in front of me without retreating farther.
Phone in hand, I did what protocol demanded and called Tisdale. “We have a problem.”
“Claudia?”
The immediate leap made my heart hurt for the untried alpha. “We went to a bar tonight.”
“Oh, God.” Tisdale lost her cool. “Is it still standing?”
“Not for much longer.” I exhaled a ragged breath when the sirens reached my ears. “It’s on fire.”
“Is…?” She cleared her throat. “Is she…?”
“I don’t know.” I had the urge to rub my upper arms, but sweat beaded on my forehead. I was nowhere near cold, yet I was chilled to the bone. “When I left for work, she was still there with her pack. Ares and I chatted for a while out on the sidewalk, but then she headed home. I was leaving for HQ as the bar exploded.”
“Exploded?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “This wasn’t simple arson. This was a bomb.”
Like the one that went off in my apartment.
“Like the one that went off in your apartment,” she echoed my thoughts exactly.
“The fire department is here, so I need to go.” I had other company too. “I just wanted to update you.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
With those words ringing in my ears, she ended the call. I was still staring at the screen, wondering if I misheard, when Midas yanked me into his arms and plastered me against his chest.
“You’re all right,” he breathed into my hair. “Thank God.”
“Claudia and her pack were in there.” I fisted his shirt. “I don’t know if…”
“She’s okay.” He gave me enough slack to lean back and see around him. “One of her packmates got sick from the bar food they ordered, and she walked them back to their hotel. She must have left minutes after you.”
Heady relief swirled through me, and I braced my forehead against his chest. “The others?”
“She came in with five.” He stroked my head. “How many were with you?”
“Twice that.” I hadn’t counted them, but they had filled the bar. “Goddess.”
A scream too big to fit a human throat belted out behind us as Claudia hit her knees on the pavement.
Shoving away from Midas, I ran to Claudia and dropped beside her, afraid to offer her comfort.
Alphas weren’t supposed to show weakness. She might not have been alpha for long, but she had grown up under the direct rule of one. The tears in her eyes, the tremble in her body, the way she rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around her middle, might spell doom for her reign if her pack was as unstable as I had been led to believe.
A pack used to cruelty ought to find her grief a balm, but maybe not if they had no souls left to soothe.
“What happened?” Head bowed, too heavy to lift, she stared at nothing. “How did this happen?”
“A bomb.” I might as well confess the rest. “A magical bomb.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Voice a thready rasp, she asked the most damning question. “Why?”
Officially, the fire at Choco-Loco was still under investigation. The cleaners hadn’t published their findings to their database, which meant all we had to go on was what Gray told us at the scene. It would be easy to omit that, to cast this incident in a better light, a less damning one, but word would get back to her. The line between what happened last night, and the pack’s interest thanks to Midas’s involvement, would get drawn quickly.
I had a choice to make, and a split-second to earn an ally or an enemy.
“A coven of witchborn fae have infiltrated our city.” I gazed into the flames. “This…was meant for me.”
Once she started nodding, she didn’t stop, and when she finally did, the spark drained out of her.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I want in.” Sucking in a breath, she lifted her head and cleared her throat. “I want to help.”
Right before my eyes, she transformed from a mourning, broken woman to a cold, determined alpha.
“This slight will not go unpunished,” she growled, crimson rolling across her eyes as she stood.
Midas joined us then, and so did Ford, but her own people kept back, cringing away from her fury.
“We’ll help you get vengeance,” Midas vowed to Claudia, but his eyes were on me. “The coven has been a plague on Atlanta for too long.”
“I’ll walk you to your hotel,” Ford offered, his voice polite, without a trace of the pity that might send her crashing back to her knees. “We’ll provide transportation for your pack.”
“Thank you.” She nodded to him. “I can’t…” She