Alpha's Legacy (Black Moon Saga Book 3)

49. Change of Heart: Pete

Phoebe started smelling Grayson’s magic from down the block, so we let her take point on the approach. His magic doesn’t tend to be too much of a threat unless he’s physically present to wield it, but still. Better safe than sorry. Maybe he still has some surprises up his sleeve for us.

“I can see the sigil from here,” she whispers, poking her head around the corner of a building across the parking lot from where she’s looking, and not bothering with the earpiece since we’re all shifters and right with her. “It looks like more of the same. Probably just meant to block us from teleporting directly to him.”

“But let’s not rule out the possibility that he’s also been using them to monitor us somehow,” I whisper back. “It was probably a missed camera or two that gave us away before, but it could also have been these wards he left everywhere.”

“We didn’t miss any cameras,” Nolan insists from behind us. “It had to have been the magic, or possibly even the radio chatter. Let’s not forget that he was tracking one of the vamps before. It could have been something on their end that gave us away.”

That’s a fair point that I hadn’t considered. I feel stupid now that he mentions it, though. I left my comms open to transmit everything to Bria, and Grayson may have been listening the whole time. It felt like a necessary risk, but maybe it was a bigger gamble than I realized.

“That must be his room, since it’s the only one that’s warded,” Phoebe suggests, pointing to the door at the far end of the first floor.

The place is two stories tall, and it looks like all the rooms can be accessed from external doors. The stairs to the second story are external as well, and one of the staircases is just beyond Grayson’s room. I hate that we’re doing this in the broad daylight and hope that no other occupants are watching from their rooms, but at least we already know that there are no cameras on this spot. We just have to watch out for people coming out and about, especially anyone using those stairs.

As we approach the door, the team splits into two so that we can surround the entrance from the front and to cover whatever windows or doors might exist in the back. Bruno and I stick with Phoebe, but Nolan reports in that he’s found a window at the back. No door, though, so that’s good. It means that Angel’s free to cover the stairs, and it also means less chance that Grayson will be getting away by any mundane means if he’s still inside the room.

He very well could be. His scent still lingers outside the door to his room, recent enough that it’s probably from around when he was spotted by the camera up front by the office. We still haven’t been able to answer the question of what he was even doing over there, unless it really is as simple as Angel suggested – that’s where the vending machines are. Maybe he was hungry.

But I doubt it. To me, it smells more like a set-up. He made sure he was seen, knowing it would lure us here. I just hope that it isn’t because we should have gone to that residence in the suburbs instead.

I hate that all I have are doubts and questions, when all I want is to have my mate back. A second team to visit the potential decoy location while we’re bumbling around over here would have been nice too, though. But we lack the manpower for that.

“Just be ready for anything,” I advise, as quietly as I can manage, watching Phoebe’s back as she disables the sigil. “The trail that led us here was too perfect, and the fact that this is the only warded room makes me even more suspicious. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he’s watching us from one of these other rooms.”

“Just from the stench of his lingering magic, I feel like I’d know if he was anywhere near here,” she assures me. “All I smell is the lingering magic and the scent of his body, though. His essence isn’t strong enough for him to still be here. Across the street, maybe, but I doubt it.”

I kind of hope she’s right, but at the same time, I also really hope she’s wrong. If Grayson’s not here, then that means that he’s probably taken Anna Jade with him. I don’t know why he would have left her here in such an unsecured location that isn’t protected from other casters by swarms of hostile vampires.

His magical wards aren’t strong enough to keep rival casters out. If anyone caught wind of the prize he’s been holding onto, they wouldn’t hesitate to try to come claim her from a place like this, especially if Grayson isn’t here to fight them off, and I suspect that he's smart enough to know that, as frustrating as it may be for us.

The pit of dread in my belly only grows larger once Phoebe’s got the wards disabled and it’s time to breech the door. Something tells me that we’re too late again, but I set to work picking the lock anyway, a feat that takes me only about a second these days. I could probably do it in my sleep if I had to.

The scene that greets us on the other side of the door is not at all what I expected. The room is neat and orderly, and it hardly looks like anyone has even been here. The bed is still made, the stacks of towels still placed neatly on the dresser, next to the television. But at the same time, the sensory overload is overwhelming. There are a few different scents in here, which makes me wonder why we only smelled Grayson from outside, and how big of a set-up we just walked into. Is there an ambush waiting for us?

“Be alert and on the ready,” I whisper another reminder.

“But he’s not here,” Phoebe declares confidently.

It is good news, in a way, that the man himself doesn’t seem to be lurking in wait for us. We’re not prepared to take on a warlock of Grayson’s caliber, not with just Phoebe here to stand against him. It still doesn’t rule out an ambush, but as I suspected, there’s also no Anna Jade here. I can tell she was here at one point, though, and not all that long ago. Her scent still lingers on the bed.

I can feel my inner fox stirring restlessly at the thought of her sharing a bed with Grayson or any of these other definitively male scents, but logically, I also know that she was most likely on the bed because that’s the easiest and most obvious place to put her. The bathroom would have been better, but a quick search of the room tells me that she was never in there.

I’m kind of glad to know that Grayson seems to opt for comfort. He could have thrown her on the cold, hard floor and bound her to someplace more secure, but instead, he always seems to find her a bed to rest in. I still hate him, but at least it eases my mind the slightest little bit to discover that he has a habit of keeping her in relative comfort.

“Her scent is only on the bed,” Bruno observes.

I was just thinking that too. I’m still glad she was comfortable, but how could she possibly have been only on the bed? How did she use the bathroom? There’s not even a bucket or anything.

“She wasn’t here for long,” I realize aloud. “Couldn’t have been. She didn’t even get a chance to roll around or anything.”

I know, because on closer examination, I find that her scent is only toward the center of the bed, as if she was only set there for a short while and then picked up to be moved somewhere else.

That’s when I notice the note left on the nightstand. Written in a familiar hand, and signed by a familiar name.

Maverick. Damn it. That’s really not good.

But it does explain why some of the scents in the room are striking me as familiar. I haven’t taken the time to sniff around and sort them out yet, but it struck me when we first walked in that there are hints of scents I know from firsthand experience in here. After reading his note, I know that one of them is Mav’s. The other … oh Goddess, it’s Bonez. That’s really, really not good.

Damn it, Grayson. Somehow, he knows exactly who to call and how to turn this from bad to worse. There’s a reason why I avoid my old crew and pick and choose my jobs to ensure that I’m never even indirectly helping them out. In fact, I make a point of working against them when I can, which I’m sure has only fueled their hatred of me over the years.

But those bastards abandoned me when I was at my lowest, after everything that I did for them and all that I put into building up their organization and legitimizing their crew. Most of them would have been dead at some point if not for me, and they all would have been broke. So what if I took them somewhere to work for practically free for a little while? It was good experience and exposure for us.

Mav still holds obvious resentment for how I’ve always favored werewolf packs, but he’s always been missing the greater picture. On an Alpha’s good side is the best place for people like us to be, for their protection if nothing else, and pack Alphas always have enemies and rivals that will keep a crew in business. It didn’t have to be like this between us, but he and Bonez chose to make it this way.

“What’s that?” Phoebe wonders, watching me with concern. She must have noticed my shift in mood.

“Bad news,” I answer flatly, not even sparing her a glance because I’m busy reading Mav’s note again, for the third time, as if it might somehow have more to tell me this time around. “Some of our old friends seem to have gotten involved, and I think they might have Anna Jade now.”

“Uh, yeah. More bad news,” Bruno adds, holding up a sheet of paper that he found on the rickety old dining table in the corner. “Grayson lost her. He apparently left her here when he went below to chat with Bria, and she was gone when he came back.”

“Let me see,” I order, clutching Mav’s note in one hand as I hold out the other to receive the note from Bruno.

There’s no way that’s true. Grayson’s sigils might be laughable, but the man has managed to keep a step ahead of us this whole time. I don’t know why he even brought her here in the first place, but I can’t accept the truth of him doing something as stupid as leaving her here without him. There’s just no way. This has to be a ruse.

Or here’s a crazy thought. He and Bonez could be working together. That makes the most sense of anything. It would explain everything if it was actually Bonez who hired him to snatch Anna Jade. It would be just like my old second-in-command to hold onto a grudge for this long and spend the entire time plotting and scheming and waiting to strike until he could make sure to hit when and where it would hurt the most.

Except he has no idea who Anna Jade really is to me. He couldn’t possibly. The only person who knows for certain is Eramund, and he told me that he’d never speak a word about it until she was of age. And he’s her father, so I believe him. The hunters are the only other people I’ve told about my suspicions, and only some of them, but I also know without any doubt in my mind that none of them would ever have given up that information, not even to Anna Jade herself.

But Bonez is also one heck of an opportunist, so it’s just as likely that this was some freak coincidence that fell into his lap, and he still has no idea who Anna Jade is to me. I’m sure he knows that she’s Kylie’s daughter, and he knows that Kylie and I have always been close, so Mav’s personal comments to me are more than likely nothing more than a lucky stab in the dark.

“What’s it say?” Phoebe wonders, her voice interrupting my racing thoughts.

I haven’t actually even read Grayson’s note yet, but she could just as easily be asking about the one that Mav wrote, so I hand it to her. Then I glance down at the note Grayson left, which makes a stark contrast to the one I just handed off. Grayson scrawled his on an actual piece of parchment, and he wrote it with an elegant hand. It’s as if he sent us a personal letter rather than a hastily scribbled note.

-

Friends of Bria and the Vampire Hunters, and presumably of Anna Jade as well, the note begins. I regret to inform you that I have made a serious error in judgement, and have now lost custody of the teenage witch you seek. I blame you as much as myself, however, for it was your fault that I felt it necessary to return home to speak with Bria and her team. You had no right to be there, and for the record, I also blame you for forcing us to relocate here. That was never the plan.

-

He blathers on for a few more paragraphs, the entire letter nothing but an overly pompous attempt to explain that he did, in fact, leave Anna Jade here unattended for a short time, and then returned to find her gone, with nothing but the note on the bedside table to explain her absence. Then he warns us not to bother wasting time pursuing him because he does not have her and has no idea where she is now, and threatens to have a variety of nasty surprises waiting for us should we choose not to heed his warning.

“Unbelievable,” I grumble, fighting off the urge to crumple up the page and get it out of my sight.

“Wait, hold on,” Phoebe says, giving the letter in my hand a curious glance. “That letter contains another of Grayson’s sigils.”

She points to the little symbol he drew next to where he signed his name. It’s so small that I didn’t recognize it.

“It’s the same as all the others, though that is an interesting use for it,” she comments, reaching to take the letter from me.

She also hands the one from Mav back to me, and though I kind of don’t want this one either, I take it. Who knows what other clues these might contain, and Kylie probably needs to see them both.

While Phoebe is messing around with Grayson’s handiwork, I call the other guys in from outside. I’m beginning to think that there’s no ambush waiting for us, and even if there is, leaving them out there alone probably isn’t the greatest idea. It also might be drawing suspicious and curious eyes to this location, which is the last thing we need.

“Look at this,” Phoebe says, holding up the letter and waving her hand over it.

The text that was written there disappears, and is replaced by a new message.

-

I tell you this at great risk to myself, but it’s my hope that you’re not an imbecile. And on further consideration, I presume that if Anna Jade’s own parents are trusting you to retrieve her safely, then you’re probably friends of theirs rather than just the common criminals that I originally suspected.

The sketchbook that you retrieved from my apartment was hers, and in it, she documented almost everything that I’ve ever told her. You probably won’t believe me if I tell you the rest of the story and explain how she came to know so much or why she decided to record it all, so I won’t bother. All you need to know is that although I originally returned to the tunnels to try to steal that book away from you, I’ve had a change of heart.

You should read it. In fact, you should study it. Everything you need to know about what has happened to her is in there. And for what it's worth, which I’m sure is next to nothing considering who I am and what I’ve done, I do regret it, and I truly hope you find her.

But I still won’t hesitate to defend myself if you should decide to try pursuing me, and I did mean the part about not advising you to bother with that. There’s no time for it anyway. She needs you.

-

His signature looks the same and is in the same place as it was before. I can’t help wondering if that means something, but I’m not going to stand here deliberating it when I have more important things to do. I still have her sketchbook in my bag, so I pull that out and look over it again.

“Whoa,” I can’t help exclaiming, watching as words and phrases seem to unwind themselves from the picture and dance across the page I’ve opened it up to. “I don’t know how much we should trust him, but reading his letter seems to have unlocked something in this sketchbook.”

“I see it too,” Phoebe comments, studying the book over my shoulder. “She’s written all about Alpha Miles and his family, his pack, and the work that Grayson has done for him.”

“Wait, Grayson works for Alpha Miles?” Nolan questions angrily.

“I’ve been saying all along that we can’t trust him,” I remind him. “Because yeah, it sure looks like it. But can we trust Grayson, though? He’s the one who took her!”

Our earpieces start crackling as if something is interfering with them, and Angel and I lock eyes from opposite sides of the bed. We’re probably both thinking the same thing: it was a set-up meant to distract us, and now we’re about to find out what’s really going on.

But instead, Bria’s voice comes over the air.

“We’ve got a problem,” she says, and then she blasts my headset twice to signal that she wants confirmation that the signal is connecting.

“I’m here,” I confirm for her. “What sort of problem, and where are you?”

“I have to be quick because I don’t know how closely Grayson is monitoring things, but I felt a need to pass along what we just witnessed from that Enrique fellow. He’s dead now, so don’t bother asking to interrogate him, but he was trying to reach out to Alpha Miles right before he died. I think they were working together, so just be careful. It’s now been confirmed that we can’t trust the Alpha.”

“Grayson works for him too,” I pass along to her in return. “We just discovered that, and were thinking the same thing about the Alpha. Oh, and Grayson doesn’t even have her anymore, so don’t worry about him. He’s on the run now.”

She curses, twice, and then starts speaking a language I don’t understand. Probably Latin. She does that sometimes.

“Well, whatever. Enrique needed to die anyway, so I don’t regret that for even a second,” she says finally. “But with that in mind, I’m going to assign some teams to finish the clean-up down below and then come help you guys with finding Anna Jade. I presume it’s a full-blown search-and-rescue effort now.”

“Yes, but don’t get too hasty. We might still need you to pretend to be on friendly terms with Alpha Miles, so don’t blow your cover yet. Finish the job.”

“I hate it when you make sense,” she complains, and then curses again. “Alright. Let’s go back to regular check-ins. I’ll update Tian and Kylie, but your team needs to stay on the trail. There is a trail, right?”

“Uh, yeah, though I’m not loving where it leads.”

I give her a brief overview of what we’ve discovered about Bonez and my old crew being involved, and she seems to love it about as much as I do. She agrees to keep working on the tunnel clean-up and maybe even check out Grayson’s apartment again once she’s finished, and I tell her that we’re going to start poking around in some of the places that Bonez and his guys are known to frequent.

I’m sure that since it seems to be personal, someone somewhere has instructions to react a certain way when I dare to come looking for them. There will be breadcrumbs, I just have to find and follow them, and then hope that they’ve still got Anna Jade when I catch up to them.

Or maybe I’m hoping that they don’t still have her. I haven’t decided which is worse.