Page 136 of Mortal Shift
“Your only hope for what?” Jax asked as he pulled the door open and looked out at us. Crap.
“Stupid shifter hearing,” I griped.
“We need your help,” Ling said quickly, before I could actually insult him, which was probably for the best. Jax’s attention sharpened on my friend and his chest puffed out just a fraction. I barely kept from rolling my eyes.
“Oh? And what can I help you with?” he asked, running his eyes over her body.
“Not that,” I snapped, “so mind out of the gutter.”
“Spoilsport.”
“We know who the witness is,” I said, without preamble, and he switched from flirty to deathly serious in a heartbeat.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Ling shot me an I-told-you-so look as he fell in beside us.
“Don’t gloat just yet,” I murmured. “Plenty of time for him to get us all killed.”
“Don’t worry, Cali,” he said with a smirk. “I’ll protect you.”
I bit back my scathing reply, because if this went wrong, I might actually need that protection—which was just about killing me. Jax seemed to interpret my silence to mean exactly that, and he notched up his smugness so I could have sensed it half a mile away. But the other thing I could sense was his sharpness, the hard edge that underscored every one of his movements, and I understood why Cole put so much trust in him. Jax might act the playboy, but underneath he was a warrior and a soldier, and he was ready to go to war for his commanding officer. In a place where loyalty couldn’t be bought, it was impossible to miss his value.
…But I’d be damned if I was going to admit that to him.
“This way,” he muttered. “He passed through here recently.”
I nodded and let Jax take point. If he said Kallan had gone this way, I trusted him. He was the one with the shifter senses, after all.
He led us unerringly to a corridor in one of the quieter parts of the academy, sending a look over his shoulder to tell me we were close—within hearing distance, I assumed. I nodded my understanding and glanced at Ling, whose jaw was set and eyes hard.
We rounded the corner, and there the weaselly little rodent was, deep in conversation with Eva and Harvey. As one, their heads snapped up to stare at us, but instead of feeling the fear any halfway sensible human in an academy of monsters might have felt, I was filled only with fury, and it took every ounce of my self-control not to sprint over there and rip the arrogant look from his face.
“What do you want, blood whore?” he asked. “Come to beg me to take you into my pack now that your Cole is a dead man?”
I ground my teeth together, and Ling gave me a tiny nudge in warning. Right, couldn’t lose my cool. I wasn’t quite sure why that was, now that I thought about it, but we’d probably agreed it for a reason.
“Oh, trust me, Kallan,” I said with a smile, “the only one round here who’s going to be begging is you.”
He barked a sharp laugh. “And what makes you think that? Your little pet wolf? Because last time I checked, there are three wolves standing on my side of the corridor, whereas you have only one wolf, a human, and…whateverthatis.”
I widened my smile, flashing him a grin that was all teeth and bad intentions—and bluff. “Trust me, you don’t want to knowwhatshe is. But lucky for you, you don’t have to find out. Give us what we want, and we’ll leave the three of you to skulk around your dark corridor in peace.”
“And what is it you want?” He dropped his hands down to cup himself and his two packmates cackled.
“And here I was thinking you were wolves, not hyenas,” I said, wiping the smiles off their faces. “Trust me, Kallan, there’s nothing you have in that department that could come close to measuring up to Cole.”
“Too bad he’s not here then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, about that.” I twisted round to shoot a look at Jax, who squared his jaw and rolled out his shoulders, canting his head to one side in a way that was somewhere between malicious and psychotic, and menacing as fuck. I was glad he was on our side. “We know you’re the witness, and you’re going to take back what you said.”
“Yeah? And why would I do that?”
“You don’t deny it, then?” I said, a stab of thrill running through me. Davorin had been right.
Kallan shrugged and swaggered a step closer, getting right up in my personal space. “Deny it? Why would I? I went to the council, and I told them what your pathetic excuse of a mate did. It’s my civic duty, isn’t it?” He grinned at his sycophantic followers and they cackled again, the sound sending white hot fury through my veins. This slimy little rat was the reason my mate was locked up. His eyes drifted back to me, hardening.
“Yeah, I sent Cole to his death.” He leaned his head closer to mine, and dropped his voice to a dark whisper. “And I’d do it again.”
