Chapter 19

In the car,Kaine called Dalmon. “You ready?”

“Yes. It’s either going to turn into a mess, or nothing is going to happen. I don’t know which is worse.”

“Neither do I.” Kaine scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he’d had an extra couple of hours of sleep. Although, with Quentin in his bed, they wouldn’t have been sleeping. He wanted to ask his brother what it had been like to have a mate before Lucian had given up his magic. But he didn’t know what to ask or how to ask it. But Dalmon was the only one to have ever had a mate. The first time, it had been a disaster, and the second time, it hadn’t gotten very far either. Was that because of who Dalmon and Lucian were, or was it that phoenixes weren’t supposed to have mates?

He wanted this. It was something he didn’t have to share with his brothers.

Quentin was only his. But he couldn’t lock him away in the castle, not forever. At some point, he’d have to tell his brothers. At some point, someone would realize he wasn’t a fire witch.

Given that they were now working on the assumption the Shadow Board knew what they were, it wouldn’t be long until word of phoenixes spread. The only reason it hadn’t happened yet was because the Shadow Board thought they owned Everest.

“What’s happening with the acquisition?”

“It’s going ahead. They’re getting shares and a seat on the board. I did some digging, though. The company is shifter-owned, which is probably why we looked at acquiring it in the first place. When I looked deeper, though, I discovered that some of their major shareholders are witches who we suspect are part of the Shadow Board.”

“Okay, what does that mean?”

“It means they’ll nominate someone to the board, and I suspect it will be a Shadow Board member. That’s not the most troubling thing.”

“Okay, how much worse can it be?”

“One of our employees used to work for them. She’s been with us for over a year, but four months ago, her brother went missing.”

Kaine snorted. “Let me guess, she’s one of the coders.”

“She is. And she has the skills to hide a package in the program that would give someone a backdoor entrance. You know more about that than me.”

Kaine stared out the window. They were almost at the office. “I don’t have time to keep up with all the latest things. My coding and hacking skills are rusty at best.” It’s why it had taken him so long to do what he had.

“One of the security guards at the office is also compromised.”

“Fuck. Who did they kidnap this time?”

“No one. He’s a shifter who has received some large amounts of money into a bank account he thinks no one knows about. There have been two payments—one last month and one that’s just gone in.”

“Send me the dates, and I will see if anything abnormal happened.”

“I can already tell you the first date was when the company we’re acquiring had a tour of the facility.”

Frederick parked the car. Kaine didn’t move, and neither did Frederick.

“When they go to deploy the package, nothing is going to happen.” The lights wouldn’t turn off, security systems wouldn’t become vulnerable, and the humans wouldn’t freak out.

“That”s when everything is going to happen. They will already have a plan in place.”

“Tell me you have a plan in place.”

“I have informed some authorities that we suspect someone is testing out our security system. Because I didn’t want this to kick back onto us. By saying upfront that we are experiencing cyber-attacks, we are the victim.”

“When nothing happens, we’re going to experience more than cyber-attacks.” If the Shadow Board wanted to destabilize the world and blame shifters for it, and nothing happened, they were going to be pissed.

“I agree.”

“They will come after us.” Kaine ran his fingers through his hair. “Do you have enough security?”

“You are the one with the least.”

That’s because he wasn’t royal. He was supposed to be able to move freely, or at least more freely.

“Are you going to be okay, Kaine?” Dalmon asked.

“I’m not in the field today.” Which wasn’t an answer.

“That’s not what I meant. You seem… Is there something you need to talk about?”

So many things that he didn’t know where to start, so he sidestepped.

“Given what we know now, I’ve been wondering if my early death last time was a hunting accident.” He had been the heir, the one who was supposed to take over from Sebastien. When he’d died, Sebastien had been forced to keep going, and Gerrit had been pushed into being king too young.

“It’s not going to change the present. And it’s not like you to turn to the past.”

“I was asking because I was thinking of the future and what we’re going to do. Because this is at an end, regardless of whether or not the Shadow Board is successful.”

“Let’s hope they aren’t, and then we will plan, and the Coven will plan for paranormals to come out, so humans don’t start waving pitchforks.”

“You mean semiautomatics?” He wasn’t sure even if a phoenix shifter could survive that. And what if they destroyed the eggs after to make sure they never lived again?

Dalmon made a small noise. “You’re grimmer than usual.”

“I’ve never felt so cornered.” So exposed, and perhaps that was part of having a mate. He couldn’t hide because someone else knew how he felt and what he was thinking, and even though he could shut Quentin out, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be cut off from everyone. He, out of all of them, should have seen Gerrit’s pain and empathized; instead, he’d been so caught up in protecting him and everyone else that he had stopped seeing him as a brother and only as a problem to deal with. “I bet you’re glad you no longer have the bond to worry about.”

Kaine tried to keep his voice light but knew he’d failed from the silence. “I should go. I need to keep Malcolm alive.”

“Kaine—”

“Forget it. We can talk later.”

“We’re talking now.” There was an edge in Dalmon’s voice that he wasn’t willing to push against, and not only because Dalmon outranked him in age, princeliness, and security clearances. Dalmon liked answers before he asked them, and dropping hints was always going to get a bite. They may not always get on, but he trusted Dalmon the way he didn’t trust Everest. “What is going on with you?”

Kaine worried at his lower lip. This should be exciting news to share and instead, he was terrified. “I found my mate.”

More silence.

Great.

“The timing is bad. But it was accidental. He didn’t know he’s a witch.”

“You need to give him the choice, Kaine.”

“How can he choose when he doesn’t understand what he’d be giving up?”

“It’s still not your decision to make. It’s his life.”

“I decide people’s lives every day. I decide their fate.” And most of them didn’t know and didn’t care unless he fucked up. “I don’t want him to break it, but I’m terrified of him keeping it, of what will happen to him if we fail? I want this. You don’t understand how much?—”

“I do. And I’m guessing that’s why I’m the only one you’ve told.”

Kaine nodded, even though Dalmon couldn’t see him. His vision blurred, and he blinked a few times. What the fuck was wrong with him? This was not the time to fall apart. “You are. It’s a weakness I don’t want exploited.”

“That you see it as a weakness is your first problem. If I thought it was a bad thing for you, I would tell you. This is the first time for you…unless you lied to me when I found Lucian?”

“I didn’t. There is nothing familiar about him. It’s like he dropped out of the sky and into my lap.”

Dalmon laughed. “It feels that way, but I bet he didn’t. I bet you a case of ‘79 whiskey that you have crossed paths before.”

“I haven’t had time to look.”

“So ask Templeton or Farrell to look.”

“Er…Orion is supervising him.”

“You put your mate under watch?”

It was worse than that. “Castle arrest.”

Dalmon laughed. “And I thought I was paranoid.”

“It comes with the job…after this, I want to quit.” That meant finding someone to take over.

“You want to work on the coming out instead?”

If they all survived this, he wanted to explore the things he enjoyed. He wanted the time to unravel their secrets. “My mate is a dead language specialist. I want to go through our library first.”

“Has there ever been a mystery you didn’t want to solve?”

“Probably not.”

“Let’s make it through the next couple of days, and then we can discuss with Gerrit. I don’t say it very often, but you’re right. We need to go through our past.”

“Thank you.”

“And tell your mate the truth…all of it. Because you like to flirt with the edges of honesty too much.”

“I will.” But not today. Maybe not tomorrow. He just wanted to hold on to the bond for a little longer. To pretend that it would all be okay, and that Quentin would understand.

“Good luck. Please don’t die because otherwise, Everest and I will be flipping a coin over who plays your father.”

That brought a smile to his lips even though it didn’t travel much further. “I feel so wanted.”

Dalmon laughed. “Don’t worry. Lucian and I will raise you the same way we’d have stepped in and raised Gerrit. I don’t trust Everest with a hard-boiled egg at the moment.”

“Why’s that? Aside from the way he’s constantly pushing everyone’s buttons and all boundaries.”

“For that exact reason. It’s as if he’s making up for being responsible for so long last time and is determined to go off the rails at every opportunity, and you encourage him.”

“I do not.”

“Please, you need to stop feeding the bodyguard habit. It’s time he suffers with his exes.”

There was merit to that idea, assuming the bodyguard would do his job as expected. “You can break that news. I’d like to remain the good cop.”

“Fine. Also, he’s still obsessing over Olier. He’s been searching the Coven database for references on incidents involving fire witches.”

Kaine whistled. “That is brilliant.”

“I’m aware he outsmarted us both in that respect. Watch him. There is nothing more dangerous than an obsessed and reckless genius.”

“If I’m not locked into security, I’ll be able to help him.” And by help he meant made sure he didn’t end up egging himself when there was no one around to pick him up and bring him home. Which is what Everest felt he’d done to Olier all those centuries ago when he’d done as ordered and hidden.

They couldn’t save everyone.

“Sort yourself out first, Kaine. That’s an order.”

* * *

Kaine wasn’tpart of the field operation, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to join in should the need arise. The team had taken over the bar via the delivery dock. He had people in the cafe and someone in the Coven building who’d been called in to fix an alleged electrical issue. Even the couple further up the street enjoying a morning coffee at the bakery were his people.

He watched the camera as Malcolm walked up the street, hands in pockets, knitted hat pulled low, and his head tilted down as if trying to avoid being recognized. He didn’t make the rookie mistake of looking up at any of the cameras in position, even though he knew where they were.

But then Kaine didn’t expect him to. He’d done enough tours of duty to have learned when to follow the orders that mattered and what to do when the rules got fuzzy.

Kaine was expecting things to go fuzzy fast, but he hoped he was wrong.

It wasn’t only his unease turning circles like an unsettled cat in his gut. Quentin was anxious. Kaine imagined sending reassuring vibes through the bond and hoped that he was doing something. He wanted to be with Quentin, sorting all of this out. And yes, he should’ve told him that he could give up magic and be human, but after the initial shock, he hadn’t wanted to give him up. He knew how rare it was to get a fated mate.

He wanted Gerrit to be happy, and Dalmon too, so he was allowed the bloody same thing, wasn’t he?

There was no point in serving the country if it took everything in every life, including his life.

The reason for Gerrit’s newfound joy, pushed open the door and stepped into the Coven run cafe and magical problem triage center. There wasn’t even a second before the feed switched to follow Malcolm inside.

Just stay alive. Gerrit will kill me. Hopefully not literally.

Quentin’s disquiet spiked.

Had he heard those thoughts?

Everything is going to plan, Quentin. But I’m not going to be able to relax until this is over.

And by over, he meant the whole Shadow Board thing. It was like playing with a hydra at the moment. Chop off one head, and there were three more wanting a bite out of his ass.

Malcolm ordered a drink and took a seat to wait to be seen.

If the Board was any good, they’d know Malcolm was in.

He’d run through so many options of what they might do, including if they did nothing, which was the worst outcome, as it gave them no new information. He noted which Coven agent ushered Malcolm deeper into the building.

One of his people confirmed that he had eyes on Malcolm. The only meeting room with heating was the one downstairs near where the electrician was working.

His phone rang, though it took him a moment to realize it was his as the ring tone had only been used once before. And only a few weeks ago.

He answered the call, already knowing what it would be about. “Lenoir.”

“Yves, sir. The lodge is under attack. Operation Candlelight is ready to go.”

“Understood. Proceed.” He hung up. His gaze was on the screen, refusing to look at anyone in the room. Someone who knew the plan was the traitor. “Get him out of there. Now.”

Before Malcolm got his throat cut and bled out before he could shift.

It was a short list of people who knew everything.

The three with him. The agent playing electrician. Two in the Coven.

Everyone had been told it was a training mission where they were supposed to note Malcolm’s movements throughout the day and be unobserved themselves.

Only four people knew who Malcolm was and why he was important.

And only three, including himself, that he could discount immediately.

It should have been four.