Page 103 of Wolf Queen Ruin
My first coherent thought emerged with surprising clarity: I needed to do something practical.Something tangible.Luna needed my support, regardless of how impossible her condition should be.She was as shocked as I was.
I whirled back to the lab to find Felix.When I got there, I found Luna had already gone, which was both a blessing and a curse.
Even before she’d said a word, the look on her face had shattered my soul.She knew.She’d heard me on the phone with Elliot about my forced engagement to Vivienne, the subject of the second phone call I’d received in Panama City.
Not a single part of me wanted Vivienne as my wife.Yet every part, including my ring finger with the warm, pulsing band around it, craved Luna.If she would ever forgive me.
But I wasn’t the only one who’d kept important truths.How could she not have told me that she had the same illness as her daughter and friend?Why keep something so critical when it could affect everything?My engagement to a woman I didn’t love hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.All that mattered was Luna and the Shadow Fang.
And now our unborn child.
Felix cleared his throat delicately.“Damien?Did you need something?”
“I need everything you have on prenatal care,” I said, having no idea how long I’d been standing in the lab with my thoughts whirring.“And any research on supernatural pregnancies.”
“I’ll gather what I have,” he said, mercifully free of questions.
Ten minutes later, I strode toward the car out front with a paper bag containing supplements, herbs, and detailed instructions.The weight of it seemed disproportionately light compared to what it represented.
Out of habit, I searched the street for telltale signs of someone watching me, but no resulting prickling sensation coursed up and down the back of my neck.After we’d come back, I’d done some digging on Atlas Security, the company who’d hired the man who’d been watching the Repository.Atlas Security didn’t exist, at least not officially, so I’d hired some private investigators to track it down.
Humans couldn’t lie under a glamour’s influence.Atlas Security was real, and I wouldn’t stop digging until I found out who’d hired them to come after us.
“Mr.Cross, Ms.Rookwood insisted on taking an Uber,” James, my driver, said as he held the door for me.
“To the airfield?”I demanded.
A pause, then, “She didn’t say.”
She’d be there.Of course she’d be there.
As soon as we arrived, my phone vibrated.I answered immediately.
“We’ve identified a problem,” the airport’s head of security said without preamble, his voice tense.“The final inspection found something attached to the undercarriage of the plane.”
My body went colder.“Explosive?”
“Yes.And it’s magically triggered.Not standard technology.”
“Luna?”
“Already on board, sir.”
I was already out of the car and running before my mind caught up with me.My gut plummeted through the ground, nearly taking the rest of me with it.
Luna was on that plane.
Luna and our child.
The race to my plane stretched into an eternity, my lifetime multiplied into taut seconds, each one twisting up my insides.When I finally reached my plane, my head of security waited, his face grim.
“Show me,” I demanded.
He led the way while holding up a scan of the plane on a tablet.“We detected it during the final sweep.Supernatural-grade, with magical components we haven’t seen before.The trigger mechanism appears to be—“
“Blood-activated,” I said, recognizing the device on the scan.“Vampire craftsmanship.”
A cold fury settled in my chest.This was not random terrorism.This was targeted.Someone knew we were leaving for Paris and had taken steps to ensure we never arrived.
