Page 36 of Primal Bonds

And they both knew Suha would come running if he did.

The Factory was only about a mile away in a blighted section of West Baltimore. The building had once been a grocery store, and the sign outside still read Allen’s Stop-and-Shop because that was as good a camouflage as any. After they’d cleared out the display shelves and cash registers, they’d been left with one large room for the tables, computers, and equipment used to manufacture the smartphones, and a storage room in the back.

Jace felt a familiar pride as he entered the Factory. This was his baby; Adric had given him free rein to set up shop, directing the small crew to not just manufacture smartphones for the clan, but to refine and improve the technology. The beauty of quartz was that it produced a strong current when fed by an earth fada’s natural energy. It was also strong and waterproof.

Adric was even considering selling the phones to water fada, whose biology tended to short out regular electronic devices, although none of them were sure they wanted to put such a tool in their rivals’ hands. They’d have to work out the energy issues, too. Water fada didn’t require quartz for life energy like the earth fada did, but on the other hand, they couldn’t work with the crystals from an early age like Jace’s people could.

And after that, who knew? If Adric could work out a deal with a human communications company—and figure out a way for humans to operate the quartz—the sky was the limit. They might one day sell the phones to select humans as well. The military would love a waterproof phone that could hold a charge for several weeks. Right now, though, you had to have at least a few drops of fae blood to operate a smartphone.

But there was one big problem; the technology burned the quartz up. It wasn’t reusable like an earth fada’s own quartz, and low-grade quartz didn’t work at all. The clan desperately needed a new supply of high-grade quartz like the vein they’d located on the border of Rising Sun Fae territory.

Resolving all the issues would take years, but Jace was up for it. During the Darktime he’d used his Gift with crystals to design weapons. It was a pure joy to use his Gift in a positive way.

Now he took a deep, satisfied inhale, breathing in the familiar scents—the sandiness of ground quartz, the oil they used to reduce dust, the metallic odor of machinery. A couple of people were already at work—an engineer known as Frog for some damn reason, and a pretty, dark-haired tech named Dina. They glanced over their shoulders and did a simultaneous double take.

“Jace?” Dina came to her feet. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Suha gave me the green light.”

Dina inhaled, testing his statement for truth, and then shrugged. “Okay, great. I have an idea as to why the energy is getting sucked out so fast.” A cougar who’d inherited her mom’s Italian coloring—and brains—Dina was even more single-minded than him.

He pulled up a chair and the three of them hashed out her idea. A couple of other men came in a few hours later, and they all traded ideas before breaking off to test them.

They were eating take-out pizza at their work stations around one o’clock when Adric walked in. Jace removed his goggles and rose to his feet. “Hey, Ric. What’s up?”

“Meeting. Zuri and Luc are on their way.” Adric helped himself to a slice of pizza. “What the fuck?” He frowned at the broccoli and spinach.

“Dina thinks we need more greens,” Jace said.

“We’re cats, not cows,” Adric muttered. But he took a large bite and then smiled at Dina. “Actually, that’s not bad.” He took another bite.

Dina beamed. Like all the unmated women, she perked up around the alpha, even though everyone knew Adric wasn’t ready to take a mate. Not that the man was deprived. He had his pick of the clan’s women, who were happy to hook up with the alpha even for a night.

A minute later, first Zuri and then Luc entered, following their practice of arriving separately at meetings for security reasons. Adric gulped down his pizza and jerked his head in the direction of their underground war room.

Dina, Frog and the rest of the Factory crew looked curious, but they knew better than to ask questions. Adric shared information on a need-to-know basis, having learned the hard way that the less people knew about your business, the better. Sometimes it even saved your life.

Zuri and Luc grabbed some pizza and the four of them headed for the storage room. There, Adric opened a trap door and they all passed through a ward set to allow only Adric and his lieutenants through before climbing down a ladder.

The war room had been carved by Adric and a couple trusted stoneworkers from the bedrock beneath the Factory. Adric was a Gifted tracker—he hired himself out to the fae for outrageous sums—but what he really liked to do was work with stone. He could make a rock practically sing with joy as he used a combination of chiseling and magic to transform it into art.

A thin vein of white quartz twisted through the rock walls. The quartz had been magically engineered to soundproof the room. Combined with the ward, it even allowed them to speak a fae’s name freely without attracting his or her attention.

They seated themselves around the large table Adric had carved from a single large rock. Like Camelot’s famous table, it was round. This way, Adric said, each of them could see everyone else—and everyone’s ideas had equal weight.

Adric spoke to Jace first. “I hear you’re cleared for work, just nothing too strenuous.”

Jace scowled. “Suha snitched on me.”

“Of course. You’re not going out on this one, bro. But I wanted your input.” He looked around the table, addressing all three of them. “On Saturday night Zuri went back to the bar in Grace Harbor where Jace was attacked. He asked some questions, but no one knew anything.”

Jace nodded. No surprise there. “The assassin ’ported in. I don’t know about the other two, but they must have blended in somehow or I’d have seen them myself.”

“They probably used a glamour,” Adric said. “Made themselves look like someone else—someone who fit in. Maybe even a river fada.”

“But a glamour only fools the eyes—not the nose.”

The alpha shrugged. “So they didn’t get too close. You weren’t going to scent them across a crowded bar.” He looked at Zuri. “Tell him what you found out.”

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