Page 13 of Atlas and the Traitor

He fisted his hand instead, capturing a fleeting tendril of warmth before walking away from roaring temptation and unproductive fantasy, from a fate that would only end in more guilt and misery.

He turned to the bleak reality of the here and now.

Inside, he climbed the stairs to the loft where Mary had, indeed, spread her shit out all over. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, computer open on her lap, a half dozen other devices and countless cords scattered around her. “Did you get a location?” he asked her.

“I think so. Dyami has a meeting tomorrow at the bed and breakfast in downtown LP. Two of his guards are checked in there tonight.”

“But not him?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Advance team,” he speculated.

“Most likely, especially as a person fitting the hunter’s description is staying there too.”

“Do you have a list of all the registered guests?” Maybe he’d recognize an alias.

She held a tablet out to him. He got as far as the third name, then passed it back to her. “I’ll leave tonight so I’m in position if Evan shows tomorrow. If he doesn’t, I’ll recon the meet.”

“I can be packed and ready in twenty.”

“You can’t be there.”

Red streaked across her tan cheeks, and she tossed her laptop aside, rising on her knees to protest. “You can’t?—”

“I can.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, just in case the coyote was feigning sleep. “Canton died for you. Cole died for you.” He angled closer, voice hardened, as he threw an arm out the direction of where he’d left Robin. “He doesn’t know it yet, but his sister and brother-in-law did too. Quinn and countless others. Your own brother, plus, Adam and Paris. Magic brought the latter few back to life, but it will run out at some point. You will exhaust the phoenixes. You are a temporary vessel, like all the vessels before this one, and the eagle is not ready yet for what he has to do.” He waited for her to lower back to her haunches. “You have to quit putting yourself and others in jeopardy. Not as long as the deity is in there. Do you understand?”

The smile that tipped up her lips made him want to scream. “I was right about you.”

He wasn’t so sure. “We’ll see.”

Nine

Crouched behind the parapet wall of a building rooftop, Atlas took one look through his monocular into the bed and breakfast’s corner café and knew things were about to go sideways. He hadn’t wanted to believe what he’d read on that list Mary had handed him last night—an alias he knew all too well—but there was no denying the truth of what he saw with his own eyes.

No denying the calls, real and telepathic, that had gone unanswered overnight and this morning.

“What’s your cousin doing cozied up with the pretender?”

Atlas nearly dropped his spyglass. Cursing, he spun from the unsettling sight of Daphne and Dyami cuddled together at a table to the equally unsettling shifter who’d somehow snuck up on him, not a footfall or heartbeat warning of his approach, not a whiff of dog. “How did you?—”

“I’m good at my job.” His gaze drifted over Atlas’s shoulder. “Same as them.”

Atlas followed his line of sight to the sidewalk outside the café. To the seemingly twenty-something redhead in a crocheted sweater and patchwork jeans and his silver fox partner in denim and leather approaching the cafe’s glass door. Daphne and Dyami had probably noticed them already. Icarus, with his tall, chiseled frame, blue eyes, and fiery hair was one of the most striking men Atlas had ever met; add in Adam’s rugged good looks and they were a formidable, distracting pair.

“They can’t be here,” Atlas seethed, his already sideways plan well on the way to upside down. He couldn’t even lob an orb to stop them from entering. Daphne would instantly recognize his magic.

“They can be,” Robin said, as he kneeled beside him. “Adam and Icarus are human. We’re not.”

“By that logic, my cousin and Dyami shouldn’t be here either.” He might not have been a true eagle shifter, but Dyami was an elder of not-insignificant influence. He had enough juice to make people think he was a shifter, by magical deception or otherwise. And speaking of power... “My brother definitely shouldn’t be here, if he even shows.”

“Except your cousin plays the convert, and Dyami the holy man.”

Icarus and Adam entered the café, and Atlas hung his head, no help for it now. “They’re going to blow the op.”

“They’re professionals,” Robin said. “They’ll watch for the hunter and neutralize him if they have to.”

“Shouldn’t that be your job?”

He swung his golden gaze to the side, eyeing him pointedly. “Someone has to keep eyes on you.” Then eyeing his attire, added, “In a suit again, I see.”

“In case I have to pretend to be Evan.” Daphne would immediately know it was him, but unless Dyami had paid close attention to his twin’s eye color last time or had been in the presence of Evan’s magic, he likely wouldn’t. No telling if Daphne would tell him; no telling whose side she was on—Chaos or Nature.

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