My churning stomach has me going pale in the face, clenching my hands in my lap. Silas, seemingly noticing my discomfort, slides an arm around my shoulders, pulling me comfortingly against his side.
Out of the corner of my eye, I don’t miss the odd look that crosses Hunter’s face, but the vampire shifter doesn’t say anything.
Somehow, I make it the rest of the way across the water without losing my breakfast, and hurry down the gangplank on legs that are still unsteady. I’m so preoccupied with getting on solid ground again that I don’t even pay attention to the airport ahead of us, and I nearly trip over my own feet when a hand flies out and grabs mine. “What-” I begin, glancing up to see Hazel staring at the terminal with wide eyes.
“Bad,” she says in a low, tense voice. “Twelve o’clock, by the entrance.”
My brow furrows as I follow her gaze, and for a moment I don’t understand what the fuss is about… but then I see it, and my heart sinks. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Shade agrees, coming to a stop beside us. “Shit is right.”
“Is that…?” asks Landon.
“One of Russo’s,” Ruby replies, looking around. “Two, actually. No, wait, three. The guy on the left is a dragon shifter. I’m not sure about the others, but I know they aren’t human.”
“What are they doing here?” Xander asks.
“Three guesses,” Shade fires back.
“So that’s where the Academy people have gone,” says Hunter, and as I look around, I can see that he’s right: the airport is surrounded by familiar faces, none of them on our side. They might not all be shifters, but they’re sure as hell not here to help us, and they seem to be waiting for something.
Us.
“They must have figured we would try to escape,” mutters Hazel. “They’ve got the whole damn place blocked off.”
“Well, there goes that plan,” gripes Landon. “And here I was thinking we could just catch a ride out of this fucking place.”
“Can’t we sneak past them?” protests Hunter.
“With this many?” Silas asks incredulously. “Doubtful. And they’ve probably got humans ID’ing people on the inside. Deep pockets, and all that.”
“Fuck,” Shade says, throwing his hands up and raking them through his sandy hair. “Now what?”
I can feel the others watching me again, waiting for direction, and the answer comes to me in an instant. I square my shoulders and take out my phone. “I think I have an idea.”
Chapter 5
My hands are shaking as I bring up the text message that’s been burning a hole in my pocket ever since it arrived. Come to London if you want to survive this or he will make you watch them all die, it reads, as cryptic and ominous as can be. It came from a private number, and although I’ve done a little digging to try to locate the source, I’m no closer now than I was before. I hate the fact that I’m even considering this, but we don’t have much of a choice. Normally, upon receiving a mysterious and vaguely threatening text message from a stranger, most people would delete it and pretend it never happened.
But I think we’ve established by now that I’m not most people.
The unknown messenger, whoever they are, first reached out to me during the human-shifter diplomatic conference that brought us to Boston in the first place. The only problem, of course, was that the two communities seem to be past the point of peaceful negotiations. Things are escalating beneath the surface, and the worst part is that most humans, in the dark about supernatural beings, don’t even realise how dangerous their world has become. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I first received a warning message before Hawthorne even attacked the convention centre, which means whoever is behind the texts has an in with the mucky-mucks. Whether they’re on our side, though, is another story.
“Boots?” the sound of Hunter’s uncertain voice pulls me back to reality, and I realise with a start that I’ve been staring down at my cell phone in silence. “We lost you for a second, there.”
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I was just thinking. Look, I’m not totally sure on the transportation thing, if I’m being honest, but if the Academy is this gun ho about finding us, then we ought to consider finding outside help.”
“I’m all for that,” Landon says dryly. “It’s not like we’re a bunch of half-trained university students or anything.”
“Do you have someone in mind, Boots?” Silas asks,