Page 18 of Broken Kingdom

I smile again and promise I will, relieved when she’s gone, and I can focus my attention on the compound again.

But nothing has changed. The walls are still high and impenetrable, the gates are still closed, and I have no idea what’s going on inside. I wish for x-ray vision, but since I don’t have it, my gaze wanders to my right, over the botanical garden’s much shorter walls.

Almost immediately, I spot a woman in a bright red dress and wavy red hair who looks so much like the woman who just approached me, I feel the need to glance across the roof to make sure she hasn’t teleported down to the ground. But no, Red Bikini is still here, lounging on a chair by the pool, sipping her drink, and shooting flirty smiles at two guys in matching blue speedos that I’m pretty sure aren’t playing for her team.

I glance back at the garden, where Red Dress is glancing over her shoulder flirtatiously at a man in an expensive blue suit. It’s been expertly tailored to fit his long body and narrow shoulders and perfectly matches the blue fedora he wears.

Blue fedora…

The hat pricks at something in my brain. I pull out my cell, keeping one eye on the couple now canoodling in a patch of shade by the rose bushes as I pull up the images of Jean-Paul I saved this morning. I only met him once, under incredibly stressful circumstances, and didn’t trust myself to remember him without a little visual assistance.

About three swipes in, I pull up a shot of him grinning in a blue fedora, seemingly in the middle of shooting finger guns at the photographer at some kind of concert. I zoom in on the hat and the striped, brown-and-tan feathers secured to the darker blue ribbon around the base.

Looking back at the garden, I wish I had binoculars. Even with my better-than-human shifter vision, I can’t make out what kind of feathers are on this guy’s fedora from this far away, but my gut says it’s the same one. And the height and weight are right for Jean-Paul, too. He’s only five ten, but his thin frame makes him look taller.

Once he has the redhead in his arms, however, it’s clear he isn’t as tall as he first appeared. He only has a couple inches on the woman, who is now beaming up at him like he hung the fucking moon. After a few moments, the redhead starts to look familiar, too, and not just because she resembles the woman who approached me.

There’s something about the shape of her face and the way she tilts her head to the side as she flutters her hands while she talks.

Lifting my phone, I zoom in on the couple and hold my cell as still as I can as I tap the capture button. Once I have the shot, I zoom in even more, my stomach bottoming out as the puzzle pieces click into place. The image is grainy, but I’d be willing to bet my right hand that’s my cousin Bethany. She used to be a blonde, not a redhead, and she’s gained a little bit of weight, but the heart-shaped face, the hand motions, and the way she bounces on her tiptoes when she laughs...they’re all a dead ringer.

And if that’s Bethany, flirting her face off with Jean-Paul outside the walls of his compound…

Snatching the walkie-talkie from my bag, I whisper, “I’m coming down to meet you at the rendezvous point. There’s been a development. Something you need to know. Over.”

A beat later, as I’m gathering my things to leave, Layla says, “Okay, but be careful and take the long way around, back toward the subway. I can’t be sure, but I think I passed some of Jean-Paul’s pack at a little coffee bar in the alley. They smelled like wolves, anyway, and one of them shot me a very dirty look on my way by. Over.”

“Got it. See you soon. Over.” I take the path by the roof’s edge on my way to the elevator, watching as my cousin makes out with the man who kidnapped Juliet to be his bride, my head full of more questions than answers. But I already know this doesn’t bode well for Juliet.

Not well at all.

Eleven

Catherine

I’m sure my papa wouldn’t be happy to learn that swimming through rancid sewer water reminds me of him, but…it does.

As I paddle along, keeping an eye out for rats or feral squirrels or anything else large enough to do my hedgehog damage, I’m so homesick for my father’s arms that my heart feels like it’s about to explode.

I tell myself it’s just the walkie-talkie strap digging into chest as it drags through the mucky water, but I know better.

I miss Papa’s warm, but always tired eyes, the pipe smoke that clings to his beard, and the way he knew not to let me go too soon. Papa’s hugs always lasted too long. Weirdly long, Alexander used to tease him, but that’s what I needed. I needed those extra thirty seconds for the tension to seep from my limbs and all the love to soak into my bones.

My father is a fearless, ruthless warrior, but he’s also the sweetest man in the world. He loves my brother and I with unparalleled devotion and patience and kept my mother’s memory so beautifully alive that I feel like I had her with me for so much longer than I actually did.

I feel her with me now, hovering over my shoulder, assuring me I can do anything I set my mind to. I may be small, but you should never judge a person, or anything else, by their physical size.

We all contain multitudes, entire universes of possibility.

I can be both the smallest Variant at Lost Moon and braver than half the wolves who so easily took me captive. I can keep a cool, steady head in a crisis and still be scared out of my mind.

It would be stupid not to be scared—this is a strange and dangerous place and I’m headed directly into enemy territory—but that’s okay. I can carry this fearful Catherine with me into the dark. I can promise her that I hear her and that it’s okay for her to be scared, but that we have to keep going. I would want to take this risk for Juliet, anyway, but in light of what my brother did…

I push the thought away and pull harder toward the ladder up ahead, the one I’m nearly one-hundred percent sure will take me up into the Montreal pack’s compound.

I can’t think of Alexander’s betrayal, or of how little faith he had in me or our ability to work together as a team, or my blood will start to boil all over again.

Or I’ll start to cry.

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