Page 6 of Atlas and the Traitor

He’d been chasing the wrong Shaw twin.

“Paris saw it through the eyes of a lingering soul. He told us it wasn’t you. That it was Evan.” She stepped closer once more. “We can work together,” she said, her aspirations for him unrealistically high. Same as his mother’s. “We’re after the same thing.”

“I don’t think we are.”

She pressed her lips together, assessing. “You think you can save him.”

“Not for myself,” he admitted. Honestly, he’d love nothing more than to hold Evan down while Robin ripped out his throat. But for the sake of the woman waiting on the other side of the veil for him—and his brothers, all of them—he had to try.

“I promised Robin vengeance,” Mary said, as if reading his thoughts. Her telepathy, unlike Daphne’s, didn’t go that far, but her observational skills were just as sharp. “If we get to him first, without you, I won’t stop him.”

“And you thinkIcan?” Her answering smirk made his own hackles rise. “Always with your games. Go home, or what Canton did, what Cole gave his life for, will be all for naught.”

She gasped, eyes wide once more. Another mystery solved, most of his secrets out in the open for her now. This close to the end, why bo?—

A roar shattered the connection between them and spiked claws dug into his palms, making the hairs on his arms stand up.

Making his cock take notice too.

“Do not shut me out,” Robin snarled.

“Take her home,” Atlas bit back. He didn’t believe for one second that Mary’s brother, Icarus, had sent her off into the wild with their team’s least reliable member.

“What planet are you on?”

“Hers.” He nodded at Mary. “And I’m trying to fucking save it, but you and your lot areconstantlyin the way.”

This autumn alone, Robin’s brother-in-law, Adam, a cop turned vigilante, had gone head-to-head with Vincent, who he blamed for his late spouses’ deaths. And while that chaos was ongoing, Vincent had offered Paris to a giant as a sacrifice. Paris had been rescued from near-death, but as a result of the spell, he’d become a medium and soulbound to detective Cormac Kelley, Adam’s former cop partner and the then-reaper for the Monte Corvo ravens.

And Atlas, admittedly, had had a hand in all of it, which Robin rightfully called him on. “Except when you need us to be your fucking bait. First Icarus, then Paris. Why do you get to use us, and we can’t use you?”

Problem was, they could never just be bait. If it could go sideways, it did when Robin and company were involved, which was why Atlas needed them as far away as possible at this late, delicate stage of the game. “Not how this works, dog.”

The coyote flashed his pointed canines. “Oh, I beg to differ.”

“Don’t you have someone to go kill?”

Robin’s hold on his hands faltered and something that looked an awful lot like guilt flashed through his gaze. But before Atlas could bring his thumb and middle finger together, Robin hardened his grip and every bit of the hunter—the assassin—shone in his glowing golden eyes. “Make no mistake, you’re still on that list. Just in the two spot now.”

“You have to fucking catch me first.”

Robin’s claws pierced his skin. “What was that?”

“You cheated.”

For once, Mary defused the situation instead of stirring the pot. “Robin, let it go. He’s not going to give us anything tonight.”

But the shifter couldn’t just let it go. Ever. He leaned close, nose behind Atlas’s ear, his hot breath flooding the hollow there, his hotter words so low only Atlas could hear them. “I can smell you,” he purred. “Not the dirty warlock stench. The real you. I know you’re hard under that kilt.” Atlas didn’t bother to deny it. “Do you want to give me that load?”

He channeled the shiver racing up his spine into his voice, pitching it low and gravelly, hiding the edge of desire just on the other side of hate. “Not if your mouth was the last warm hole on earth.”

A cold nose and chapped lips skated the outer shell of his ear. “It’s a bet.”

Five

A week passed with no more surprise visits from Mary or Robin. No more visits with Niall either, the holy man keeping his distance. Atlas had even gone to church with Daphne to try to steal two minutes alone with him, but all Atlas got for his trouble were two awkward hours with family. He was no closer to confirming who Evan had wanted to meet with among the Chumash, but with Niall’s slip about the casino, and a week’s worth of excavation, Atlas had a pretty good idea and was ready to make his own approach.

Dressed in a suit for the first time in over a month, he forced himself not to fidget as he surveyed the practically deserted casino. A few folks at the penny slots, a trio of guys around a corner poker table, dealers scattered among the other game tables, ready to move where a visitor might go. Not as busy as Atlas would have figured for the weekend.

---