Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

SIMON

Before anything else could happen, Hayden burst through the door, bringing with him the smell of oil and grease. Those were the smells I always associated with him, but under those was something else. It reminded me of ash at the bottom of a firepit. His dirty blond hair was a wild mess. His eyes flashed with the golden color of his wolf as he glanced around the room.

" I'm the last one to arrive?"

Van nodded sharply. " Sit . We need answers."

Hayden found an armless chair in the corner of the room and hauled it to the table. He swung it around, so he was sitting with the back of the chair against his chest. He motioned for things to start. Van introduced Ogden and Hayden , then asked Ogden to tell his story again.

Everyone listened. Jeremy's pen scraped over his paper as he took copious notes. Other than that, no one else made a sound. They were all fixated on my dragon .

" What else did you see in the room?" Gage asked, leaning forward. The motion made the light catch on his horns again. I shuddered. I'd never get used to seeing horns on someone's head.

" There were… I want to say… like… twenty or thirty other crates, stacked two high. Maybe more. I couldn't really tell from where I was. Each crate held a supernatural. Everyone was my size or smaller. I don't know if our sizes are important, but it seemed odd to me. I saw a unicorn, a phoenix, and a few other shifters of various kinds. Based on the scents, which I'm not the best at, I think maybe there was a vampire and perhaps a yeti in there too. Maybe . I'm not sure about the rest."

I sucked in a breath. That was a lot of supes to hold captive.

" Do you think it's the same trafficking ring?" Van's gaze caught on Gage's .

My ears started ringing. A trafficking ring? Of supes? How was that possible? One of the best things about being a supe, even a little cat shifter like me, was that Mother Magic blessed us and took care of us. It was just the way it was. No one could keep a supernatural being contained for long without a lot of effort. And the only ones I knew of who had that kind of ability were working under contract for the Supernatural Council , imprisoning criminals. And even then, Mama and Pops said that it wouldn't be long before the SC returned to the old ways again and executed their criminals because the effort of keeping them locked up was a waste of magic.

I shuddered. I couldn't imagine being imprisoned like that. There was a reason I acted like a tamed kitten instead of a wild one. Well , that and the fact that I really did like having my nine lives. Those two things went hand in hand.

Wait . When we were at the pub earlier, someone had mentioned something about cages. Was this what they were talking about?

" I don't think it could be anything else," Gage agreed. " It seems like a smaller operation though. The warehouse we found had a lot more supes. So either they think that keeping things small will help them avoid detection longer and they are still recovering from the blow we dealt them last time, or?—"

" Or this is a smaller branch of a larger operation," Nelson finished for him.

" Exactly ," Gage agreed.

Holy Magic , I hoped it wasn't that last one.

" Did anyone mention a goblin named Babette ?" Gage asked.

Ogden shook his head. " No one said much of anything. No one mentioned a goblin, but a troll came in at one point. I didn't see anyone else, which was strange considering the amount of magic needed to contain me. I would have expected a coven of mages at the very least."

We all considered the implications for a minute. " The troll was small for her species. I had a feeling she wasn't a matriarch yet." He grinned a little viciously. " She tried to poke me with a cattle prod, but I zapped her."

" She tried to do what?" My claws, which had been poking through the tips of my fingers for most of the conversation, broke through completely on my free hand. At least they hadn't sliced through the hand holding Ogden's , but my control was shaky at best. I pulled my other hand out of his so I didn't scratch him if I couldn't contain my shift. The impulse to go after this troll and shred her was almost too strong. I wasn't a big creature, but I could do some damage.

Then I froze.

I'd never, ever in my life wanted to take my claws to someone before and here I'd wanted to do exactly that twice in the last few minutes. Some cats might like to fight, defend their territory, let fur fly. Before now, that'd never been me. I preferred to run and hide. I didn't like this change.

" Don't worry, kitty cat," Ogden patted my arm, oblivious to my scary thoughts. " She got what was coming to her. She'll have those injuries for a few days at least."

" So you shifted?" I asked. " I thought you said the cage was small and that you couldn't break out. There is no way your dragon form could fit in the cage you described."

" I don't need to shift to access my powers. Dragons aren't like other shifters. The only thing that changes when I shift into my dragon form is my body. Everything else—my senses, my strength, my magic—stays the same regardless of which form I'm in. I don't have to do a partial shift."

I blinked. Wow . That was… amazing. Van and Gage didn't look surprised by this information. Jeremy squealed in delight and scribbled in his notebook. And me? I was blown away.

Gage looked at Hayden . " Are you still in touch with those wolves from Robbie's pack?"

Hayden's face turned stoney and his eyes flashed, showing his wolf. " Why ? "

" We should ask them if they remember a troll. They might know her name."

Hayden clenched his teeth so hard I thought he'd break a tooth. Then he slowly nodded. " I'll ask."

" I can, if you don't want to," Van offered.

" I said I'd do it," Hayden snapped.

" Creating a spell that could keep so many supes, including a dragon, contained. That's a lot," Davina said. " They have to be using the Coven of One ring."

" Those only exist in fairy tales," Ogden scoffed.

" Ulric had been collecting magical artifacts for a long time. He owned a lot of things that shouldn't exist," Van said, sounding tired. " We discovered tonight that he had one of those rings along with a lot of other dangerous artifacts that were stolen."

" Well , fuck," Ogden said, summing up what everyone was thinking.

" It always comes back to Robbie ," Hayden muttered.

" Who is Robbie ?" Ogden whispered to me.

" Hayden's brother," I explained. " He did some… uh… not great stuff. He's missing now. No one knows where he is. The SC is looking for him."

Upon hearing my description, Hayden's eyes turned golden, suggesting his wolf was close to the surface. He gritted his teeth and shook his head to get control. A moment later, he cleared his throat, looking more like his usual self. " Are you sure he stole it?"

" That's what Ulric said." Davina nodded.

I squirmed, because I had one of those missing artifacts too. I swallowed hard and slid down in my chair. Everyone else let that bit of news sit for a minute before Van turned back to Ogden .

" Then what?" Van prodded. " What happened next?"

" Not much really." Ogden tilted his head as he went back through his memories. " The troll came back just before I came here, but otherwise no one else came into the room while I was there."

" How long were you held there?" Van asked.

The dragon tapped on the table as if he was counting something. " I finished about seven sets." We must have all looked confused, because he shrugged again. " I sometimes perform at my bar. I thought some songs might help lift people's spirits. It certainly couldn't hurt."

" How long is a set? An hour?"

Ogden nodded. " Thereabouts ."

" So you sang for seven hours?" Van asked.

Ogden rolled an elegant shoulder. " I took a few breaks between sets so magic could soothe my vocal cords, but none of them were too long. The morale really dropped quickly when I stopped singing."

Both Van and Jeremy added more notes to their books.

" I'd like to show you a picture of a message from our oracle," Gage said as he leaned forward.

Ogden's eyebrows rose. " You have a hellhound, a demon, and an oracle here? That's … surprising."

Gage inclined his head in acknowledgement.

I hadn't ever thought about Willow Lake being special or unusual. It was just my home. But maybe it was strange to have all these powerful and unusual supes living here.

" Okay . Let's see your oracle's message." Ogden nodded .

Davina tapped on her tablet a few times before turning it toward Ogden . I leaned over and looked at the image too. It showed people in cages. Oh , right. I remembered something about that now. Mama had been there when Jake painted it. But I'd been so caught up in my whistle that I hadn't paid much attention to it. It had just been so… separate from me and my world. It hadn't meant much. Sure , I felt for the people, but what could I do about it?

But now that I knew Ogden had been there…

Ogden swallowed as he took the tablet and zoomed in on it.

" Yeah ," he said with a dry sounding voice. " Yeah . That's it. That's where I woke up. That's the view from the cage I was in." His voice cracked, the first obvious sign that he might not be as calm about the situation as he seemed.

He was handling everything so much better than I would have. Just listening to him talk about what happened made my anxiety grow. My skin felt too tight for my body and my stomach churned.

I desperately wanted to comfort him. But how? Mama would know what to do. Should I hug him? Mama's hugs usually helped me. I wrapped my arm around the dragon's slim shoulders.

" The middle-aged guy is a phoenix," he continued. " The woman there? Her name is Tammy . You can't see him in this picture, but the guy to my left was a monkey shifter. And that guy on the right side, he's a unicorn. His name is Morgan . Morgan Russell , I think he said."

" A unicorn?" Nelson asked as he jolted upright. I wouldn't have said he was slouching before, but he looked ready to spring from his seat now. The edges of his body seemed to dissipate, then solidify again.

Ogden nodded. " He is a sweet man. I haven't seen a unicorn in… It must be centuries. I didn't think their kind were still around anymore. His energy felt… innocent. That might not be the right word, but I'm not sure how else to describe him. It made him seem young. It's always difficult to tell with supes, though."

The shadow jumper was usually on the pale side, but his face looked ghostly white now against his black hair and his black clothes.

Hayden's hand shot out and covered Nelson's , as if he couldn't stop himself from trying to help the guy. I'd seen Hayden try to help people he considered his pack, even if he refused to believe he was the alpha. So I guessed that meant Nelson and the rest of Gage's team were part of the pack now too. " You okay?"

Nelson blinked at Hayden , then turned his attention to Gage . " Can I see the picture again?"

Gage passed the tablet over. The shadow jumper swallowed hard as he stared at the image.

" You know him?" Van asked Nelson .

" Not yet," the shadow jumper answered, without looking away from the screen.

Gage caught Van's eye and shook his head. A wordless message to back off.

" Oracle business?" Van asked.

Gage pressed his lips together and inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Van frowned.

" And how did you end up here?" Gage asked Ogden before Van could press Nelson harder about his reaction to finding out about the unicorn.

I glanced at Ogden , who nodded at me. He reached over and rested his hand on my leg under the table, and that light touch helped me rally my courage. I swallowed hard. I pulled out the whistle and dropped it on the table. It clattered as it tumbled before coming to rest in front of Van .

Everyone stared at the whistle.

" I found it. I blew on it. Then the dragon… Ogden … He , uh, came shooting out of the middle of Willow Lake ."

Van moved to poke at the whistle with the tip of his pen, but before he could, Ogden's hand shot out across the table and swatted Van's hand away.

" Don't ."

" Is that what I think it is?" Van asked.

" Probably ." Ogden nodded and licked his lips. " If anyone but Simon touches it, they might disrupt the magic that summoned me here. I expect to be sent back to the cage when we don't succumb to the whistle's magic, but let's not hurry things along, m'kay? Yes , Officer Hellhound here has hooked me up with some interesting goodies to stuff into this monstrosity." Ogden jiggled the belt Van had given him. " But I'd rather not return sooner than necessary."

The idea of him going back to that place made me queasy.

" That's one of Ulric's whistles, isn't it?" I was lucky that Davina was a medium and not a mage with the way she scowled at me .

I nodded quickly. My stomach flipped and flopped even more under her disapproval.

Van's gaze softened as he eyed Ogden . " Are you sure you want to return? My job is to protect civilians, not send them into danger. What if you work something out with Simon instead? He's a good kid, and we can ensure the connection between you is balanced. If you finish what the summoning started, you would stay here. You'd be safe."

" Could we?" That sounded like the perfect solution. Why hadn't I thought of that before? We could negotiate and Ogden would stay here where he was safe. " Maybe we should do that."

The dragon pursed his lips but didn't jump on the suggestion like I'd expected.

" What aren't you saying?" I asked. That same queasiness I'd experienced earlier reared up again. " You said it wasn't slavery."

" But it could be if you don't handle things properly. The magic evoked during a summoning has the power to bind you together. For life." Van rubbed his forehead. " I could call the Supernatural Council and arrange a representative for you. No one would blame you, Ogden , if you didn't want to return there. We will try our best to get to you as quickly as possible, but I can't guarantee your safety."

My chest tightened. I couldn't send Ogden back to a cage Magic only knew where, for people to do Magic only knew what to him. We should do everything we could to keep him away from that cage. But how could I forge a lifelong bond with someone I'd only just met? That was so not good. Mama was going to be so pissed at me when she heard about this.

What would I tell her? I doubted saying " So , Mama , it looks like I've adopted a dragon" would go over very well. She was going to pinch my ear for this. I just knew it.

Although , given that Ogden was older than me, maybe I wouldn't be the one being adopted. Would he want me to call him Daddy ? No . I couldn't. That wasn't for me. I had Pops ; I didn't need a daddy. Ogden would understand, right?

" I'll be fine," Ogden said firmly. " I need to get those people out. This is the best way to do that."

I slumped. He didn't want to bond with me. That was understandable. He was magnificent, while I was just a simple cat shifter. I prayed to the Eternal Magic for his plan to succeed. I'd only known him for a few hours, but I couldn't imagine a world without Ogden in it.

The very idea of it made my chest feel like it was imploding.