Whatever Shan was doing, it wasn’t getting him into my good graces. I wanted to go find Freya, and of course he had to go and get himself… what? Captured? Had he gone after her first, alone? A pitiful, horrific sounding yowl left me, gaining back the attention of the men. I glared.
Caspian looked torn and panicked, while Emmett was far more level-headed. Not quite at Shan’s level of compartmentalization, but close enough. “We need to figure out what happened to Shan before we go find Freya,” Em said firmly.
It left no room for argument. I still wanted to argue, but Caspian didn’t.
They left the hotel room again, Emmett’s nose in the air to track. It took hours of wandering, long enough that my paws were going raw, before they paused across the street from a grand house. Police cars sat out front, an entire brigade of them, and a crime scene cleanup crew was hard at work. Most of the house was blocked off by hedges.
Shan’s scent was all over the scene, and every single worker was a supernatural. Every Null who passed by was rushed through the area, not giving them time to wonder about what had happened.
Instead of talking to the cops, Em and Cas hurried by too.
“Had he mentioned anything about Jude? I didn’t think he was running point on Kylan’s efforts to capture Freya,” Em said, leaning down to whisper in Caspian’s ear as they walked. “Why would he go to Jude’s residence?”
Jude. The man he’d seen at Bloodshed Brewing. That was his house? From the lingering scent of blood in the air, a full-on massacre had occurred. Caspian cursed. “He must have known something we didn’t. Jude was at Club Chaos the other night. They had words, but I didn’t know why since that mission was years ago.”
He glanced back at me and clammed up, not saying anything further.
“This woman makes him crazy. We have no way of knowing what happened there, but I’m going to assume he’s either in the Next Life Company’s custody, or with Kylan,” Emmett said.
They ditched their phones in a nearby garbage can. If Shan had made a public spectacle of supernaturals for the Nulls, they were going to have a lot to answer to. When they’d made it out of the area, they finally turned to me. The sun was going down over the distant mountains, orange light shining through the gaps between the buildings, and I was admittedly pissed off that this had taken all fucking day. However, they were still my only option.
“It would be so much easier if he could just tell us where she is,” Caspian said when I turned on my heel and started in her direction.
Fucking tell me about it.
They’d taken her so far out of the downtown core that we had to walk for two hours before we arrived a couple streets over from the apartment building I’d seen. I was trying to avoid huffing and puffing with how tired I was, and Emmett and Caspian both looked dead on their feet. We weren’t what I would call a force to be reckoned with.
I also wasn’t about to let us take a break to sleep. Not while she was in there. Oddly, I couldn’t feel much distress from her, but she’d also become skilled at hiding everything she didn’t want me to know. I had to hope she was hiding it intentionally and wasn’t numb or unconscious.
Trying to convey how close we were by staying close to the ground and sneaking around corners, I was glad when Emmett figured it out. He hushed Caspian’s incessant chatter and followed behind me until we were obscured behind a building across the street from our destination. Sitting back on my haunches, I meowed.
Emmett looked up at the building we were beside and I shook my head, letting out a slightly more annoyed meow. His gaze followed when I jerked my head toward Freya, and he crept up to glance around the corner. This close, his sense of smell might catch hints of her. When he hissed in a breath, I knew he had.
“The apartment building across the street,” he whispered to Caspian. “There’s a lot of activity around it. Getting in won’t be easy.”
No shit. If it had been easy, I would have done it myself.
“If we wait until closer to the middle of the night, maybe they’ll be less active?” Cas suggested.
Emmett fought a laugh, and I chuffed softly. “Yes, Cas, it makes so much sense for there to be less activity in the middle of the night in a vampire den.”
His cheeks went pink and he pouted. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“That’s why you have me. Honestly, I don’t think it matters when we go in. I’m scenting a lot of fae presence too, so even if some are more active at night, that’s not true of everyone.”
“Fae presence? That doesn’t make sense. Kylan doesn’t want fae anywhere near him. He’s disgusted by them.”
The cool reception I’d seen Shan get during his trip to Bloodshed Brewing supported that fact. Demon creatures were allowed in without questions, fae needed to meet certain requirements that very few met, and angels weren’t allowed in whatsoever. The mafia members were extremely racist and bigoted.
“Maybe he hired extra security?” Emmett didn’t sound like he believed himself, eyebrows scrunching together. “We should get closer and check it out before we decide our course of action.”
They both looked at me.
How the hell was I supposed to help in this situation? Sure, I was the least conspicuous, but if I learned anything we’d have to play cat charades for me to tell them. Pointedly, I looked down at my body. Emmett released a frustrated sigh. “Good point. Briefly forgot we couldn’t talk to you. Cas, you should go. You can enthral people if you have to, and my scent is stronger since I’m a shifter.”
“Being the distraction and the scout is what I’m best at. I’ll loop around the block and be back in ten.”
Caspian leaned in, kissing Emmett on the cheek. The man caught him around the waist and pulled him in with a soft growl, connecting their lips in a proper kiss. I looked away, feeling like I was intruding on a private moment. When I heard the rustle of clothing I peeked back over, finding Cas pink cheeked, his scent heightened with arousal. Turning on the incubus wasn’t the best idea right before he started a covert operation, but Em was gazing down at him so affectionately I couldn’t fault him.
