Shadows & Secrets

Chapter 8

"It's connected to Bloodmoon," he said. "And it's connected to something older than the current pack situation. I have one source telling me the disappearances—the ones the recall is about—aren't random. They're targeted. Someone is taking specific people for specific reasons."

"What kind of specific reasons?"

"That's what I don't have yet. But Aurora." He set his glass down. "The pattern of who's being taken—it's women. Young women. With strong pack ties or unusual abilities."

The frequency in the air, which had been quiet since she crossed his threshold, sounded once—a single clear note—and then went quiet again.

"You're telling me this now," she said carefully, "because you think I might fit the pattern."

"I'm telling you this now because you're going into that territory tomorrow," he said. "And because I would rather you go in knowing what to watch for than not knowing. I am not telling you to refuse the assignment. I would not insult you by trying."

She held his gaze. The quality of his attention had not changed, but something underneath it had—a controlled fear he was choosing not to perform.

"Thank you," she said. "For telling me before instead of after."

"It was the only useful option."

She set her own glass down without having drunk from it either and crossed the small distance between them and put her forehead against his. He didn't move. He just let her be there.

"I'm coming back," she said.

"I know."

"I wanted to say it anyway."

His hand came up to rest along the back of her neck. They stayed like that for a while.

She didn't stay the night this time. Both of them understood why without saying it. She left before midnight, and the walk back through Mooncrest's silver streets felt different than it had the night before, because now she had something to listen for instead of just a vague wrongness, and her wolf walked beside her consciousness rather than behind it, and the frequency in the air was not a threat exactly but it was no longer abstract either.

She slept three hours. It was enough.

She arrived at the gathering point before anyone else, which was either professionalism or restlessness depending on who you asked. The clearing was a small wooded space behind the headquarters' grounds, used for departures that did not need to be observed by the daylight portion of the city. It was the kind of place wolves had used since the city had been small enough that wolves could shift in the open without drawing comment, and it had retained the quiet dignity of all such places.

She was checking the contents of her pack for the third time—a tic she had learned to forgive herself for—when she heard voices.

Two of them. Low, controlled, the cadence of people who knew exactly how far their voices would carry and were calibrating accordingly.

Mikhail and Marcus.

Aurora froze, then moved one step backward into the shadow of a wide-trunked oak.

She was not eavesdropping by intention—she had simply been here first, and now she was here second-best, and stepping out to announce herself would interrupt whatever was happening in a way that felt worse than letting it happen.

"—asked you to confirm her readiness, not to vouch for her temperament." Mikhail's voice. Quiet, but with an edge underneath the quiet that Aurora had heard him use on operatives who'd disappointed him.

"Her readiness isn't in question." Marcus. Equally quiet, equally controlled. "I've worked with her for four years. I'll vouch for both."

"You're close to her."

"I'm her partner."

"You're closer than that."

A pause.

"If you're asking whether my judgment is compromised," Marcus said, very evenly, "the answer is no. If you're suggesting that being close to an operative makes me incapable of assessing her, then I'd respectfully point out that you've been close to me for nine years and have not, to my knowledge, ever assessed me incorrectly."

Another pause. Longer.

"There are aspects of this assignment I'm not at liberty to disclose to the team," Mikhail said. "Not yet. I'm asking you, as her partner and as my Gamma, to trust me on that."

"I do trust you." Marcus's voice had shifted slightly—not warmer exactly, but more careful. "But trust runs both ways, Alpha. If something happens out there that I needed to know going in and didn't, that's going to be a problem for everyone, not just for me."

"Nothing is going to happen that you can't handle."

"That's not a reassurance. That's a deflection."

A longer pause this time.

"Watch her," Mikhail said finally. "That's all I'm asking. Just watch her, and tell me what you see."

"I always watch her," Marcus said. "She's my partner. But Mikhail—what am I supposed to be looking for?"

"You'll know it if you see it."

Footsteps. Mikhail moving away through the trees, the controlled cadence of a leader who had said what he came to say.

Marcus did not move for a long moment.

Aurora stayed in the oak's shadow, very still, doing the small important work of breathing quietly.

She wasn't sure what unsettled her most.

That Mikhail had been watching her.

That Marcus hadn't known why.

Or that Marcus had pushed back anyway.

The last realization settled somewhere deep in her chest.

She hadn't realized how badly she'd needed to hear someone refuse “trust me” as a complete answer.

She waited until Marcus's footsteps moved away in a different direction—he would loop back, she knew his patterns.

He would come in from the east as though he had not been here.

She walked into the clearing properly, made the small noise of someone arriving, and was bent over her pack again, checking the same contents for the fourth time, when Maya and Kira came through the trees together carrying their gear.