felt torn between her duties even before she turned shifter." He remembered her careful questions in Thorson‘s house, and her admission,
