26. Miles

TWENTY-SIX

MILES

Blayne sat at his computer, bleary-eyed and typing away. Since we'd come back to town, most of my time had been spent with Blayne and Steff researching other locations that could be the property we were looking for. Tate spent most of his time on the phone with realtors and property owners in and around Denver, seeing if he could find any threads that added up to anything.

Blayne was focusing on properties owned by Antonio, which had either sat empty for longer than seemed normal or places that allegedly had businesses with very vague titles. None of it had added up to anything yet. It had been several days, and it was getting increasingly obvious that we'd need to go back into Denver to do the real search. There was only so much that could be done remotely.

Before we made the trek back out, I wanted to make sure we had as many things narrowed down as possible. I leaned forward and pointed at Blayne's screen. "Pull up this window. The list we compiled of the places that seem like the most likely locations."

He pulled it up. "Here you go. What are we doing?"

"Send that file to me in an email. I've got a buddy in Denver. A PI like me. I'm going to hire him to check on these for us. I can't tell him exactly what we're looking for obviously, but I'll come up with something. Get him on the case. He's local and will have more contacts, plus, he's not a shifter. He won't be on the hunters' radar and might be able to get closer than we can. At least, that's what I hope."

Blayne sighed and pulled his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes. "We're going back to Denver, aren't we?"

"Almost assuredly," I said, nodding sadly.

"Fuck, man. You know how uncomfortable it was sleeping in that white van of ours? And you guys all started to fucking stink after a few days."

"Well, you didn't smell like chocolate and roses yourself. We can probably splurge on a hotel room this time."

"Thank God."

I stood, my back and knees aching from sitting for so long. "I'm going to go to my office for a bit. You good?"

Blayne put his glasses back on. "Burning the old midnight oil. Christ, this is boring. There's a reason I didn't become an accountant. All I've done for days is stare at leases, rental contracts and spreadsheets. No rest for the wicked, I guess."

I left him and walked down the hall to my office, clenching and unclenching my hands subconsciously. There was a nagging pain going up both my femurs, making my thighs sting. I was on edge, more easily irritated and angered than ever in my life. It was weird, but I knew it was because the curse was starting to bear down on me.

I had a standing desk and raised the platform when I got to my desk. The thought of sitting again made me want to rip the whole building apart. I wanted to check in on Felicity's movements while I had a few minutes. Blayne and Steff had gotten me a shortcut program with backdoor access to her social media. Blayne had also written a program that let me check the nearest street camera to the house she was renting. Both of those things would have gotten us about twenty years in federal prison if anyone found out. I trusted Blayne to keep our moves hidden, though. So far, we'd been lucky. Before I had either program pulled up, Tate walked in.

"How you doing?" he asked.

"Fine. Why? Aren't you supposed to be doing something?" I snapped.

Tate grinned and leaned against the wall. The look on his face made me want to throw a paperweight at him. "What the fuck is so funny?" I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Why was I so angry?

"So, things are getting tough, huh?"

I gritted my teeth. "I don't know what that's supposed to mean. What the hell are you talking about?"

He pointed at me. "That." He pushed away from the wall and walked over to my desk. "That pissy little attitude. Have you been having trouble sleeping? Any weird aches and pains?"

I frowned. I kept forgetting that he'd already gone through what I was going through. He and Steff both. I sighed and slumped into my chair. "Tate, I'm sorry. There's no reason for me to talk to you like that."

He held his hands up. "No need to apologize. I've been there. Have you talked to Celina about the claiming? I think I remember us talking about it a few weeks ago, right?"

I grimaced. "I know. It's just…well, we got all caught up in searching for Antonio's base of operations. That took a lot of time. Now, Celina isn't really dealing with things very well. I don't want to put something else on her plate."

"Right. It's tough, but don't you think she'll be a little pissed when she finds out you've been hiding all the pain and general irritation? It's only going to get worse. I've met Celina, and you've talked a lot about her. I kinda get the feeling that she's the kind of person who might feel responsible for your agony."

That was a low blow. An accurate statement, but a low blow nonetheless. He was right—she would blame herself. I wanted to retort and tell him to mind his own business, but before I let the curse cause me to say some asshole statement to my best friend, my phone rang. I snatched it up and felt myself go cold.

I looked at Tate. "It's my old alpha."

Tate's eyes went wide. "Answer it!"

I did. "This is Miles."

"Miles, Donovan again. How are things?"

"Fine. I get the feeling this isn't a casual call."

"Right to the point. I like it. Anyway, remember that young hunter girl I told you about?"

I sighed. "Yeah. What's happened?"

"Well, I told you our plan was to frame her for one of the murders, right?"

"Yeah," I said, drawing the word out, confused about where this was going.

"We had a change of heart. Decided she was more valuable in our care than the local cops. We've kept her prisoner and tried to get more info out of her."

"Holy shit. You kept a fucking prisoner of war, for Christ's sake?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it what you will. We aren't waterboarding her or anything. The opposite actually. The saying ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar' seems to be true. Today, she remembered something else about her training facility."

My heart rate spiked. A tremor of excitement surged through me. I waved frantically at Tate to close the office door. He did and leaned in to hear what Donovan was saying.

"All right. What made her so compliant all of a sudden? You can be nice to a prisoner, but she's still a prisoner."

"That's the thing." Donovan chuckled. "It was your mom."

"What?" The word sputtered out of my mouth.

"She basically took the kid in. She's been caring for her. I didn't feel right about harming a kid who was being cooperative."

"I need you to go back to the part where a hunter is living in my parents' house," I said, anger boiling to the surface again.

"Easy, Miles. We understand the safety issue. We've got it under control. There's a guard in the house with them at all times. Her door is locked at night. We're pretty sure that's a moot point, though. Having your parents nurture her has really turned her around. I don't know if it's some type of Stockholm syndrome or whatever, but she's helping us."

"And you're sure she isn't some spy or something?"

"No cell phone, no internet access. She doesn't even have access to a landline. But, again, we're a hundred percent sure she's done with the hunter organization. They more or less led her and her team into a blood bath and left her to die. It's safe. Or as safe as it can possibly be."

It still didn't sit well with me, but I also knew my dad wouldn't let a strange girl into his house—especially not an ex-hunter—unless he was completely sure she was harmless. "All right, what was this info she gave?"

"Well, she was bussed into the training facility. The windows were blacked out, so she had no clue where it was, but once she was there, she caught sight of the exterior before she was led inside. The thing she remembered was that there were tons of trees around. Not like landscaping, but more like overgrowth, maybe on the edge of a forest. And there was a red sign out front. It was weather-worn and faded, and all she could see was the side of it, so she never saw any of the letters. I thought that was better than nothing."

I nodded, trying to figure out how we could use that information. "Thanks. We'll see what we can turn up."

"Okay. Let me know if I can help anymore. Bye, Miles."

I hung up and looked at Tate. "A lead?"

Tate shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out."

We walked back to Blayne's office, and I found him slumped over his keyboard, asleep. I chuckled and shook my head as I shook him awake.

"What? What? What did I do?" Blayne sputtered.

"Sleeping on the job," Tate said. "I'm afraid the penalty is death."

Blayne rubbed his eyes. "Perfect. At least then I could rest."

I relayed the info I'd gotten from the alpha, and Blayne's eyes lit up. He spun around and clicked through a half dozen pictures. Most were overhead satellite images pulled up from online maps; others were real-estate photos. He finally found what he was looking for and brought it up on the screen.

"It rang a bell as soon as you described it," Blayne said, pointing at the screen.

Tate and I leaned in to look at the image. It was an old warehouse or factory of some sort on the outskirts of the city and nestled in a grove of trees. The front of the building was overgrown and semi-covered in vines and shrubs. The kicker was the old, faded sign. What used to be bright red letters read: Standard Toys .

"He's got it disguised as a toy factory?" Tate whispered.

"Unassuming, unthreatening, and unlikely anyone will go poking around. Who gives a shit about a toy factory?" Blayne asked. "Well, anyone over the age of twelve."

"Let me get the address to my PI friend. He can do some digging before we jump the gun," I said.

I stepped into the hallway and called my friend while Tate and Blayne worked on getting more images of the place we could use when we worked out a plan. If this really was the place, we needed to be very prepared. Rolling in half-cocked like we did at that warehouse Ryland had used worked once. We had no doubt this place would be better guarded and be more difficult to get into.

My friend told me to give him a couple days to dig, and that he'd get back to me. It felt anticlimactic. A huge leap forward in our case, and now all we could do was wait. I stepped back into the office and heard Tate on the phone with Steff, filling him in on everything we'd learned. Blayne was still skimming old pictures. One looked like it was from the eighties when the building was still being constructed.

"I'm heading home, guys. I need a breather. Maybe you guys can do the same," I said. "And get some rest."

Tate nodded, still on the phone, and gave me a thumbs up. Blayne turned from his computer. "You good?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Just want to get this figured out."

Blayne raised an eyebrow. "Okay."

I left, his one-word statement echoing through my head. The sarcastic way he'd said it was enough for me to know he was worried about me. I wasn't all right. Thoughts of Celina consumed my mind. My wolf was pawing at my chest, desperate to take her, claim her, and make her mine completely.

I spent the drive home, trying to push away R-rated fantasies and thoughts, and all the other things my wolf and I wanted to do to her. But that wasn't what I wanted yet. Her first time should be special. It shouldn't be some fast carnal attack. It should be something she could remember fondly, not something that made her embarrassed and ashamed.

Back at the apartment, I walked up the steps and glanced at Celina's apartment door before I went into mine. The same thoughts were still flitting through my head like a flip book. It seemed silly to be thinking about things like that with everything going on. The idea of something this special happening while we were actively searching for the hunters was a little immature on my part. At least, that's what I told myself as I closed my door. My pain and irritation would only get worse, which put me in a quandary.

I was thinking of calling Steff to see how well ibuprofen worked on the body aches when there was a knock at my door. I jumped in surprise. I couldn't think of anyone who it could be other than Celina, but I didn't think it was her. Whoever knocked was pounding on the door, hard. Had one of the guys followed me home with info? My thoughts were jarred by another insistent set of pounding knocks.

I stepped over to the door and opened it, freezing in terror. My whole body stiffened. Celina stood there, and the look on her face sent my wolf whimpering into the recesses of my mind. I'd never seen her look so pissed.

"Uh…hey," I mumbled.

Ignoring me, she stepped into the apartment and rounded on me. "So, I just got off the phone with April. We had a really long talk."

"Fuck." The word slipped out without me even thinking.

"Fuck is right. Is there something you want to tell me?"

"I–I…um." I'd apparently gone braindead, because I was unable to form multi-syllabic words.

"How much pain are you in right now?"

Still, stubbornly, trying to keep her from worrying, I lied. "Pain? None. Why?" Jesus, still with the one-syllable words. Something about that glare she was giving me was short-circuiting my mind.

"Don't give me that shit, Miles. April told me everything. All the stuff that happened to Steff and Tate before him." She pointed an accusing finger at me. "I knew something wasn't right. You've been on edge for days, and you look exhausted. How bad is it? Just tell me."

My shoulders sagged. There was nothing for it now. I had to be honest. I walked Celina over to the couch and sat with her. "It's not great, but it isn't too bad yet."

Celina sighed. It sounded like it was a combination of relief and irritation. "Why didn't you tell me? We're supposed to be honest with each other!"

"I know." I shook my head and leaned my elbows on my thighs. "I didn't want you to feel like I was pressuring you. I wanted it to be special, and with so much stuff going on, I couldn't figure out how to do that. Plus, all the stuff with the hunters? It felt like I'd be making you feel like you were obligated to accept me. Like you had to."

Celina stared at me for several seconds, then leaned toward me. She looked at me like I was an idiot. "For someone so hot, you sure are stupid."

"Huh?" I said, frowning.

"Do I have to spell it out? I'm not good at this stuff, and even I kind of thought it was obvious."

"Obvi—"

"I already chose you, Miles. There's nothing else for me to think about. I accept you. Should the first time be special? Sure, but I'm not some fourteen-year-old girl who thinks there has to be candles, violins, and rose petals. The only thing I need for it to be special is to have it happen with the person I love."

Her words slammed into my chest. My wolf, who'd run hiding in the face of her anger, padded closer. Cowardly bastard. His tail wagged, and there was a hungry surge within both of us. She loved me. She wanted me. I couldn't remember the last time words had made me so happy.

"April told me it gets worse the longer you ignore it. I need you at your best. You and the wolf both. There's no way you can focus if you're in agony all the time." She reached forward and ran her hand through my hair. "I don't need storybook romance. I only need to know that you're all in. That you're as committed as I am."

The look in her eyes was all I needed to see. The words only cemented what I already knew. She was mine, and I was hers. My response couldn't be spoken. Only actions could show her what I felt. I answered her by pulling her on top of me. She gasped, but I cut the sound off with my mouth. Celina softened and melted into me as the kiss grew more insistent. Our tongues tangled together as we explored each other. As we peeled the clothing off each other's bodies, I knew I was where I needed to be.