Hank spotted our arrival, but I waved him off, and he took the hint.
Though I bet he was on the phone with Tisdale within seconds, which meant Midas’s phone would be ringing shortly.
The trip down the sidewalk to the parking garage was brutal, but Midas kept his expression schooled in a blank mask Linus would envy. Slow but steady, we managed to give the appearance of a casual stroll rather than the frantic hobble I would have preferred until we reached the shiny new chamber.
Recalling the training the OPA and pack enforcers had received on its operation, I shoved him through the door, trusting him to handle himself while I kept an eye on Sue, who I had forgotten until now, though it went against everything in me to leave him fumbling around and in pain on his own.
A red light flashed when the chamber activated, and the band clenching my chest eased a fraction.
Part of me, the darker bits I wished I could blame on Ambrose, wanted to collect on that pain from Sue. I wanted to rip her down the middle for hurting him. I understood her reasons. I would have done the same in her place. But with the mating bond thrown open wide, I had trouble controlling the gwyllgi territoriality that leaked into me from Midas.
With a ten-minute wait ahead of us, I dialed Abbott, hating to yank him out of his bed. “Hello, friend.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
A sleepy rasp edged his voice. “What’s wrong?”
His relief wasn’t imagined as I explained I wasn’t the patient.
Rude, if you asked me. I wasn’t that bad of a patient.
Fiiine.
I was a total nightmare, which explained why he was sleeping so lightly in the first place. Probably dreaming about me being shattered into puzzle-size pieces he had to fit together after the gauntlet.
That might also explain why he hung up on me.
“I’m sorry Midas got hurt.” Sue made herself small. “I didn’t expect you to come looking for me.”
“I didn’t expect what I found.” I slid her a glance. “I didn’t know about that bar.”
It bothered me as much as Midas getting hurt that others could be too.
“Your stance on shifters is well known,” she murmured. “I would be surprised if anyone told you.”
Until it hit someone hard enough their allergy got them dead and their family started asking questions.
“My stance on shifters is the same stance I have on every faction.”
“You’re mated to a gwyllgi.” A bite entered her voice. “You’re not impartial, no matter what you tell yourself.”
“I never claimed to be impartial. The pack is my family now, and its well-being is important to me. But so is the health and safety of every citizen in Atlanta. Necromancers have money and power to hide behind. Vampires have necromancers to hide behind. Fae hide period. Shifters can’t hide in their numbers, and they’re often treated like animals rather than people.” I sized her up, this person mated to a shifter who could pass for human, who could be human when he chose. “All factions are aggressive, territorial, and dangerous. That includes humans. I don’t want to elevate shifters above everyone else. I just want to give them a hand up to level ground. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“We heard about you.” She leaned against a concrete pillar. “Sean said it was all propaganda to normalize the union of a necromancer and a gwyllgi prince within her purview, but it’s not, is it?”
The way she phrased it, after turning it over in her head, I had to ask, “Did Phoenix know about your husband?”
She caught my drift, and her features pinched to a painful degree. “No.”
“You presented him as a human,” I guessed, then wondered, “Was that why you stepped down?”
Not motherhood itself, but her inability to hide her children’s true natures long term.
“Yes,” she rasped. “I loved my job, but retirement was best for us all.”
I awarded points for caring enough about her kids not to bind them in lies as she had their father.
The parking deck had fresh wards, also courtesy of Tisdale, so light conversation was acceptable. The nitty-gritty would have to wait until we all finished our turns in decontamination.
A green light flashed above the door, and I gestured to Sue. “Instructions are printed on the wall.”
The chamber had a separate entrance and exit. You entered through the garage and got spat into an office Tisdale had transformed into a bare-bones exam room. Midas would already be with Abbott. He could keep an eye on Sue until I made it through. By going last, I made sure she couldn’t slip out again.
While waiting on the light to blink, I texted everyone updates and reported the anti-shifter bar. Sentinels would have to handle the case. They were all Low Society necromancers, like me, so they weren’t at risk.
On the good-news front, Bishop informed me the tactical witch coven had arrived at Lake Lanier.
There were definite benefits to having a skilled local coven willing to accept contract work.
A sharp trill of sound jerked my attention to the burner phone I had borrowed from Remy.
The unknown number on the caller ID set my pulse jumping. “Whitaker.”
“If you want your friend to live,” a smoky voice rasped, “you’ll fail the gauntlet.”
“Fail?” I must not have heard him right. “Do you mean bow out?”
“You will enter the gauntlet, and you will fail, or Neely Torres will die.”
The caller hung up, and there was no point wasting time to track the call, but I would ask Reece to try.
Flunk the gauntlet? Why enter in the first place if that was their price? What did it accomplish?
Except, perhaps, to give Sue an opportunity to showcase her skills while ensuring I was no competition.
The light turned green, and I stepped in and stripped off my clothes. I took a shower, scrubbed until my skin was pink and sore, and
