identifying information on the team, etc.
“Will it supersede any contradictory oaths?” I searched the darkness, but my shadow blended too well. “Her…owner…can order her to spill her guts. So can her owner’s son, apparently.”
“That is true to a certain extent. She will do as she’s commanded, a submissive seldom argues, but she’s fae, and fae can’t lie. She gave her word, and her vow is magically binding.”
“A bark is binding?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I absorbed this information, filing it away. “You’re the boss for a reason.”
“Lethe has been attempting to educate us for our own safety now that a pack, and therefore its distant relations, will be living next door.”
Lethe Kinase, Midas’s sister, the former Atlanta heir and current Savannah alpha, had purchased the home next door to Woolworth House, where Linus would live after he married Grier.
No doubt those close ties were to thank for the prosperous relationship between HQ and Tisdale Kinase.
Yet another reason for me to keep my nose clean. The Savannah alpha knew my secret. The Atlanta one…did not.
Thinking of Ford, and Midas, I hazarded, “Maybe Lethe can send me some tips via email.”
“I’ll mention it at dinner.”
That was a polite way of saying I was holding him up, so I mumbled thanks and ended the call.
Then I gave myself a few seconds to just breathe.
Linus trusted me.
He believed in me.
He wouldn’t go off la-di-da to dinner if he felt Atlanta was burning in his absence.
I got this.
I can do this.
A sharp bark drew my attention to Bonnie, who had finally noticed Ambrose. Not everyone did. It required a smidgen of magic to see him, a dollop to track his movements, and a dash to comprehend his full range of motion. Most folks only saw a blur, if that, which made life easier for me.
“Ambrose, knock it off.”
While Ambrose bristled at the command, Bonnie made her move. She snapped at him, but her teeth—
“Goddess,” I hissed. “Bonnie, no.”
Jaw locked on a corner of shadow, she slung her head while snarling, and I hit my knees.
Stars sparkled on the edges of my vision, growing brighter, closer.
“Kill him,” I panted, “and you kill me too.”
Bonnie spat out the mouthful of darkness then reared up on me, licking my face while she whined softly.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I waited until I caught my breath. “This was my fault for not telling you. Most folks can’t see him, let alone touch him. I should have given you a heads-up.”
Only the POA had ever strong-armed Ambrose into submission, and that was before we fused into this…thing.
Learning gwyllgi, full-blooded ones anyway, could tear into Ambrose both comforted and terrified me.
I appreciated the need for fail-safes, but I didn’t enjoy discovering new vulnerabilities the hard way.
“Come on.” I checked for physical wounds, but there was only a sharp pang that radiated throughout my body. One thing was certain. Bonnie had just guaranteed I would have to feed Ambrose to heal him, and I didn’t mean chocolate ganache squares. “Bishop will have a conniption if we don’t hurry.”
For the next half hour, I exchanged long strings of code with him that guided me through the city toward the base selected for tonight’s meeting. About the time I started to worry I might have to carry Bonnie, her short legs flagging, a final text informed me Base Four was expecting me.
After tucking my phone away, I led Bonnie to the parking deck on the corner.
A swirl of shadows darker than the rest shot past me to race us to the stairwell.
Accepting the challenge from her new archnemesis, Bonnie barked at the top of her lungs and gave chase, straining against her leash. Until she remembered it was her own construct, anyway. Then it stretched like taffy between us as she ran flat out for Ambrose.
Frak.
Just my luck she would suffer delusions of grandeur while dressed in her fur suit.
“Snowball,” I yelped, belatedly realizing she might be small, but she was mighty. “Slow down.”
Ignoring me, the corgi dragged me clear across the bottom floor to the emergency exit doors. She cornered the shadow, who leaned down and patted her shadow’s head, which incensed her to new volumes of pissedoffedness. She didn’t bite him again. Thank the goddess.
“Ambrose,” I sighed, scooping up Bonnie so she would hush. “Why are you like this?”
The shadow gave an exaggerated shrug, returned to its usual Hadley shape, and started climbing to the correct floor, not waiting on me to follow.
Out of breath by the time we arrived on an abbreviated landing tucked between