Change of Heart (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 3) Read online

  Reaching into Ambrose, I claimed both my swords. They were all but useless, we were sitting ducks waiting to get roasted, but I felt better with them in my hands.

  “Do you see that?” Midas pointed to a dark splotch on the ground. “It’s not burning.”

  “Let’s investigate.” I checked the position of the bird, grateful its massive wingspan made targeting the small clearing difficult, then jogged over to investigate. “Weird.”

  The gap was narrow enough I could turn sideways and scuttle to the warg side, if I didn’t mind the risk of catching my hair or clothes on fire. The dark splotch? It was a roach wing. One must have shed it in the excitement to plummet to its doom.

  Careful of the heat, I tested the ridged material, found it cool to the touch, and glanced up at Midas.

  “You’re not serious.” He picked up on the drift of my thoughts. “That’s a half-inch thick at most.”

  “Got any better ideas?” I flipped the wing over onto the next section, and it hissed and smoked as it smothered the flames. “Wow.” I dusted my hands. “I’m pretty shocked that worked, actually.”

  Pretending this had been my plan all along, that I hadn’t briefly entertained using it as a shield, I grinned.

  “How can we get more?” He glanced over at the pit. “We can’t let the roaches out without Smythe, and he hasn’t so much as twitched. We don’t know if his control is fine enough to hold them steady while we pluck them either.” He frowned. “There’s the risk of infection to consider too.”

  This would all be for nothing if even one volunteer got tapped as a host. It would start the cycle over again.

  “I’m going to distract the bird,” I decided. “You make an exit and get everyone out.”

  “Hadley…” he began and then closed his mouth. “Be careful.”

  “I will.” I rose onto my tiptoes and brushed my lips across his cheek. “You too.”

  While he got to work, I did the most idiotic thing I could think of, short of throwing myself into the fire and saving the bird the trouble. I charged the outer ring like that was exactly what I intended to do, ideas churning in my mind. Before I could decide on one, the bird squawked and dove for me.

  Pivoting on my heel, I ran for the opposite end on pure instinct, steeling my nerves just as the bird decided I was too close to the fire and used a massive talon to knock me on my butt.

  The bird was…protecting me?

  The coven must be desperate for my skin if they were curbing their murderous tendencies in favor of allowing smoke inhalation to do the heavy lifting for them. Then again, they couldn’t work their mojo on a charcoal briquet if I cremated myself, and I was definitely the kind to go out with a bang.

  Earning a new sympathy for balls in pinball machines everywhere, I crisscrossed our half of the flaming circle, running flat-out. I kept the bird busy until a stitch developed in my side and I had trouble breathing.

  The angle of my next sprint showed me Bishop and Smythe were clear, and the wargs were exiting through the gap Midas made for them. As much as it worried me to release them in such numbers, we didn’t know that they weren’t here to help. We couldn’t let them die just to be on the safe side.

  “Hadley,” Midas yelled on his way back to me. “We’re clear.”

  “Go on,” I panted. “I’m right behind you.”

  The war of emotions battling across his face told me he knew I was a liar, but he let the whopper slide.

  Bishop, however, fought him tooth and nail. He had known me longer, and he could smell a bad idea on me from a mile away.

  “You know what to do,” I called to him then slid my gaze to Midas to shore up my courage.

  One last burst of speed got me to the edge of the circle sealing off the pit, and I erased the line with my foot. The magic fell, but the roaches cared more about the waning music than their sudden freedom. I didn’t let myself hope that would remain the case. I didn’t let myself think at all.

  Arms pinwheeling, I leapt into the pit with them, Ambrose clawing at the air as we fell.

  A percussive boom shook the world, and brilliant white light filled my vision.

  Darkness, thick and copper-tasting, rushed in before I hit the bottom.

  Twenty-Six

  Midas stared at the smoking pit where Hadley vanished and swore his ribs cracked under the strain from his frantic heart. Tongues of fire licked the sky, and rancid debris rained down around them. Dirt and ash and bug. But there was no sign of her.

  She had leapt into the void, curls streaming behind her, and she was gone.

  Gone, gone, gone.

  The bitter word chased itself around his head, constricting his thoughts to a single panicked channel.

  Whirling on Bishop, who held his thumb pressed down on a small detonator, he snarled, “What have you done?”

  “What she told me to do.” His voice came out flat and tired as he pointed. “Make her sacrifice count.”

  The leathery bird landed near the pit as Midas watched, hopping here and there for a better vantage.

  A wellspring of hatred so old he had forgotten its savor rushed through his veins. Not since his time in Faerie had he raged until his body vibrated with so much caustic magic it rose in a blistering wave that threatened to burn him alive. Embracing the beast’s strength and righteous anger, he lunged through the gap left on the scorched earth.

  The call to the hunt he meant to issue strangled in his throat as he leapt for the bird and sank his teeth in its hide. He slung his head with vicious precision, ripping out chunks of meat. The man didn’t shy from the violence, and the beast relished the kinship with his other half, both of them hungry for vengeance.

  Rough fur and hard scales brushed his sides as his packmates joined in, but he snarled a warning.

  This kill was his, and his alone.

  “Wait.” Bishop shoved him aside without fear of his teeth or claws and plunged both his hands into the meaty pulp. A slash from his pocketknife, quick and cold, and he withdrew the heart. “Be right back.”

  Midas shook his head to clear the roaring in his ears. He couldn’t have heard Bishop right.

  Be right back.

  Shadows swallowed him at the edge of the woods, the heart still beating in his hands.

  He left her. Without hoping. He just…left. Without trying. Left. Without checking.

  Midas eased back from the carcass, his sense of self returning, and allowed his packmates to feast.

  “I don’t understand.” Smythe clutched a giant roach wing to his chest like a shield. “What happened?”

  The temptation to rip out his throat for caring more about a bunch of mutant pests than Midas’s mate itched in his teeth, but he kept his jaw clenched against the urge to revisit his arena days as more than distant memories.

  Time stretched, elastic where it bound Midas as he sat on his haunches and gazed at nothing.

  “Give it a minute,” Bishop was saying to Ares. “It’s too hot out there for us to—”

  Midas had no memory of how his jaws got wrapped around Bishop’s soft throat or how Bishop ended up on the ground with Midas standing over him. He tasted fae blood where his teeth punctured Bishop’s skin. Powerful blood. And it didn’t make a difference that he was outclassed magically. He could end this with one snap.

  “Kill me,” Bishop rasped, “and she’ll never forgive you.”

  He didn’t fight. He just laid there. He didn’t even have the decency to smell afraid.

  “Hadley’s dead,” Ares snarled. “You killed her.”

  “She’s not dead.” Bishop rolled his eyes. “Most likely.” He shrugged. “Odds are good she’s okay.”

  The memory of finding her inside the safety of a circle in her apartment after the bomb went off shot to the forefront of Midas’s mind, and he spat out Bishop. Stumbling clear of him, he shifted onto two legs and ran for the pit.

  “Hadley,” he screamed over the edge. “Hadley.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, draw
n by the smoke or the explosion, he didn’t care. All that mattered was how hard it made it for him to hear if she called back.

  “Use this.” Remy hit him in the side of the head with a thick rope. “It’s the best I could do.”

  A burn kit smacked the dirt at her boots, a gallon jug of aloe with it.

  “Wait.” Bishop shot to his feet. “Wait a godsdamned minute.” He raced to them. “The circle she’s in is the only thing keeping her from being parboiled.” He snatched the rope. “You’ve got to let it cool down in there, or you’re going to kill her.”

  Midas forced himself to sit, to breathe, to gather his thoughts. “All right.”

  “Who called the fire department?” Bishop rubbed his face. “This is going to be a headache to explain.”

  “I did.” Remy plopped down several feet from Midas, her shoulders stiff. “I went for help as soon as that idiot bird started vomiting fire.”

  For her to have monitored the situation, called for help, fetched the dirty rope from somewhere nearby, and purchased medical supplies, she must have sent her other selves scurrying all over the city.

  Fae like her were a rarity in this world. For her to come out to Hadley was one thing. The show of trust in also sharing her talent with Hadley’s friends, he wouldn’t have expected from someone so guarded. But then, he had been guarded too. Before Hadley. She knocked down his walls with laughter and refused to take no for an answer. He had been a fool to walk away from her, even for a second, even for her own good.

  Midas would never be the same person he was before Faerie broke him, but he could piece himself back together. For her. For Mom. For Lethe. For the pack. And, he was surprised to admit, for himself.

  The days of living apart, of suffering alone, were over. He was ready to rejoin the world, and he couldn’t think of a better guide than the woman he had to believe was biding her time in the crater at his feet.

  “I should have been faster.” Remy threw pebbles across the gap. “I saw that damn bird, and I panicked.”

  Midas put in the effort since she had too. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Bishop says they’re anti-magic flamethrowers, that you can’t protect yourself from them through magical means.”

  And the coven had unleashed the creature on Hadley.

  “The roach wing put out the flames,” he murmured. “How can that be?”

  “I, uh, have a theory.” Smythe joined them, but he made no bones about for whom he grieved. “The client who hired me to create the hybrids requested they be immune to a certain type of magic, one I had never encountered until then.” He gazed down with sorrowful eyes. “It’s not an uncommon request.” He wiped his eyes. “Clients often request built-in controls.”

  This debacle had proven the coven had commissioned the creatures and then stolen them to put the finishing touches on themselves. A theft, of both Smythe’s notes and the creatures themselves, meant he would have had to refund their initial investment. The coven had gotten what they wanted at no cost, except to the citizens of Atlanta.

  “You’re saying the roach wing worked because the coven requested immunity from the creatures, and it went both ways.”

  “Yes.” He gestured with his hand. “There are, however, no such protections against mundane elements.”

  The distraction was good while it lasted, but Midas couldn’t keep his focus from wandering back to Hadley. The pack was a solid wall of comfort at his back as they sat or paced, on four legs and two, waiting for her to emerge.

  He hadn’t been sure if they would accept her, and then he hadn’t cared. She was his. Either they allowed her to claim her place at his side, or he would do the unthinkable and force Mom to choose another heir to fight for their place at the top.

  “We arrived too late for it to matter,” a soft voice said from behind him. “I regret that, Midas. I truly do.”

  When he turned, he found Ayla Clairmont standing nude at the apex of her pack, who had kept their fur.

  “She was an exceptional woman,” she continued, “and we owed her a debt of gratitude for what she did for the warg community.” She lowered her head. “She will be missed.”

  “Thank you,” he said, his throat tight with fervent hope these condolences meant nothing, that Hadley was alive and waiting for him to toss that rope and haul her to safety.

  The Clairmont pack left the way they had come, and Ayla paused to kiss the cheek of the old man who had hung back to wait his turn.

  “She would have been here sooner if I had listened,” Garou confessed. “I have fighters, and the numbers are on my side. She came to me for help in order to end this plague on our people, and I haggled with her.” He spread his hands. “It’s in my nature, but that doesn’t make it right.” He nodded toward the pit. “Hadley was an exceptional young woman. Linus chose her well. I am sorry for your loss.” He scratched the weathered skin over his heart. “Losing a mate changes a man. I hope you weather it better than I did all those years ago.”

  “Thank you,” he said again, glossing over the fact Hadley would have dismantled his corrupt empire, brick by brick, given time.

  Garou took his Loups and began the long walk back to the city. Wargs his age were tough, but he was old, and it showed in the way the beta kept flush to his side. Walking out as a man, with no way to defend himself, was a show of power. A statement that he held his people in check through his will alone. But the enforcers required to keep the more eager wargs back hinted that change might be coming to their hierarchy sooner rather than later.

  “You’re lucky,” Remy said once they were alone. “You keep your clothes when you shift.” A shudder rippled through her shoulders. “That guy has to flash his prunes every time he changes forms.”

  Despite it all, Midas huffed out a quiet laugh. “Wargs are more in tune with nature than us.”

  “Plenty of folks love nature without walking around balls-out in it.”

  More laughter spilled out of him, a welcome release, and that’s when her motive for playing nice with him registered. Remy was doing for him what Hadley would have done in her place, proving Hadley had been right about her.

  The sirens, deafening in their proximity, drew Midas’s attention toward the ambulance and fire trucks he hoped were manned with paranormals of one flavor or another so he didn’t have to work up the energy to explain this. But when Bishop waved him over, he somehow found the strength to move.

  “Water will disrupt her ward,” the fireman was saying, “but it’s the easier fix.”

  “How about the safest fix,” Midas growled. “She could be boiled alive.”

  “We’ve got a salamander on the squad,” he said, eyeing Midas warily. “He can climb down, assess the risk. We’re going to do our best to get her out of there without a scratch.”

  The rumble in his chest was constant, and he couldn’t form words around it.

  “She’s only got so much air in that bubble,” Bishop said under his breath. “One way or another, we have to move in the next half hour.”

  “Send in the salamander,” Midas grated out, his ruined voice garbled. “Check her status.”

  The fireman raised a hand, and a boy with three chin hairs to his name sprinted over. “Do what you do.”

  The teen saluted him then burst into flames on the spot, burning down until a lizard the size of a cat stood on his boots. Its red skin shimmered as if fire lived in its veins, but its yellow eyes were sharp and determined as it skittered off to the pit.

  “Dangerous,” Bishop murmured then faced the fireman. “What made you recruit him?”

  “Aubrey started volunteering at our old station when he was twelve. He was fascinated by fire, obsessed with it, and his foster mother worried. We put him to work sweeping, cleaning the trucks, helping cook.” The man shook his head. “We knew he was a special kid, but we had no clue how remarkable until he hit puberty.” Deep lines bracketed his mouth. “He combusted in his sleep one night and burned down his foster parents�
�� house, with them in it.”

  “That’s how it goes,” Bishop lamented. “The awakening. He had no choice in the matter.”

  “That’s what we told him.”

  “I take it he didn’t listen?”

  “They were the closest thing he had to parents. He still grieves for them.” The fireman grabbed his clothes and shook out the ash as if this were routine. “We gave him a permanent bunk after that and let him live at the station. We put him to work to show him he can make a difference.”

  “You’re a good man,” Midas managed. “You gave him a shot at having a normal life.”

  No foster family would touch Aubrey after that, not knowing he was a juvenile salamander capable of incinerating anything or anyone that got him mad. With a teen chockful of hormones, anger was a given. He had to learn control, or he would be exiled to one of the deserts since killing them was nearly impossible.

  “It was a group effort,” he grunted. “We all wanted him to succeed. Now he’s a full-fledged member of the crew.”

  While they waited, the captain wandered back to his people to check in with them about dousing the fires. Bishop watched him go, a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “They’re a pride of lion shifters,” he decided. “Given how many lizards get eaten by housecats, it’s an odd fit for them to have adopted a salamander.”

  “I wasn’t aware there were any new packs in the city.”

  “There aren’t.” Bishop half smiled. “They’re a pride, and they’re unregistered. We’ll let it go for now, see how this plays out.”

  Midas made a mental note to inform his mother. Their pack wasn’t opposed to another predatory species in the area. They were strong enough to hold their territory. But any shift in power sent out ripples, and with the coven in town, those ripples could become tidal waves.

  A belch of smoke announced the salamander’s return, and he burst into flames close enough to singe Midas’s arm hair. The captain jogged over to hear the assessment, his arms folded over his wide chest.