Page 66 of Secrets and Ruin

It was Nikolaus, son of Hasan, looking far worse than I had ever seen him.

“It was you,” I realized, remembering the last few moments before I went unconscious.

“I’d been tracking him, realizing he was doing something different from his previous attempts to kill me. I wasn’t far behind him. I didn’t think he was going after you…or Dirk…or Landon Everson,” Niko said, his face schooled, but his tone told me he was more than a little annoyed by the surprise of all of us being in the forest.

“You couldn’t smell Landon or me on the trail?” I wanted to hit him. How could he miss that?

“I can’t smell anything. I’ve had to track him through physical means, something I’m grateful my father taught me to do. He hit me with a nasty bit of fae magic when this got started. It’s dead.” He flicked his nose, leaning back as he realized he didn’t need to hold me down anymore, and I wasn’t trying to attack him.

“Hasan never taught me to do that,” I said, sitting up with a groan.

“My father, not our father. If someone in our family is going to teach you to hunt game, it’ll be Subira, and her techniques are different from what I learned growing up,” Niko explained, his expression shuttered and unreadable.

“I see.” With a nod, I started to swing my legs off the bed, growling as I put my feet on the ground. “There’s nothing broken, right?” I asked, wanting to know if I shouldn’t do this.

“No. Head trauma, but I think you’ve gotten more than used to that,” he said, leaning back further. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“He’s my wolf,” I said softly. “He’s part of Heath’s pack.”

“No. He can’t be. You can’t put Rainer within a hundred kilometers of a werecat without him hunting them down. That’s why I knew I had to hunt him down during the War. I don’t know how he hid this long, but that doesn’t matter. There’s no way he can be your wolf or one of Heath’s. He’d never work with one of us or anyone affiliated with us.”

I remembered the day in Dallas when he had made his grand appearance into my life and sighed.

“Yeah, that’s how I met him,” I whispered. “But he went by Fenris. That’s all anyone knew him as.”

Niko’s eyes went wide.

“You think I would lie to you?” I asked him, giving him an annoyed look. “He’s my wolf. We didn’t know who he was, and it seemed as if he was getting over some shit. Clearly, it was just buried deeper, hidden behind the falsity that was his life as Fenris. Fae magic stuff. I hate it.”

“Oh…” Niko slumped a bit. “I see.”

“So, when Fenris disappeared, we investigated because three other werewolves in the pack were hit with a sleeping spell or curse. He was the only one missing. For a little while, we wanted to believe he might have been taken hostage. Then I found his blood bargain with the Wild Hunt, written on his very flesh. It smelled like Fenris, but it was for…,” I gestured at Niko, beckoning him to say it.

“Rainer Brandt,” Niko said, nodding slowly.

“Yup. Now, where are the boys?” I asked, pushing to my feet, hissing in pain as my back let me know it didn’t appreciate all the moving.

“Sleeping in the main room by the fire. There’s only one bedroom here, and they wanted you to have it. I didn’t argue with them. You took the brunt of Rainer’s anger.”

“I tried to talk to his other identity, the one I had a complicated friendship with. He didn’t like that,” I admitted. “I was supposed to give them a signal. I wanted information.”

Niko shook his head, clearly not agreeing with my choice.

“Where are we?”

“A safehouse,” he answered simply, leading me out of the bedroom. I was still dressed in what I had been wearing. “You’ve been asleep for about six hours. They’ve been down for five. I did some explaining before they dropped.”

“And now you’ll do it for me,” I said casually, expecting him to tell me everything.

“Yeah….” Niko was in front of me but moved out of the way to reveal the quaint, homey living room with a warm hearth in the center. I went toward the couch I was behind, looking over to see one of my boys. Dirk was on the couch, a blanket tucked over him. Landon had a pillow and blanket on the floor. Both made no sign that I had disturbed them.

“They needed the sleep,” I said softly, reaching to brush Dirk’s cheek. As my fingers grazed my nephew’s cheek, Niko’s growl warned me of something I should have remembered.

Landon was right, then. Maybe I shouldn’t assume the worst.

I looked at my brother, seeing the eyes of his werecat focused on my hand.

“He’s not property,” I said, not pulling my fingers back. “He’s not only yours or only mine. He’s a grown man who gets to decide who he wants in his life.”

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