“You’re sure this is a good idea?” I asked. “If we start an electrical fire, the kids…”
“It will be a very small flame,” Orion promised just like he’d done the first time we discussed this. “And our contact is certain that there’s a fail-safe to open all locks in the event of a fire.”
Nothing happened though. Well, nothing other than the barely present scent of something burning seeping through invisible cracks around the inner door. That plus the faintest whoop of a smoke detector nearly entirely muffled by soundproofed walls.
Our plan wasn’t going to work. Celeste’s face would pinch with the same disappointment that had colored her voice last month when I’d prioritized strangers above her students. She’d think I hadn’t really tried. That I didn’t value what she valued. That our bond as sisters was irreparably broken, just like the mate connection that Orion and I had lost.
No, I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to come up with another way in. I needed to…
The door clicked open. Which would have been welcome if evidence of a larger-than-expected flame hadn’t immediately flowed through the opening to fill the vestibule. Illuminated by the dim glow of backup lighting, a hallway stretched out before us full of haze reddened by LEDs. Roiling smoke was already so thick it burned my eyes and seared my lungs, but that wasn’t the worst of our problems.
Amid the haze, the silhouette of a figure nearly as large as Orion blocked the doorway. “Welcome,” a male voice intoned, “to the underworld.”
Chapter 2
Smoke messed with my ability to smell, but I would have caught a tinge of fur if this man was lupine. I was sure of it.
Nearly sure of it.
Beside me, Orion shook his head very slightly. No, he didn’t think the stranger was a shifter either. Which left a few possibilities, the most likely of which was—Council employee.
Still, I would have given the stranger benefit of the doubt if the door behind us hadn’t opened at that very moment. “I know you told me to wait,” Celeste said as she breezed through and shut herself into the smoky interior alongside us, “but you’re running behind schedule and…oh. Who are you?”
The stranger’s voice dropped, turning seductive. “Finnegan. And you are?”
For one long moment, my sister just stared at him. She’d be taking in what I’d seen already, but I had a sinking suspicion she was spinning those same physical features into a very different narrative.
Because Finnegan was tall and lean, with a messy mop of dark hair that fell into his eyes and gave him a boyish charm despite the fact he otherwise appeared very close to my age and Celeste’s—mid-twenties. His tailored suit made no sense for a man woken in the middle of the night but did an astonishingly good job of emphasizing corded muscles. And the dark trench coat layered on top was currently open at the front in a way that framed him to full advantage. Only the faint sheen of sweat along his hairline hinted at any discomfort with the heat and smoke that currently had me stifling a cough.
No wonder my sister’s voice turned husky. “I’m Celeste. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Curling through the smoke, I caught the sickly sweet scent of Celeste’s arousal. Caught something less clearcut from the stranger, although the intensity of his gaze upon her person suggested my sister’s interest was very much returned.
I didn’t like this one bit.
Especially when the stranger—Finnegan—took a step forward. Celeste’s hand stretched out as if she intended him to shake or kiss it, even though he might just as easily grab her wrist and yank her off balance, turning her into a hostage…
Orion and I slammed into each other in our haste to form a barrier between the stranger and my sister.
“Keep your distance,” Orion growled.
I expected Finnegan to growl back. If he’d been a wolf, he would have been dominant. Something about his stance made me sure of that.
Instead, he lifted one arm to reveal what had been hidden behind his trench coat—a garbage bag full of clothing “Is this a rescue or isn’t it? I’m packed and ready to go.”
I frowned, rearranging my assumptions, or trying to over the blaring alarms and eye-burning smoke. Was it possible we’d gotten our wires crossed? Was this basement meant to cage adult werewolves rather than children?
No matter how hard I sniffed, though, Finnegan continued to smell entirely human. Which meant, counterintuitively, I needed to treat him like a greater threat.
Because a human was more likely to be working for the Council. It would have been nice to be able to communicate that guesswork down a mate bond. As it was, I had to hope Orion’s thought processes ran along a similar path to mine.
“You got this?” I asked.
Orion didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he struck in a flash of shifter-expedited movement. One blink, then Finnegan’s face was pressed up against the wall, one trench-coat-clad arm twisted up behind his back. Celeste barely had time to gasp before Orion uttered a single syllable:
“Yep.”
“Great.” Problematic stranger taken care of, I grabbed my sister’s wrist then tugged her out of the vestibule and into the hallway. After all, there were still children to hunt for, whether Finnegan was their jailer or an older captive as he claimed.
I’d expected the smoke to be worse here, but it was actually a little better. So that wasn’t the reason my sister strained away from me, trying to stay close to the double set of doors that opened onto the vestibule. She was the one who’d been adamant that we follow this lead as soon as possible. But even as her feet unstuck and she trailed behind me into the increasing darkness, she acted as reluctant as when Julius had refused to let our younger selves leave the table until we’d cleared everything green off our plates.
“Orion’s hurting him,” my sister complained, her voice louder than was really necessary even with the cacophony blaring.
No, that wasn’t right. Among humans, Celeste’s speech would have been entirely appropriate to the surroundings. I’d just gotten used to living among wolves.
Wolves who wouldn’t consider what Orion was doing excessive. No bones had cracked and I doubted Finnegan’s muscles were really straining. “He’ll be fine,” I answered, opening a door in hopes it was the kitchen. No such luck.
“We can’t leave him alone with…” Celeste started.
“Orion?” I finished her thought absently, traveling faster into the haze.
“An alpha werewolf,” my sister answered under her breath, perhaps not expecting me to hear her. “You know how they get.”
There was so much to unpack there…so much I would have said myself two months ago. Now was neither the time nor the place for word-bending however. Not when I had a blazing appliance to find behind one of the closed doors that lined both sides of the stark hallway. A scavenger hunt with a hard deadline—douse the device with fire repellent before the entire building went up in flames.
Yesterday, I’d agreed with our hacker’s suggestion to set up a long-distance fire by overloading a smart toaster. It made good sense after all. The appliance was bound to be outside any sleeping quarters, giving me and Orion time to squelch the problem after smoke triggered the unlocking of doors and before the blaze really took hold.
But we hadn’t counted on dilly-dallying talking to a stranger, then talking about a stranger. We hadn’t counted on Celeste joining the invasion, moving slower than a shifter would have as she trailed her fingers along the wall to make up for the dim lighting. I just hoped the combined delays didn’t mean fire had flared up to cabinet level before we reached the source.
