Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4) Read online

  “I am Hadley.” I touched my cheek. “I think you broke my jaw.”

  “Prove it,” she spat with enough vehemence I knew they had used my face against her.

  “Tell me how.” I kept out of range of her next punch, though the fight had drained out of her. “What can I say or do to prove to you I am who I say I am?”

  Midas walked in, but she snarled at him too, her fingers curving into claws on her lap. “Hello, Addie.”

  “Come one step closer, and I will bury my foot so far up your butt you’ll be tasting my toenail polish.”

  “We need to move this along.” I rolled my hand. “I would like to find my brother, if you don’t mind.”

  Plus, if this place was rigged to blow, I would prefer to not be in it when that happened.

  A flicker of uncertainty passed over her features before she blanked them. “Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “You know what.” A sisterly scowl cut her mouth. “If you’re Hadley, then say it.”

  Embarrassment singed me clear to the tips of my toes, but I mumbled, “I am enough.”

  Head lolling back, she focused on me. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “I am enough,” I muttered a fraction louder. “Do you believe me now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you punch me again?”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be.” I crouched, more carefully this time. “You gave them hell.” I checked her over. “I’m proud of you.”

  “I warned them my little sister would come for me.” She shut her eyes. “Told ’em they’d be sorry.”

  “I’ll take it from here.” Ford swooped in and began a more thorough exam. “Find the others.”

  Goddess, please let there be others to find.

  “I’ll be right back,” I promised her. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  Leaving her behind physically hurt, even though Ford was with her, and I trusted him.

  If ever I doubted that I loved her, I had my confirmation in spades.

  Screw blood ties.

  Addie was the sister of my heart.

  Midas’s steady presence gave me the nerve to try the next door, but the room was empty, and I wanted to hurl. I was lucky, so lucky, Addie was more or less okay. It was a selfish thing to pray, but I wanted my brother too. I wasn’t sure what I would do without him to annoy the living daylights out of me.

  The door after that rebuffed my heel, and I didn’t have to summon Ambrose for him to begin gobbling.

  The ward burst like a popped bubble, and I kicked in the door before I could think too much about what might be waiting for me on the other side. It rebounded off the wall then swung almost closed in my face. I didn’t see anyone, but we had lost the element of surprise when I started yanking down wards and smashing down doors. We wouldn’t take anyone unawares.

  “Hello?” I took a cautious step into the room. “Anyone here?”

  A low murmur drew me to a figure curled beneath a ratty blanket, their face bloody from long gouges. In the dim light streaming in from the hall, I noticed the shortness of their matted hair and determined it to be Mr. Whitaker. Picking my way to him, I crouched to get a better look.

  The gouges were from fingernails, and when I checked his hand, I confirmed he had done it to himself.

  “He’s in bad shape,” I told Midas. “He needs immediate medical attention.”

  “Unconscious?”

  “Yeah.” I was afraid to touch him, worried I might hurt him worse. “He’s out cold.”

  “Let’s clear the rest of the building,” Midas decided. “We can leave his door open.”

  There weren’t enough of us to guard everyone in their individual rooms, but I couldn’t wait around for help to arrive. I wanted to see my brother with my own eyes. I wanted to know he was okay.

  Please, please, please let him be okay.

  “All right.” I backed into the hall, making sure the way stayed clear. “There are four rooms left.”

  The next door slammed me with a ward that made my back teeth ache, but Ambrose devoured it.

  Midas smashed it in with his shoulder, since I was limping from one too many blows to live wards.

  I was on my back, staring up at the ceiling, admiring the stars twinkling there, before I registered the hit.

  Hit? No. Bell-ringer? Yes. That fit better. I had met stone trolls with softer fists than my brother’s.

  The right side of my jaw throbbed in time with my heart, and a crunching noise filled my head when I closed my teeth. This is what I got for joking with Addie about breaking my jaw earlier. “Ouch.”

  “Where is Addie?”

  A hard kick made my ribs crunch.

  “Where. Is. Adelaide?”

  Boaz stood over me, weaving in and out of view. I couldn’t tell if pain was making me woozy or if weakness made him wobble. Either way, I couldn’t let him land another strike. My brother was a tank.

  Ambrose curled protectively around me. Too little, too late in my opinion, but he was here now.

  “Addie is two doors down,” I wheezed. “Same side of the hall.”

  Wild laughter poured out of him, his disbelief palpable, and he lifted his foot to stomp on me.

  A blur of blond fur, sharp teeth, and claws nailed Boaz square in the chest and knocked him into a wall.

  Crimson magic splashed through the room, and Midas, back on two legs, towered over Boaz.

  “I didn’t expect the sucker punch, but I should have seen it coming.” Midas curled and flexed his hands down at his sides. “I let you land the kick, even though I would rather snap off your leg and beat you with it than allow you to harm my mate. All because Hadley loves you and didn’t want it to come to this.” Midas unsheathed claws in his fingertips and held them to Boaz’s throat. “Hurt her, and you won’t ever hurt another woman.”

  Leveraging up into a sitting position, I waited until my head stopped spinning to address them.

  “Midas.”

  Poised on the brink of violence, he didn’t tear his gaze away from Boaz.

  “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

  A bitter laugh worked up Boaz’s throat.

  “Okay, he knew what he was doing but not who he was doing it to. Remember how Addie reacted?”

  That eased a fraction of the tension in Midas’s shoulders.

  “She clocked me and good, but she thought I was coven.”

  As Midas was about to lower his hand, Boaz had to go and open his big mouth.

  “I’m really enjoying the play.” He clapped slowly. “Stellar performances from the entire cast.”

  “Boaz, I’m Hadley. Your sister.”

  “You’re out of your goddessdamn minds if you think I’m buying what you’re selling.”

  Standing sucked donkey balls, but I got to my feet. “What proof do you require?”

  “Ah.” He chuckled. “This is the part where I ask you to tell me something only Hadley would know.”

  “Whatever it takes to get you out of here before your captors return.”

  Boaz clammed up, set his jaw, and settled in for an interrogation that wasn’t coming.

  “Ambrose,” I said, hating how he jumped to my command with eagerness. “Take a little off the top.”

  “Ambrose,” Boaz echoed. “How do you know about…?”

  One good swoop through his midsection put Boaz out like a light, and he slid to the floor in a heap.

  “I am the worst sister in the world.” I watched my brother’s chest rise and fall. “The absolute worst.”

  “Yes,” Midas agreed dryly. “You’re horrible for preventing him from harming himself or others while you finish rescuing him.” He glanced toward the hall. “We’re still missing one.”

  Yeah.

  We were, weren’t we?

  I was trying hard not to think how satisfying it would be to walk out on her without looking back.

  I wondered how she liked the dark, the bugs,
the fear of never knowing when the next strike would land. I wondered if she had used her time to reflect on the bad things she had done, if she had promised the goddess she would make amends to anyone she had wronged, or if she had spent her confinement cursing Hecate and asking why a paragon such as herself had been brought so low.

  “Stay here with him.” I swallowed the bile welling up my throat. “I have to do this alone.”

  Midas clenched his jaw. “All right.”

  Exiting the room, I stood in the hall and counted the remaining doors then recounted them.

  I was tired, I was sore, and Ambrose loomed over me, crackling with power.

  That ought to frighten me, but I was more afraid of this, of facing my mother.

  The shadow rested a hand on my shoulder, and his energy spilled into me, giving me a boost.

  Puzzled and exhausted, I glanced over at him. “What was that for?”

  Ambrose made a heart shape with his fingers that he thumped against his chest like it was beating.

  “Um.” I had no idea what that meant. “Thanks?” He kept going, and I reached in my pocket. “Here.”

  Unsure what else to do, I flung chocolate at him, which he swallowed without a hitch.

  Linus and I would definitely have a talk about this peculiar behavior.

  And…I was back to stalling.

  Anything to stop myself from identifying the final door and opening it.

  The door beside Boaz’s exam room opened with a twist of my wrist. It was clear, but that made the next doorknob that much harder to grip. It too expelled a stale breath of fetid air that built a knot in my throat because I couldn’t tell if I felt relieved that I hadn’t found her yet or guilty for hoping I didn’t find her at all.

  Power tingled in my hand when I reached the last door in the hall, and Ambrose took his time with it. As much as I wanted to claim he was building the suspense so the reveal would be that much more brutal, I couldn’t fault him there. He was full as a tick, swollen with power, even after sharing with me, and he had little appetite left.

  A breath of magic hit me in the face, soft as an exhale, and then the ward collapsed on itself.

  This knob hurt when I gripped it, like cupping broken glass, and I half expected blood to spill through my fingers.

  Ambrose set his hand over mine, a jolt of energy tingling through the contact, and I turned my wrist.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to,” I told him, “but please don’t make me regret this.”

  The room was dark, darker than the others. Or maybe my vision tunneled when I saw her sitting there. It hit me then, her age. Her fragility. The lines around her mouth cut deeper these days, and the hollows in her cheeks stood out in stark detail. Her cracked lips were thin, hard lines gone white from pressure.

  On the floor, she sat with her spine rigid and her legs folded beneath her. I noticed tracks in her makeup where tears had fallen, but I wasn’t foolish enough to assign their cause to any emotion other than rage. Her clothing was neat, if soiled, and she regarded me through sharp eyes that cut me to the quick.

  Without saying a word, she conveyed her utter disappointment that it had taken me this long to find her.

  Not enough, not enough, not enough.

  Of all the monsters I had battled, I feared this one the most.

  At least she hadn’t come out swinging like Addie and Boaz.

  “I’m here to get you out.” I lingered in the doorway. “Can you stand?”

  “I can.” Mother rose to her feet with a hand braced on the floor. “How are the others?”

  “They’re alive.” I wavered on whether I ought to offer her my arm. “Do you need help?”

  “No, thank you.” Her chin rose higher. “I can manage.”

  With her the most lucid of the four, I decided I would question her. “Who took you?”

  “One of your friend Tisdale’s mongrel gwyllgi.” She limped around the room, palm flaking paint as she dragged it along the wall. “I didn’t catch her name.”

  “How do you know she belongs to Tisdale?”

  “I recognized her from the Faraday.”

  The next question left me with a dry mouth. “Was she working alone?”

  “There was another woman.” She paused to catch her breath. “She gave us the injections.”

  “She drugged you.”

  “Yes.”

  That confirmed my suspicions. “Can you describe her for me?”

  Dragging in a sharp hiss through her teeth, she did, and my heart plummeted at her description of Liz.

  Dropping my chin until it almost bumped my chest, I muttered, “Frakking hell.”

  This as good as confirmed that Ares, or whoever wore her, had enlisted Liz for her skills.

  But was Liz working with her by choice or by force? Usually, it was a no-brainer. This time, I had doubts. The coven had kept my family alive, though they were as yet untested. Who was to say they hadn’t done the same with Liz? Maybe she had been acting as the unwitting warden of this place all this time.

  Either way, the pack had suffered a critical breach, and I had worked alongside Midas long enough to have endangered my team through exposure as well.

  Alone, Ares and Liz each held enough power to fracture the pack with intel they had accumulated while occupying sensitive positions. Both of them? If they were working together? The information they could supply the coven on the inner workings of the pack were catastrophic. Worse, the odds of them using their positions to place more of the coven’s agents within the pack was astronomically high.

  We had to assemble an impartial panel dedicated to clearing each individual pack member, like yesterday, and Abbott would have to jump on creating another device or two so that we could arm our panelists and key persons in the field.

  We had passed the point of allowing traitors the luxury of time to reveal themselves. We had to root them out and rip them from the pack before they choked the life out of us all.

  “Addie is outside,” Ford said from behind me, and I absolutely didn’t jump at the sound of his voice. “I came to help with Matron Pritchard.”

  Angling toward him, I peered down the hall. “What about the others?”

  “I passed Midas on the way. He’s evacuating Mr. Whitaker then heading back for the lug.”

  “What about my son?” Mother pulled herself taller. “What about Boaz?”

  “He’s the lug,” Ford said, rare annoyance in his tone. “He’ll be outside waiting for you.”

  “Take me to him.” She hobbled faster. “Bring me to my son.”

  Mother had always preferred Boaz to me, but she was the pragmatic sort who never forgot she had options should she require a spare heir. With me out of the way, the dubious honor of break in case of emergency fell to our little brother, Macon.

  Ford quirked a brow when I didn’t offer her my arm to steady her, but he was too much of a gentleman to follow my example. He cocked his elbow and smiled his country-boy smile. “Would you like some help?”

  “I don’t require your assistance.” She smoothed her clothing. “I can manage on my own, thank you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He got out of her way then lowered his voice. “That woman is a…” His nostrils flared, gaze cutting to her back, and he rooted himself to the floor as she exited the building. “Did you touch her?” He scented the air. “Did she touch you?”

  “No.” I couldn’t bring myself to, even to help her, and she wasn’t the touchy-feely type. “Why?”

  “That’s not Matron Pritchard.”

  The sour taste from earlier flooded my mouth with water. “Come again?”

  “I’ve been nose blind since we walked through the door, but even I can smell black magic up close.”

  Midas would pick up on it in a blink with the fresh air to clear his head, and he would confront her.

  Goddess.

  I shouldn’t have been such a frakking coward. I barely looked her in the eye longer than to identify her. I, who stood t
oe-to-toe with alphas and future alphas, glanced away first. Had I paid her closer attention, I might have noticed something, anything, but I had been too eager to do my duty and be rid of her.

  I should have known they would exploit my greatest weakness. Goddessdamn it. I should have known.

  I shoved Ford aside and sprinted down the hall, bursting through the door into the moonlight.

  Mother swooped down on Boaz, radiating concern, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. “No.”

  Midas whipped his head toward me, but I was too late.

  The woman, whoever she truly was, murmured softly to Boaz, lovingly, but it was all wrong.

  Gaze searching the area for threats, Midas tensed, crimson sparking in his eyes. “Hadley?”

  “That’s not Matron Pritchard.” I stumbled forward as she lifted her head. “Who are you?”

  “Did you know that when we claim a skin, we harvest its memories too?” She petted Boaz’s hair, smoothing it in place. “I know who you are, Amelie Pritchard, and I know what she did to you.”

  The blood drained from my face in an icy rush that left me woozy. “Step away from him.”

  “Hmm.” She glanced around the gathering. “You told them your secret?”

  I swallowed hard, and she saw it, her eyes gleaming with malice.

  “Not all of them, I see.”

  “Back away from him, nice and slow.” I ignored her taunting. “This doesn’t have to get ugly.”

  “Like the scars on your back? On your buttocks?” Her grin stretched wide. “What does your mate think of it? The stippling?” A throaty laugh Mother never would have made escaped her throat. “Can he bear to look at it? At you? Or do you keep the lights off and your clothes on when you make love?” Her lip curled. “As if animals were capable of more than scratching an itch.”

  “Get…away…” a faint voice rasped, “…from my…son.”

  Unable to turn my back on Boaz, I trusted Ambrose—goddess help me—to vet the danger behind me.

  The shadow molded itself into my mother’s tall and stately figure as I watched, and my brain spluttered.

  I’m not proud the first thought tripping through my head was that two of them was worse than one.

  “I found her in the dumpster,” Ford said quietly. “She smells okay. Well, bad actually, but untainted.”