Dean went back to sleep—at least, what could pass as sleep in a place that wasn’t his and was about as uncomfortable as they came.
First off, Indigo snored. It wasn’t the kind of snore that could be considered loud, but it was a constant motion of sound that didn’t have a singular pattern. Second off, the bar downstairs was like a constant pounding in Dean’s head, telling him that there were creatures downstairs, possibly shifters—shifters who were in on the black market deals.
That was hard to take.
By the time Indigo was awake, he wasn’t in a very good mood. Despite his vow to take it easy with the hag, he found himself ordering her to get three of his trusted men gathered without calling attention. She protested about it but shut up immediately when he reminded her of his power over her bar. He dangled it like a carrot in front of her nose, and her fury was surpassed by her obvious desire to keep both bars so that she was running around almost immediately, trying to find ways to communicate with the men he specified and providing a time and a meet-up place: this bar, half an hour after closing time.
Indigo then got herself busy, doing her usual thing downstairs while he quietly limped around upstairs and stretched his muscles out. Her magic worked wonders, making him puzzle over how long she’d been hiding it and why she never announced it. Some witches sold their magic for money and treasures, and any other hag would have taken advantage of that already.
But not her, apparently.
When the bar was closed, he went down as slowly as he could, feeling his legs stiffening with every step until he finally reached the bottom. He watched Indigo clean the long bar, watched her stare at him before she told him to hide himself in case things went wrong. He did, taking a chair to a dim corner and taking the knife she gave him before she returned to her cleaning.
Then the waiting game began.
Half an hour later, there was a knock on the back door. Indigo went ahead and opened it. Because the door opening on the inside faced him, it blocked Dean’s view of who exactly was standing outside, and he had to rely on Indigo’s facial expression and body language to act—not a very good starting point, since she was pretty much a block of neutrality.
“What are you doing here?” were the first words out of her mouth, making him blink.
“Because you asked me to come.”
Indigo tilted her head. “Hmm. What’s Cassidy doing nowadays?”
“Traveling around the market. Adding her new finds to her growing jewelry collection.”
The door opened wider. “Good thing Cass told me that, too. Come in.”
“What’s going on?”
The question was posed as soon as the person entered—a crocodile shifter named Xian, who was one of Dean’s most recent allies and the man whose jungle home got burned down. Coincidentally, he was also the mate of a human named Cassidy, who was one of the few trusted humans in the shifter world.
Only Xian was here now, and he scanned the place with dark, suspicious eyes before they landed on Dean’s corner. He stared.
“I might need a better hiding place,” Dean grumbled when he realized how easily he was spotted.
“What happened to you?”
“Long story. Let’s wait for the others.”
Exactly ten minutes later, someone knocked again, and Dean and Xian stood at the side and waited as Indigo did her thing.
“What’s the one piece of stock you had left over when you handed over your bar to me?”
“A box of condoms.”
“Wrong. Anything else?”
“A collection of broken electronic devices.”
“Bingo. Come in.”
Kasper stepped in, violet eyes scanning the place immediately. His gaze landed on Dean and Xian, and Dean repeated what he told Xian before Kasper could even ask.
Five minutes later, the last person knocked, and Indigo opened the door. Then she sighed.
“Okay, I’m stumped. I don’t know him that well. Kasper, help me out?”
Kasper raised his brow at Indigo but stepped forward. “What’s the name of your wife’s painting that we had to destroy?”
The man outside answered accordingly and stepped in a few seconds later—Jack, the panther shifter, and Dean’s very first ally.
When the three men were gathered, Indigo made a show of hopping to sit on the long bar, where she crossed her arms and made it known she wasn’t going anywhere. Dean frowned at her.
Then he focused his attention on the three shifters and started explaining.
It didn’t take them long to react: Jack to mutter curses, Kasper to sigh and make some weird joke, and Xian to look confused and angry at the same time. The crocodile shifter couldn’t be blamed, considering it was two lion shifters, too, who’d ganged up on him months ago and contributed to his temporary memory loss. When they were done, Dean waited until their attention was on him again before delivering the next news.
“I have the hide here, and I have the start of contact. And we’ve got an ace up our sleeve: Indigo right here is a half-witch and will be able to alter my face and voice when need be. She can also be my spy slave while I infiltrate the ring.”
A sound came out of Indigo’s throat, and Dean glanced at her long enough to see the self-righteousness leave her face right away. She frowned at him, and he frowned back.
“How do we know she can be trusted?” Xian asked—something he always asked.
“She has an illegal bar in SoHo, and Dean probably browbeat her into helping,” Kasper supplied helpfully.
But Indigo shook her head. Then she sighed. “Actually, there’s no browbeating involved because that’s just stressful. I don’t like stress. I agreed, as long as I can go home scot-free after.”
That had Jack raising a brow. But before he or Dean could comment on it, Kasper was already stepping forward. “Dean, would you mind terribly if we three ask her a few questions? You know, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
Dean stifled a smile and nodded his head, watching as the three walked towards Indigo until her smirk turned into a wary look. She was wearing an apron over her dress, and curiosity flashed through his mind at what it looked like before he erased the thought off. At the same time, the wariness cleared from her expression, to be replaced by a challenging look as she straightened her shoulders but didn’t move from the long bar at all.
By interrogation, Kasper meant grilling—and that was exactly what the three did as they took turns asking her questions, and she took her time answering each and every one of them. They started off slow and basic. Yes, she could open portals any time she wanted at certain spots, but two or three were the best she could manage per day. Otherwise she’d drop dead. No, she didn’t have any interaction with hags and witches because she liked working alone. Yes, she could put temporary scars all over Dean’s body and face and maybe modulate his voice through spells.
Then Xian turned up the notch and hit just slightly below the belt, giving Dean an indication that he’d been doing this way before he entered the shifter world.
Yes, hags were greedy, and so were witches, but she’d been in the marketplace long enough to know her limits, especially since she didn’t want her business to receive karma because of it. Yes, she liked earning money and wanted to be a goddamn billionaire someday, but only through her own talent and no actual cheating involved—and no, the SoHo bar wasn’t considered cheating. Yes, she had a lot of sexual affairs with men in the past, but only because she enjoyed sex and not to gain anything from it other than experience. No, she wasn’t going to apologize for it because that was who she was, and men weren’t the only ones entitled to enjoy such things.
To her credit, Indigo didn’t flinch. In fact, her bold approach was refreshing, considering most women who were asked these would have played damsel-in-distress or used their coyness by now, or gotten hysterical somewhere along the way. He knew she was tough, and now he wondered if her actions would be as tough as her words.
“How do we ensure that you’ll keep this whole thing a secret, even when you’re no longer involved in it?”
At the last question, impatience crossed her features, and she hopped off the long bar, the action making her apron fly up and giving him a view of her dress. It was virginal white, but so tight that it was not virginal at all, and he had a peek of tight curves before the apron covered it again. He frowned at himself for noticing. Then his attention was shifted thoroughly when Indigo held out an arm.
She sliced her forefinger with a small knife until blood came out.
“Blood pact,” she muttered. “Witches use it to swear a promise because they’re that good at lying. This will ensure that I’ll help, I’ll keep it secret, and I won’t make any trouble…so long as I get to keep my business and you guys will never bother me again.”
The three men backed off, knowing the blood pact wasn’t meant for them. Dean stared at her finger, watching as droplets of red slid to the floor and listening to his instincts. It was a loud, consistent roaring in his head before it died down into quietness. He sifted through that quietness, frustration sliding inside him when he realized that there was no getting around it. Blood pacts with witches were binding.
He had to keep his promise, too.
Resigned, Dean held out his hand. Then he used his own extending claw to slice a wound through his finger until blood dripped out, too. He touched it over hers, feeling nothing when their blood mixed—no surge of energy or power, no stirrings of magic. His gaze met hers, clashing, and he watched as her black eyes remained black, and her stance remained calm.
A tiny electric current passed between them, but he knew it had nothing to do with the pact.
“That’s it?” he finally asked.
She nodded. “That’s it. Done deal. Did anyone want a drink? I might as well give you one on the house since you’re all here already.”
“Spirits,” Jack said, his black hair bobbing up and down. “I’m sure Kasper wants the same.”
“Yep,” Kasper piped in. “Nice and cold, Indigo, as it should be.”
A whisper of a smile escaped her lips, growing amused when Xian opted for green tea and thanked her for her offer. Dean’s eyes went to those lips, still fascinated at how pink they were without lipstick.
“Water. Lukewarm.”
That had the amusement on her face dying instantly, and she glared at him. He met her gaze head-on until she shrugged and slid inside the long bar.
“Boring,” she muttered.
“He always is,” Jack said. “You have one hell of an eye for details.”
“I can always record you cursing, since your wife hates it so much,” Dean shot back. Jack’s wife was a sweet, nice human named Jillian, who managed the art gallery Dean owned in SoHo and was also one of the few humans they trusted.
Jack smirked. “Are you kidding? She’ll always side with me, not her boring boss.”
“Please. Enough with the banter,” Kasper inserted in smoothly, rolling his eyes and sitting on a stool. “Sit down, Xian. So, Indigo, we never did get to talk after you took over my bar. How're the sales? Any funny stories you’d like to share?”
“Do you consider a vampire and a shrill fairy trespassing in my room so they could have sex there a funny story?”
Kasper’s eyes widened. “Did everyone hear?” he asked, referring to shrill fairies’ loud, screechy voices.
“Oh, yes.”
Kasper grinned. “Then that’s a funny story. Spill.”
And just like that, Indigo was accepted into the group by the three shifters—or at least, given the impression that she was. Dean reluctantly sat on a stool and listened to them, giving them the time they needed to de-stress and talk about random stuff for now.
There were plenty of things to think about and things he still needed to plan, but most of them could be distributed already: Jack would handle all of the spying in the human world, Kasper would handle all of the researching, and Xian would handle all of the spying in the shifter world.
Dean would deliver those hides as scheduled, no matter how much it pained him to do so.
One glaring memory flashed in his mind, and Dean knew it wouldn’t be going away anytime soon: that of Peter and Paul, and how they did what they did without remorse. But they weren’t the only ones.
Dean just killed two of his fellow lion shifters in cold blood.
And he didn’t regret it one bit.