Chapter 21
Adam nodded to yet another nurse as he made his way through the hospital and tried to ignore the scent of antiseptic. Oh, he knew it was necessary to protect human life, but the smell had always burned his nose. His instincts had been humming all morning, and it was time to follow them. Finally, he reached room 545. He entered and shut the door, approaching the man in the bed.
The guy was tubed up everywhere, although he breathed on his own. Tingles cascaded from him as he healed himself, but the humans probably didn’t notice the change in the atmosphere.
Adam reached the computer and hacked the system, bringing up the guy’s chart. He read several screens. “They think you got shot close to the heart. A through and through.” Oh, the bullet had gone through, but it had gone through the center of the heart. “I love humans.” He moved closer and casually burned the guy’s wrist.
The patient awoke with a start, half sitting up in bed.
Adam grinned. “How’s the heart?”
The witch blinked several times, and the beeper connected to his pulse went wild.
Adam sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you. Believe me, I understand orders. I do.”
The guy’s pulse slowed.
“But I need answers.” Adam leaned in.
Slowly, the guy nodded, his fear smelling like sulfur.
“Good.” Adam patted his arm, and the guy flinched. “You were staking out the police station to watch for my brother or his mate, right?”
“Aye,” the witch admitted, color flooding into his face.
Adam tried to show approval. “Good. That’s good. You had a kill order?”
The color fled.
“It’s okay. I’m a soldier and I’ve had my share of such orders. Kill order?” Adam asked calmly.
The guy gave one short nod.
“For Kellach and his mate? Or just Kell?” Adam asked.
“B-both,” the guy said.
Well now, that would send Kellach around the bend in about two seconds flat. “All right. Where did you get the Apollo darts?” Adam was leading up to the big question, the only one that mattered, and hopefully by then the guy would just keep talking. “Here in Seattle?”
“Yes. We were given directions to a locker near the train station.”
Adam patted the guy’s arm again. “Do you hate us, or was this just a job?” The answer to that one would determine if the guy lived or died. Well, probably.
“Just a job.” Tears filled the guy’s eyes.
Adam nodded. “I get it. Really do. And I know the pain you’re in. Years ago, I had a heart wound. Hurt like a bitch.” True story, that.
The guy eagerly nodded this time.
Adam leaned in. “Who hired you?”
The guy blinked. His monitor went crazy again. He snapped his lips shut.
Adam sighed. “Listen. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.” He let the truth show in his eyes. “It’s not like you shot at one of our mates. If you had, then you’d be dead, right?”
The guy nodded.
“Good. So we get each other. However, the guy who hired you is going to hire somebody else, and I have to find him, you know?” Adam allowed blue fire to flow on his hands for a very brief second. “Have you heard all the rumors about me?”
The guy’s eyes widened at the site of the fire. “Are they true?”
“Yep.” Adam flattened his hand, and the fire morphed into a disk with razor-sharp edges. “I can cut with fire. It’s a nice gift, it is.” He only used it to kill, really. Otherwise it didn’t make sense. Why just cut off somebody’s limb? “Do you have any idea what one of these can do to a neck?”
The guy shook his head on the pillow, his greasy hair sticking to it.
“It can slice a head right off.” Adam pushed up gently, and the disk rose in the air by itself. “Want to see?”
“N-no,” the guy burst out, trying to push himself back on the pillow.
Adam rotated his finger, and the disk whirled around. “It can also cut off a dick. I’ve seen it. Fuck, it’s grotesque.”
The witch in the bed whimpered.
“Now is the time you tell me who hired you to kill my brother,” Adam said, narrowing his gaze to daggers. “Or I’m going to cut off your dick and feed it to you.”
“Peter Gallagher,” the guy burst out. “He hired us. Paid us.”
Adam sat back, fury lashing down his back. Even though he’d suspected the truth, to have it confirmed made his blood turn to ice. A killing ice. “How did he pay you?”
“Half up front in cash and then half when the job was done. Double if we got both your brother and his mate.” Now that the guy was sharing, he couldn’t seem to stop. “I don’t know where the money came from, but it was all nicely wrapped with those cool paper holder things.”
Adam blew out air, and the disk disappeared. “Were Sal or Nessa involved?” The entire Council wouldn’t have done such a thing, would they?
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Where’s the money?” Adam asked.
“My partner has it. Lars Jensen. I have no clue where he is.”
The guy had probably gone way underground after Adam had thrown him off the roof. He did have an eye to heal, after all. They’d have to track him down.
Adam stood, his mind calculating. He walked over and took the guy’s wallet out of his pants, memorizing all the identification. “All right. I promised I wouldn’t kill you today, and I won’t. But if you even think of taking another job to harm any member of my family, I’ll disembowel you.”
“Okay. I won’t. I promise.” A tear leaked out the guy’s eye.
“Good. But I am going to tell Kellach about your plan to harm his mate, and well, he’ll probably hunt you down and make you beg before he kills you,” Adam said matter-of-factly.
Another tear slid down the guy’s face.
“I know who you are, and now you need to stay where I can find you. Guess what, Walter? You’re going to help me nail Peter Gallagher. How much fun will that be?” Adam took out his phone and held up the camera. “Okay. Once more for the camera.”
* * *
Tori backed away from the massive bear. She frowned, her central nervous system firing like there was a threat near. But the creature didn’t seem to want to hurt her. His paws were bigger than platters, and the sharp tips of his claws showed through his fur. Bear was a bear. “Talk about ironic. Or obvious,” she murmured.
The bear snorted. He held up a monstrous paw as if to reassure her. The sharp and horribly long claws didn’t exactly provide reassurance. But the thing hadn’t charged her.
“This is crazy. This is so fucking crazy.” Shifters. Oh yeah. She hadn’t really figured it out. He was a freakin’ bear shifter. She crouched down, her face toward his. If he wanted her dead, it wasn’t as if she could outrun him. Maybe Bear was in there somewhere. That was all she could hope for at this point. “Can you understand me?”
The bear nodded its massive head. Then he moved toward her, very slowly, as if trying to keep from spooking her. He moved one paw in front of the other in a primitively graceful lumber. He nudged her hand with his wet snout.
She reared back and frowned. Her heart beat so rapidly her chest hurt. “Seriously?”
He nudged her again.
Her hand shook like crazy, but she held it out and gently scratched between his ears. His fur was thick and surprisingly soft.
His eyes closed and he made a sound like a loud purr. She giggled and scratched harder. This was crazy. Beyond crazy. Had her brain just exploded and left her in a make-believe universe? His eyes opened and he licked her from chin to forehead, leaving her nose sticky. She swatted him away. “Knock it off, Bear. Geez.”
This was real. He was real. Man. She needed a drink.
He looked at her, yearning in his big brown eyes. She rolled hers and then petted him again, relief flowing through her. He didn’t want to eat her. That had to be good. “You look better. Are you feeling better in this, ah, this form?” she asked.
He nodded again and sniffed her neck, knocking her onto her butt. She yelped and pushed his head. “Stop smelling me. You’re even crazier in this form.” Probably not true. Bear seemed nuts in human form. At least this way he couldn’t yell at her and be mean. She scratched his ears again. “Does your sister know you’re a bear?”
He nodded again.
Her eyes widened. The world was so much bigger than she’d imagined. How had she missed all of this? “Is Simone a bear?”
He snorted and shook his head, sending her sprawling back.
She dusted off her hands and just sat on the grass, figuring it was safer that way. So Simone was not a bear. That was good to know. Then it all came clear. “Wait a minute. The Grizzlies. Are you all bears?”
He nodded. The whole time she’d been hanging out with Lucas, he’d been a bear? A real bear? So their name was ironic. Kind of a screw you to humans. Yeah, she could see that. And Bear calling himself Bear? What a smart-ass. “Is your real name Bear?”
His shoulders rolled in a bearlike shrug.
“What about Titans of Fire? Were they some sort of tiger shifters or something?” The world was so different than she’d thought.
If a bear could roll his eyes, he did. Then he shook his massive head.
“Just dumb humans?” she guessed.
One nod this time.
“Wow. This is just crazy. I mean, wow.”
He lay down and flopped his head in her lap. The force of his heavy head kicked her legs out. She frowned but obediently petted him between the ears, hoping he kept those sharp canines right where they belonged. “Is your illness something to do with being a bear shifter?” she asked.
He huffed out in pleasure, shutting his eyes as she continued to scratch his ears.
“Bear, I’m talking to you.”
He flattened a huge paw on her calves, easily covering them both. She shoved at his head, and it didn’t move. “We are not going to sit here all day while I pet you.”
One eye opened, somehow looking forlorn.
She relaxed and petted him. His eyelid shut and his entire body seemed to flop out in the sun. Hopefully he was somehow healing himself the way Adam had from the bullet wound. Ah, Adam. “You and the Enforcers go way back, as in not just the last few years. You know each other from your super-secret immortal world.”
Bear made a snuffling sound of pure contentment.
That finally explained how they could be friends and still belong to different and not-so-friendly motorcycle clubs. “That’s also why the Coven Nine let you leave Ireland and kept me. They already knew you, and you were fully aware that witches existed.”
He opened both eyes, sighing hard enough he left a wet mark on her jeans.
“Fine. I’ll stop talking.” She took it back—Bear was every bit as cranky in animal form. “But are you undercover here, like Adam was?”
The animal shook his head.
“Oh. You just like it here in the woods, away from most people.” Yeah. That seemed exactly like Bear, from what little she knew about him.
The sound of tires screeching to a stop, many tires, echoed from the front of the buildings. Bear jumped to all fours. A siren trilled once and then cut off. Doors rapidly opened.
The fur stood up on Bear’s back. He nudged her toward a barely there trail between two wide-spread pine trees. Her stomach knotted. She turned to run, and a helicopter came into view with a guy half hanging out, gun trained on her. SWAT? The guy was wearing a SWAT vest.
“Run, Bear,” she whispered. “Go now.”
They’d probably just shoot a bear.
He rose on his hind legs and roared at the helicopter.
She shoved him in the back, but he barely moved. “Get out of here. Now.”
With one last furious roar, he dropped to all fours and headed for the woods. For such a massively huge creature, he could seriously move.
Tori lifted her hands in the air.