Page 25 of Atlas and the Traitor

The bobcat sprang first, slamming into Atlas and taking him down face-first, his chest to the ground, the cat on his back. The relatively smaller of the other two men bagged his head and the big one tied his hands. They didn’t, however, separate his fingers, and as the trio marched him around the garage toward the driveway, Atlas contemplated snapping himself free.

He stopped himself short again. This was an opportunity to learn more about Dyami’s role in all this. Were they taking him to the pretender? Would he finally get a meet? Could he convince Dyami that he wanted to take Daphne’s place? Were they holding Lucy hostage? Was Dyami working with the hunter?

His mind was swimming with questions, with possibilities and tactics, while the rest of him was drowning with fear. If he ported himself away, only for Robin to show up moments later, how would the coyote fare in a three-on-one battle? Atlas had no reason to think Robin couldn’t hold his own, but could Atlas take that risk? He didn’t have to think twice about that answer. Yet even as he committed to the action, allowing Dyami’s goons to shove him into the back of what felt and sounded like a utility van, he worried about the fallout. What would Robin think when he found him gone? What the fuck would he do?

“Get in there,” one of the humans said, shoving him to the van floor and using his foot to kick him to one side. Atlas shimmied away from the boot, across the grooved metal floor until his back hit shelving, the smell of paint and chemicals stinging his nose.

His nose.

Scent.

Fuck.

He’d spent a lifetime avoiding this, running from it, but what choice did he have in the current situation? Absolutely none. His best hope was that a little would be enough for Robin to lock onto but not enough to give fate the win. Not yet.

He flicked his fingers, casting a tendril of his scent, the real one, along the metal floor and out the drainage grooves beneath the van’s back doors.

“This is the guy, right?” said the human who’d shoved him earlier. To make room on a bench seat by the sound of it. “The one Dyami put a bounty out on?”

“Yeah,” said the other human from farther away, near where the driver should be. “That’s him. Call the eagle and let him know.”

A stretch of silence followed during which Atlas idly wondered how much the price on his head was up to—and did Robin know?—before the goon closest to him spoke again. “We got him,” he said to Dyami, Atlas assumed. “He was at Cyrus’s place. Right where Lucy sent him.”

Cyrus. A name to go with the nightmare.

“You’re going to let her go, right?” said a new voice from beside the first one. “She did what you asked. I’ll keep her in line now, I swear.”

The new husband, then—and the shifter, back in human form. He sounded distressed, the promise one of appeasement, but Atlas would have to be convinced that?—

A loud crash sounded against the van roof, and the vehicle teetered onto two wheels, sending paint cans flying off the racks and Atlas sliding into a pair of shins. He tucked his head, protecting himself from kicks or cans, just in time as the driver overcorrected, the van teetering the opposite direction, jostling the other two men in the back.

A knee landed in his back, another in his shoulder, and then fuck if one of the assholes didn’t use his calf to leverage himself up.

“What the hell, Duncan?” shouted the human. “Sit this van down!”

“What’s going on?” echoed the husband.

Duncan, the driver apparently, got the van back on four wheels, skidding to a stop, but before he could answer either question, a familiar roar Atlas shook the van’s walls.

“It’s that fucking coyote,” Duncan hollered. “The bounty hunter one.”

“You need to shift again,” said the other human to Lucy’s husband. “We need this money.”

“Not unless you guarantee Lucy’s safety,” he bargained. “And I get half the payout.” Shrewd, Atlas conceded, but maybe not the time to push his luck.

“Yes, fuck, fine!” Duncan agreed. “Just shift and get rid of the fucking dog.”

Magic sizzled inside the van, bones cracked, and a moment later, the bobcat growled. The back doors flew open, claws scraped across metal, and the cat barely got out a fighting hiss before it howled in unmistakable pain.

“Fuck, Duncan!” the other human yelled. “Just leave him!”

Atlas flicked his fingers, the hood and bindings disappearing, and he hurled an orb forward, jamming the gear shift back into park before it broke out the front windshield. Robin leapt through the opening the next instant, jaws open wide for Duncan’s neck. Blood splattered across the front seats, and the other man standing astride Atlas tripped over himself and Atlas in his haste to flee the opposite direction, practically falling out the van’s back door.

Atlas sent an orb slamming into his back, making sure he’d never get up again.

A bark behind him was all the warning Atlas got before Robin went rushing past him, hurtling out the open doors toward the bobcat who was trying to stagger up. Robin landed on all fours above him, batting him back down and letting out another thunderous roar, his intention clear.

“Robin, wait!” Atlas shouted, as he jumped down from the van and sprinted after him. “They’re holding his wife hostage.”

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