“Saving other people’s children will get us ready to have children of our own,” Finnegan agreed, sounding very much like someone who had spent most of his life in solitary confinement and lacked all knowledge of social norms. I mean, what kind of creep brings up wanting his girlfriend to pop out babies on day three of dating?
Perhaps someone who’d already gathered that nurturing young people was at the core of my sister’s character. Because Celeste’s reply came out soft rather than biting the way mine would have been. “I hope you’re good with diapers.”
“I learn quickly,” Finnegan promised, as if he wasn’t already weaseling his way into Celeste’s heart fast enough.
Their exchange made one thing clear—Finnegan wasn’t someone I was interested in choosing as a pack mate. Instead, he was an unknown quantity that we couldn’t afford to bring along in our search for stolen shifter children.
The emptiness inside me was uninterested in that kind of thinking. It reached out to Orion another time. He was protecting my sister. Didn’t that mean we were connected already? If so, what would be the harm in formalizing our bond?
I shook my head so hard the motion made me dizzy. I refused to re-create our matebrand until I was 100% ready to commit for the right reasons. And the issue of Finnegan was important. I had to focus.
Luckily, I knew a way to make that happen. The wolf inside me made thinking harder, but she could make it easier also. All I needed to do was—
I let my inner beast out just enough to shift fingernails into claws. I clenched my fists until sharp points bit into soft human palms. And I used one of Gabi’s lessons to focus my thoughts onto an entirely different track.
On Gabi, actually. Because she was the only lead we currently had about the location of the stolen shifter children. Children who must feel even emptier than I did currently.
“The rest of us need to get to Texas,” I told the people who weren’t my mate and weren’t my pack. “But Finnegan will stay behind.”
Finnegan wasn’t the only one we left in Arizona. Donovan also returned to Orion’s pack to stand in as alpha.
But all of the people I’d itched to form bonds with came with me, flying across New Mexico to the state where I’d spent my childhood. Which is why, twelve hours later when the afternoon sun was fading toward evening, the disquiet inside me remained, merely stifled beneath an intent focus on our upcoming mission.
Other than keeping my head on straight, the process seemed simple enough: Break into Gabi’s living quarters. Plant a tracker. Follow from a distance when she moved the children. Last but definitely not least, we’d set the kids loose.
Steps one and two would be the easy part, performed on the familiar turf of Gabi’s downtown penthouse apartment, a spot I’d visited multiple times back when I still worked for the Council. The building boasted a gym of the sort that came with a juice bar and heated towels. Still, despite the frivolousness of the atmosphere, Gabi put in an hour there every evening like clockwork.
“It has the basics,” she’d told me once. “Treadmills to run on. Weights to lift. Enough to take the edge off. Sometimes, close and easy beats perfect.”
I ignored the thread of yearning inside me that rose with that memory. Close and easy might beat perfect when stretching your muscles. It didn’t when making life-altering decisions like choosing a pack and a mate.
I refused to consider making any life-altering decisions this evening. Instead, I was staying as focused as Gabi had trained me to be.
“We’ll have an hour, but we should plan to be gone in half that,” I told Celeste, Orion, Hailey, and Maya. All of us except Celeste were hunkered down in the back of the rental car, staying low so cameras wouldn’t pick us up as my sister pulled into the level of the underground garage earmarked for residents’ guests.
“I don’t like the idea of you being visibly involved,” I continued, this time addressing my sister only. I was still hoping to talk her out of taking part even though she’d become electronically implicated the moment she scanned her key card to get us into the parking garage.
“Gabi expects me,” Celeste countered, lips barely moving and eyes focused ahead of her. She’d never been involved in a real mission previously. But she’d trained with me and Gabi as a child, so she knew there could be eyes on her now. “Me not showing up would put her on guard,” my sister continued, voice calm in the way I knew meant she was furious but was saving the tongue-lashing for later. “Plus, I’ll be there to sound the alert if she leaves early, so you’ll have leeway to do more than plant a tracking device and run. We’ve already come to an agreement on this.”
We had agreed. The same way we’d agreed to impound Finnegan within Orion’s pack as a kid-glove prisoner. In other words, I liked Celeste’s role in this operation just about as much as she liked leaving the man she’d taken to calling her soul mate behind.
And just like Celeste had tried to argue her way out of that decision, I was trying to argue my way out of this one. I belly-crawled closer to the front seats then dropped my voice, even though shifter ears meant everyone else in the car could still hear me. “This means you can’t go back. You’re really ready to sever ties with your father?”
Celeste craned her head to meet my gaze, her voice going so fierce her lips clearly moved this time. “I was ready to sever ties with Julius weeks ago. I’ve just been waiting until the kids were freed.”
Which they weren’t. The fact Celeste couldn’t see that, the fact children were no longer her top priority despite them forming the focus of her chosen career, sat like a smelly lump in the air between us.
Still, all I could do was beg Celeste to be careful as she stepped out of the elevator ten minutes later on the gym level. Hailey and Maya, I knew from Orion’s quick glance at his cell phone, had beat her there via the stairwell. They were ready to produce a distraction or even spirit Celeste away if necessary. We weren’t letting her walk into danger alone and she wasn’t the one planting the tracker.
So I should have been able to relax into the mission as the doors closed between myself and my sister. Mirrors reflected Orion’s steady presence beside me as we rose up the center of the forty-story building. Celeste, Hailey, and Maya were fully prepared to do their parts down at the gym level. I needed to trust all of them, even though they weren’t my pack mates.
I’d just gotten my head back into the game when the keypad sparked and the elevator ground to a halt.
Chapter 14
“Stuck in an elevator?” Maya’s voice sounded amused as it rang out of Orion’s cell phone speakers. Meanwhile, the faint sounds of human chatter in the background suggested she was just where we’d planned for her to be—at the juice bar with a slanting view of the spot where Gabi liked to work out. “That’s the monkey wrench?”
“Better than snowed in,” Orion answered, his gaze almost meeting mine in one of the mirrors before skittering away.
“Yes,” Maya agreed, “a snowstorm would be tricky during a Texas summer.”
My internal emptiness made the siblings’ banter less amusing than it would otherwise have been. Or perhaps I’d just run out of patience. Either way, I broke into their conversation. “We could try to climb out…”
“No,” Orion and Maya countered together.
“Too dangerous,” Orion added on his own this time.
“Not unless it’s necessary,” Maya agreed.
“…Or,” I continued, ignoring their objections, “you could take the stairs. You have Celeste’s keycard and the backup tracking device.”
“On it,” Maya was all business now. “I assume you want me to plant the tracker and retreat since Hailey will be guarding Celeste alone?”
“Yes,” I agreed. Hailey could handle solo protection duty. Still, better not to test that fact.
While I was worrying about my sister, Orion was doling out over-protective instructions to a sibling of his own. “Pull up my number so I’m easy to call if you run into trouble,” he demanded. “You won’t have backup, but Elspeth and I can find a way to get there if necessary.”
“I’m not the younger sibling,” Maya groused, but I knew she’d obey him. After all, Orion was her alpha. And I could taste the tug of their pack bond, their joint urge to hunt, filling the confined space of the elevator car.
