Page 8 of Atlas and the Traitor

The story had apparently traveled far, Lucy’s smile sneaking free again. “But Pati made it out, and her son...” Her smile broadened. “He’s the real deal.” A true eagle shifter, the first in generations. Unlike Dyami, who, by all excavated accounts, had only assumed the name. “He’ll bring?—”

“Peace,” Atlas finished. He’d known it as soon as he’d touched Pati’s arm. It had killed him to leave the very thing his mother had dedicated her life to bringing about in someone else’s care, but he’d had no choice. And in the end, it had been the right call. Barely.

“It feels good to talk about it,” Lucy said, drawing him out of his own half regrets.

“They’re not celebrating here?”

“Not everyone believes,” she said, as she swept the table once more.

He tossed his last two chips in the box. “Meaning Dyami?”

With his power and reputation threatened, Dyami would be Evan’s ideal ally. Rich, power hungry, selfish, afraid. Everything his brother and Chaos preyed on.

Lucy finished dealing and glanced up, her brow furrowed and mouth open, as if she were about to agree, but then her gaze skated over his shoulder and her eyes grew wide. The next thing Atlas knew, he was being yanked off his stool by two giant men. “Didn’t we tell you last week to get out of here?” one of them said.

Or maybe his brother hadn’t been welcome, after all.

“Last week?” Lucy said, brows snapped together, but before Atlas could reply, the guards dragged him away from her table.

He waited until he was out of her earshot to continue the ruse he’d been dealt, angling for more information. “I just wanted another word with Dyami. I’m sure we can reach an agreement.”

“The eagle has nothing left to say to you.”

They hauled him to the nearest exit doors and tossed him outside. He spun to try to beg his way back inside—to talk with the man his brother had—but his vibrating phone stopped him short. He yanked the device out of his pocket and read the text from one of his sources in La Purisima.SOS.

The same source who, weeks back, had alerted him to the giant there. As much as he wanted back inside that casino, Atlas couldn’t ignore the text, not after the last one had proven so pivotal. He hit dial and lifted the phone to his ear.

The call connected after one ring, and Watson launched right in, not bothering with pleasantries as a crash sounded in the background. “That green-haired woman you sent me a picture of is here.”

“Where, exactly?”

“The Gathering House in La Purisima.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The Gathering House was across the street from the town’s largest church, and on a Sunday afternoon, it would be packed with people eating and shopping at the local merchant booths before evening service.

“She and the dog with her are asking questions,” Watson said. “The sort that will let on what they are before long.”

Atlas gazed longingly at the casino, cursing Mary and Robin for making him leave the very warm lead inside. Cursing fate that wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone. “I’m on my way.”

Six

Atlas ported himself into the woods at the edge of The Gathering House parking lot, keeping his sudden appearance out of sight.

Not that anyone would have noticed. Humans dressed in their Sunday best streamed out of the long, barnlike structure, running the opposite direction of Atlas, across the four-lane road toward the church on the other side. Cars slammed on brakes, some slammed into each other, but even the squeal of tires and the crunch of metal couldn’t drown out the coyote’s roar from inside the building.

“Fucking hell.”

Atlas sprinted across the parking lot, gravel crunching under his loafers, and for once he was glad for his suit. No one gave him a second look as he fought his way inside. He hustled down the long corridor, passing merchants hastily emptying their stalls, on his way to the mess hall in the middle of the structure.

And cursed again at the sight before him.

Mary stood atop a communal dining table, wall at her back, a knife in one hand, a ceramic mug in the other, while Robin stood on all fours in front of her, his massive jaws open as he unleashed another roar at the group of men who’d squared off against them.

“Not good,” Atlas muttered.

“Not good at all.” Watson scooted in beside him, as close as his duffels full of unsold baked goods allowed. “I tried to warn them, but they didn’t listen.”

“Trust me,” Atlas said with a resigned sigh. “There’s nothing you could have said that would’ve made them.”

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