Page 72 of Scarred Resolve

“Huh. I wonder who ‘they’ were. I mean, the best options are Zuri and Subira,” I said.

Davor nodded, then pointed at the box with me.

“You should get to it,” he said softly. “They can show up faster than expected, and we’ll want as much private access to this as we can get. If you find anything that stands out to you, take a picture of it.” He lifted something in his case and pulled out a small digital camera. “I’ll secure all the photos for safe review later. Once the Tribunal has these, we might not ever see them again.”

“All right.”

And so, I started reading. Much of it made no sense to me. None at all. First, much of it was in a different language, and I was incredibly behind on picking up anything besides English. I had a little bit of knowledge of French, but no chances to practice it with anyone, and my German wasn’t really from any sort of education. It was bits and pieces I was picking up from Dirk and now Niko, and it was all spoken, not read. I couldn’t even identify the languages.

I flipped through until I found one in English and read it, frowning as I saw a name I recognized.

“Mygi Pharmaceuticals was disbanded, wasn’t it?” I asked, looking up to see if either of my brothers reacted. “Or it’s… been humanized, right?”

“The latter,” Niko said softly, his expression changing as he moved toward me, leaving what he had been reading. “They used to research how to do a lot of things that would make supernatural lives easier. Blood substitutes for vampires, ending the curse for us, and more. However, they were discovered to be doing a lot of illegal things, too, like experimenting on a supernatural species that most of the world believes were actual myths and not possible. A lot of what was done by them was very secretive. I’ve only heard rumors.”

“Same for me,” Davor said, leaning closer. He was still on the satellite phone, but apparently, Jabari wasn’t back yet. It wasn’t common for someone to be left on the line the way Jabari left Davor. “Rumors. The cambions were discovered and held against their will by the company. It was that snake Hisao knows that helped blow the top off the entire thing, and that’s how we have the cambions now as a Tribunal species.”

“Kaliya Sahni,” I said, knowing of the naga. I had met her and her mate, a cambion, officially only once when she came to get Cassius out of my territory.

“Yeah, well, the cambions were essentially given the company by the guy who runs the sister hospital. They humanized it, ending all supernatural aspects of it,” Niko said, nodding. “The fact that it’s?—”

“Davor, you’re still here. Good,” Jabari said on the phone, unintentionally cutting off Niko and ending our conversation. “You have five minutes. They’ll be there. Father rushed it through. Callahan and Corissa gave no fight about it, and because they didn’t, no one else on the Tribunal cared.”

“Who all is coming?” Davor asked quickly, looking around at everything we had collected from the house.

“Mother, Father, Callahan, Corissa, and the werewolves will take a group, some of Corissa’s pack, just for security and helping hands. Could be three, could be a dozen.”

“Whatever they need to feel like they’re safe with five of our family in one place,” Niko whispered.

“Be safe, you three. Good fucking work.”

31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The end of the call left us scrambling, taking pictures of the Mygi lead we had and more that Niko had set aside since he had the ability to speed-read multiple languages. He certainly got more done than I did, but neither of my brothers gave me a hard time for not being the greatest help. Davor also started plugging in the phones to his computer, hit a few buttons, and a few minutes later, unplugged them.

“I downloaded everything I could off them,” he explained as he tucked them deep in the largest box, hidden by papers and the big computer. “They’ll figure out that I did it, but I didn’t delete anything off the phones. If I get in trouble, it won’t be harsh.”

“You sure?” I didn’t like the idea of him getting in trouble.

“Positive. Father will counter anyone on the Tribunal by saying something about how they shouldn’t feel bad that I had intel that he would have had to give me later anyway, and it would be improper to try to withhold it since we’re all investigating the same things.” Davor closed his case. “He’s done it for me before for smaller things. Most of the time, some Tribunal Investigator gets fussy but doesn’t say anything because they all know it’s a lost cause.”

“He really does back us up,” Niko said, chuckling. “And that includes you, Jacky.”

“Yup,” I said, not attempting to hide how those words made me feel.

Right on time, as we swept dirt off our pants, the door into the cabin near us opened. Like all good royalty, Callahan and Corissa had some of their werewolves exit the Tribunal first. There were four to start, and they were alert, taking us in, smelling everything until one nodded back toward the open door. Callahan and Corissa exited, moving to the side, then it was Hasan and Subira. Subira didn’t close the door, though. She and Hasan moved to the side and another four werewolves exited. I did a quick count, seeing three men and five women out of the security force for the Alphas.

“The Tribunal will provide transportation home for all those involved,” Hasan declared. “Good work.”

“Find the bodies,” Corissa ordered to the closet werewolf near her. “Don’t take the bodies into the Tribunal yet. Lay them out so we can inspect them for any evidence of magic done on them. We’ll be remaining here to investigate.”

“Yes, Alpha,” the woman replied, nodding. She pointed to three werewolves, and they fell in with her. Then she turned to my brothers and me. “You fought them in the area but nothere, correct?”

“Head west into the tree line, follow my scent or Davor’s scent, and you’ll find the bodies.”

The female werewolf looked at me, then back at Niko, a silent question clear.

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