Outlaw (Wolves of Royal Paynes #4) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,2

would I date? I know who I want. I'll just wait." He slid back, confidently rebuckling his belt before tugging his shirt down and smoothing his fingers through his hair. Seconds passed, and he turned his head, waiting expectantly.

That was it? He'd brought me here with a mission, and now…

Quinlan's lopsided grin turned my stomach into goo. "I knew you might not kiss me back today. But you will, Diesel. You're mine. I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer."

"Diesel, take the next exit—"

"I fucking know, Knox," I snarled, blinking away the sudden memory. Quinlan was gone, taken from me. I wasn't in the old pack truck, but in the Hummer, and we weren't driving to a make-out spot but to the location of Pierce's mansion.

I looked over once more, like Quinlan would appear simply because I wanted him to. He wouldn't. He was dead, and the shriveled organ in my chest had died with him. It didn't matter that he was dead, though. I saw Quinlan everywhere.

My pack brother, Knox, sat next to me, his eyes flaring before narrowing to search my face. Whatever he saw there made his lips twist. Spinning around, he addressed the other occupants of the car. "ETA fifteen minutes. Check your gear." His words were little more than growls.

If it had just been the alpha team—Faust, the twins, Knox, and me—then the mood inside the Hummer would be different. I was eager to put an end to Pierce's traitorous life, but thanks to another cryptic—incomplete, but no less ominous—message from an archangel parent who couldn't be bothered to help their kid until the moment was dire, Sitka, Jazz, and Storri silently rode along with us. Their first mission as a group and we were up against not only a traitor, but one with a weapon of horror and anguish.

Yeah, that sounded like the perfect time for a take your mate to work day.

In any other situation, Jazz might've complained that Knox was making them check their gear again. We'd left being prepared and had sailed right into paranoid a few miles ago.

"Clear," Jazz reported.

"Clear," Sitka added.

"Do you think the others are okay at the house?" Storri asked.

Faust kissed his temple, and I swiftly looked back at the road. Living with my brothers as they found their mates was a little like trying to remember a song, but only ever recalling a few words at a time. "Remember the checklist?" Faust asked patiently.

Storri's cheeks burned, and he nodded, looking down at his body with slight amusement. "Clear."

They'd dressed a kitten up in a lion suit, but Storri was still a kitten. Still had no business waltzing into unfriendly territory where an unknown danger awaited us.

Most of the idiots who had sold their souls to Portal had done so for money or sex. Or money and sex. Pierce's contract only listed a mansion and a weapon. Most of the contracts we'd found were held by a demon named Zallmuth, but not Pierce's.

He'd sold his soul to a demon named Thalasso, and for some reason we had yet to uncover, when Pierce said portal, he didn't explode into ash like all the others had. There had to be something different about his contract terms, but the contracts we'd uncovered were only photocopies, not the real thing, and they didn't include the terms.

The simple fucking truth was that we had too many unanswered questions to be bringing in people who hadn't trained and weren't ready for combat.

Then again, Sitka had already taken Pierce's left hand. It was only polite to give him a chance to take the other. The nephilim had abilities that made them stronger, and they could turn into wolves and fight—or flee, if the situation called for it.

"Are we still positive this is even the right place?" Jazz asked.

We'd found the location of the mansion the same way we'd found the photocopied contracts. Buried deep at the bottom of a stack of boring accounting paperwork, there'd been a map attached that listed Portal's US-based investment properties. Once we had that, finding out which was given to Pierce was a process of elimination. We'd figured out what all the other properties were used for and had sent that information to Badger and his pack. They'd get started tracking down the contract holders in their immediate vicinity.

Knox reached to get a hold of Jazz's weapons belt and wiggled it to check it was buckled properly. "We aren't positive, but it's likely. It's alright to be