The BadCreek enforcer didn’t make a move, but neither did Nick. He waited and drank, and ignored the efforts of a handful of women to get his name, his drink, or his phone number. He should have used some of his professional disguises to ugly up his mug a little before going out, but hadn’t wanted to scare Hugo off. The leprechaun was cagey on his best days, and throwing in even a light disguise would have sent him running for the exit.

When Nick finally got ready to move on to his next appointment, judging the time by squinting at his watch through the strobe lights and a haze of whiskey, he looked over at the bar’s owner and caught his eye before looking back at the BadCreek enforcer. Nick tilted his head and tapped the side of his nose, throwing back his drink before he got to his feet and started walking. The BadCreek wolf’s eyes blazed gold as if he sensed the hunt about to start, but before he got more than two steps, the meathead bouncers—also Russian mobsters—surrounded him and dragged him away.

Nick smiled to himself as he cut through the dance floor and the smoky air, breathing a little easier when he reached the humid night air. He didn’t mind making a little trouble for BadCreek. There were still innocents within those compound walls, and Nick wouldn’t leave them behind any more than he’d leave Smith in the Betwixt. But that took a finer touch than sending Hugo on a rampage into a different plane.

He ducked into the street and casually lit a thin cigar, concentrating on it while he took the opportunity to study his surroundings. He didn’t move until he was certain no one lurked within view, then strolled down the sidewalk past the long line of people waiting to get into the bar. Sheep, all of them. Just because some minor celebrity in the city mentioned the bar as a place to get imported vodka and dance the night away, ever asshole investment banker and plastic-surgery enhanced cheerleader needed to be seen there. The only true entertainment was watching the Russian mobsters try to process their sudden, legitimate success.

Nick meandered through the dark city streets, farther and farther from the crowds in the popular restaurant district, and waited for the rest of BadCreek to pop out and attack. They hadn’t tried to kill him in the last week, so he was about due for a confrontation. They believed him a traitor and a spy, so perhaps he deserved it. He’d been paid to infiltrate their organization, gain the trust of the leader, identify his financiers, and then take all of it apart from the inside. Nick thought Smith had been the one to hire him, but all of it remained somewhat clouded. Nick received his orders via a triple secure messaging system, so there was always plausible deniability for everyone involved. So BadCreek had their reasons for wanting him dead.

The job wasn’t done yet, and that irked the shit out of Nick. Sure, he’d almost been tortured to death and couldn’t actually finish the job the way he wanted, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still create the same outcome. Smith took care of the first BadCreek alpha, and the financier, Markus Keller, fled to Europe somewhere. The bastard probably thought he was safe, but Nick knew his way around the Continent and was just biding his time, waiting for Keller to get sloppy. Men like him always did.

A few shadows moved across the street. Nick didn’t look over but used fishing in his pocket for the lighter as a cover for sliding a wicked knife out of its sheath. Just in case. He couldn’t shift to his wolf form in the middle of the city, not unless he planned to keep on running. The alphas in the city wouldn’t look too kindly on him outing them to the human inhabitants.

Nick didn’t give a shit what any of them thought—Nick worked alone, he traveled alone, he lived alone. He didn’t need anyone else. He was happier without having to deal with bullshit politics and packs, and worrying about everyone else’s feelings, or checking in with other people about where he’d gone. Sometimes a wolf just wanted to run. Nick didn’t need a pack, and he didn’t want anyone relying on him. But Kara...

He shook his head and nearly bit the end off of his cigar. He loved his sister, but she’d fallen in love with one of those damn bears and wanted to be part of a community. Kara had had a rough time escaping from BadCreek, which Nick knew was entirely his fault, so he owed her the best possible life going forward. He’d do anything for her. Even if that meant sticking around with a bunch of shifters who wore on his very last nerve.

The only bear Nick could stand to be around for very long was Kara’s mate, Owen, and that was only because the kid was just as scarred and fucked up as Nick. Of course, Nick also wanted to beat the shit out of the kid because he was sleeping with Nick’s sister. The way Owen looked at her—dazed with love but hungry for something else entirely—set the wolf to “murder everyone” mode regardless of whether Kara instigated or encouraged the young bear. There were just some things an older brother shouldn’t have to witness.

Nick tapped the end of his cigar and turned into a side alley far away from the bustle of the happy-go-lucky humans, letting his wolf’s superior vision cut through the darkness to look for any new threats. Only a hint of sandalwood drifted from the narrow door in the very back of the alley, leading into the basement of a building that should have been condemned at least a decade earlier. He hated dead-ends. He hated them more when they had sorcerers living underneath them.

The sorcerer opened the door before Nick even raised his fist to knock, and eyed the cigar before he stepped back. “Put that out.”

Nick didn’t remember the prick being so bossy. Still, Nick flicked the ash off his cigar and put it back in his pocket before he ducked under the heavy doorframe. “Good to see you, too.”

“You smell terrible. Smoke and alcohol. Humans.” The sorcerer, Reynard, shuffled down the stairs into a deeper sub-basement a few flights down, so far below the surface that Nick’s wolf got nervous and quiet for the first time in a long time. It felt like an unfilled grave.

“I had a meeting to try and resolve an issue, that’s all. I won’t take much of your time.” Nick didn’t touch anything in the small chamber where Reynard stopped and faced him. Three other doors led away from the chamber, some locked with heavy chains, and the sense of claustrophobia increased with every passing second. “I have a small task I need your help with. I need to see inside a place and find out how many people are there.”

“Get a camera or one of those drone things.” The sorcerer’s lined face creased more, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m not interested in coming to the attention of the rest of the animals in this city.”

Nick debated lighting his cigar up again, just to piss the old man off. If he hadn’t seen the bastard actually work magic, Nick would have gone ahead and done it. “There is a complication. The pack that owns the compound enslaved a djinn. The djinn might be providing defensive capabilities, or masking, or any number of things.”

“One of the smoke demons?” Reynard sniffled and snorted, abruptly putting a handful of sage in a copper bowl and lighting it with a flick of his fingers. “Oh my. Smoke and fire, they are. The djinn. I have not seen one in many years. Which kind is he? Blue? Red? Not black, no, that would never do.”

“He’s blue,” Nick said. He’d pitied the djinn, when Ray first released him from the urn that trapped him, and the djinn roared to life only to find himself serving a coward like Ray. “And very, very old. And pissed off. He will only do the absolute minimum for those he serves. Just like us.”

He meant it as a joke, but Nick had forgotten Reynard didn’t have a sense of humor. The sorcerer threw more herbs into the burn bowl, and a cloud of noxious smoke filled the small room. Nick sneezed and retreated a few steps as his eyes watered. He might have smelled a little smoky when he walked into the basement, but he’d sure as hell reek when he left.

Reynard’s mouth puckered as he stared into the smoldering herbs. “You may serve whatever master you please, wolf, but I am a free man.”

“That’s what you think,” Nick said under his breath, but only smiled when the sorcerer gave him a sharp look. Every man had a master, whether that was another man, money, fame, or his god. He raised his voice to make sure Reynard heard the rest of what he had to say. “It’s the compound outside the city with all the shifters. I need to know how many men, women, and children remain. That’s it. Numbers, and if you’re able, locations.”

“It will take time.” The sorcerer squinted and moved his hands through the smoke. “They have tried to hide themselves from this world and the next.”

Sure they had. Nick managed to keep an impassive expression. He’d heard other cockamamie magical bullshit from any number of charlatans and fortune tellers, but Reynard made it into a fine art. “Great. Let me know as soon as you can.”

The sorcerer held out his hand, palm up, while he continued to mutter and whisper into the smoke.

Nick snorted and pulled a second bag of gold out of his pocket, leaving it on the sorcerer’s palm, and headed back up the stairs without another word.

He waited until he was outside to start coughing to get the awful rank odor of the herbs out of his nose. He heard a few pairs of feet scuffling over the concrete, and his wolf immediately tensed. That was never a good sign. A growl rose in his chest as the scent of other wolves drifted into the alley, and Nick braced for an attack. But the wolves ran past and instead a woman’s sharply-drawn breath sent him into a panic. They attacked a woman, an innocent bystander.

Nick bolted, ready to shift, and plowed into the middle of chaos.