12
DAMIEN
“So which one of you is responsible for this?”
She pushed her phone forward confidently, a photograph already taking up the full length of the screen. It was the book. The one I’d brought back from the underhalls. The one I’d recognized as belonging to the Hallowed Order, although I was supposed to have forgotten that part.
“That would be me,” I said.
Serena’s gaze shifted in my direction. I could feel the excitement in her now, the rush of adrenaline that came with the heat and turmoil. She’d been sated, but only partially. And until she was, it would be difficult for her to focus on much of anything.
I’d been sated of course. I’d been called selfish for it, but I honestly didn’t mean it the way it happened.
And poor Broderick hadn’t been sated at all.
This was my first experience outside of the pack. Outside of Karessa. I’d fallen back into old habits, back when I hunted in a much different way. The pier at Santa Monica. The boardwalk. The strip. Back then I’d been carefree and careless, sun-bronzed and magnificent. Idolized in the way youth and beauty are always worshiped, until they both inevitably fade.
I took women when I wanted them in those days. Fought them off when I didn’t. And yet nothing felt like it did here, with my brethren. With Karessa and Broderick and the rest of the pack. Here I belonged. There was a sense of kinship and blood. Pride too. Always pride.
At least up until that was suddenly gone.
“Do you know what this represents?” Serena was saying. “How important this is?”
The book I’d found was old. Dark red leather. Bound with raised bands on the spine that looked painted with gold leaf. It was in bad shape, almost unreadable. But on the cover…
On the cover was a symbol I’d seen before. An all-seeing eye, set against triangles, encapsulated by a circle. An eye with a crescent moon in the iris.
“Not really,” I said. “But when I showed it to Xiomara…”
“And how did you know to show it to Xiomara?” Serena jumped in. She was still astounded I knew the woman’s name. “How are you even aware of her?”
That story was on the longer side. I decided not to tell it just now.
“I know your symbol,” I said simply. “I knew immediately when I found it that the book belonged to your Order. An ancient branch of it, anyway. Or so I was told.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes.”
I stared down at the photo of the book I’d shipped off to New York. The old lady had called within minutes of receiving it. She’d been excited — more animated than I’d ever seen her before. And I’d seen her pretty jacked up.
“And you said you saw more like this?”
I nodded to Broderick. He slid open a drawer and tossed two more of the books onto the table, both torn and beaten all to hell One was nothing more than a leather cover and the first few pages. The other was water-damaged to the point where the book had swelled up and split its bindings.
“We found those three days ago,” I said. “Same area, pretty much. A little further down though. The whole place is in rough shape.”
Serena reached out excitedly to take the books in her hands. She turned them over and over again, running her fingers over the edges.
“We know your people had roots here,” I said. “And that at one point, almost all of your knowledge was lost.”
Serena nodded slowly. “Your whole damned city caught fire,” she said. “1618.”
“Not my city,” I replied with a chuckle. “I only live here.”
Serena smirked. “Can’t be much surfing on the Seine, though.” Even her smirk was sexy.
“No, actually. The waves suck.”
I stared down past her pretty face, my gaze lingering on the long hair that had brushed up so softly against my stomach. Those smooth curves that had belonged to my fingertips just hours ago. Mentally I kicked myself again for not going for round two.
“That’s pretty much all we know,” I lied. “That this lost ‘archive’, or whatever Xiomara called it, is something highly important to your Order.”
Serena rubbed at her chin. “And you’ll take me?” she asked.
“Of course.”
When she looked at us again her expression was softer. All the accusation was gone. I could sense a certain measure of faith there now, and of course, the constant, underlying heat. She knew we were there to help her, though. And she us.
Hopefully, anyway.
“Alright,” she said calmly. “Tell me everything you know about us.” After a moment’s pause, she smiled sweetly and added the word “Please.”
“You’re a member of the Hallowed Order,” I said. “Blackstone Manor, upstate NY.”
She tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t working.
“Don’t worry I’ve been there,” I assured her. “I’ve walked its corridors. I’ve met some of the people there, including Xiomara.” I jerked a thumb back in Broderick’s direction. “Not him though. Just me.”
This information seemed to ease her fears a little. Her body relaxed, and the tension went out of her shoulders.
“I found this first book two weeks ago,” I said, tapping her phone, “in the underhalls beneath Château de Bardenois. It’s a ruined castle, just outside of Paris.”
It was funny saying that like it was no big deal. Back when I was surfing Malibu, if you’d told me I’d be wandering the catacombs beneath an eight-hundred year-old castle on the outskirts of Paris I’d have laughed my ass off.
“I recognized the symbol,” I said, “and sent it straight to Xiomara. Apparently she loved it. And now you’re here.”
I’d left out the part where Broderick forbade me to send the book. He’d told me to destroy it, actually — that it wasn’t anyone’s business but ours. Normally I might’ve obliged him, or at the very least, taken his wishes into consideration. But this was the Order, and therefore, Xiomara.
And I owed her. Big time.
“Why were you down there to begin with?” Serena asked. “These… underhalls?”
“Because at one point that’s where we lived,” Broderick stepped in.
“Or gathered, rather” I amended.
“Gathered?” Serena’s brow furrowed. The motion formed a little crease between her eyes that looked utterly adorable.
“Yes… well…” Broderick stumbled. “We all had different places,” he said. “But as wolves — as a pack — we ran the forests and warrens surrounding the Château and its cathedral.”
If any of this was supposed to make her less confused, it wasn’t working. Serena was shaking her head.
“It was our home for a while,” I jumped in, “all of us. The elders had been using it for almost a century, so a good part of it was secretly modernized, kept with the times. But the rest… the rest was left intentionally decrepit to keep outsiders away.”
She nodded mechanically. I knew she was blowing off most of what we were saying, but that was fine. I didn’t expect her to buy into everything. I didn’t buy into it at first, either.
“I was told you’ve been away from your group for a year now, though. That the two of you are outcasts.”
Broderick’s face soured. I didn’t like the term myself, to be honest.
“That’s a lie,” I explained. “We weren’t cast out. We left on our own.”
“Okay, why?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Broderick stepped in. He still had his guard up. “The point is, we broke away. Let’s just say the pack was going in different directions. Directions that Damien and I weren’t interested in pursuing.”
She considered this for a moment, then asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“So if you’ve been gone for a year,” she said, “what were you guys doing there twice in the last two weeks? Why do you keep going back there?”
I glanced at my wolf-brother. He nodded.
“We were looking for something,” I said.
Serena raised an eyebrow. I responded with a wink.
“And that’s where you come in…”