Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“Or what?” He jumped off his stool and gave it a boot, sending it skidding across the floor to fall on its side in the kitchen pass-through. He fisted his hands and dug his fingernails into the ridged scar on his palm, keeping the fire in check, though just barely. “You going to ground me? I’m already stuck here. Going to take away my privileges? Don’t got any. Take away my magic? Just fucking try it.”

In the beat of silence that followed his shout, the scene froze in Rabbit’s head as though he’d taken a snapshot or something.

He saw Strike sitting there, coffee halfway to his lips, surprise slapped atop the anger in his expression. Jox stood in the kitchen, his face a mix of disappointment and resignation. Those hurt some, because the winikin had mostly raised Rabbit while Red-Boar had lived in the past with his

“real” family. But even at that, Jox’d always made it clear that Strike and Anna were his first and top priority. The frozen tableau was completed by Leah, who was framed in the doorway leading to the residential wing, looking pissed, which suggested that she’d heard him call her Strike’s human pet.

That pinched, because she’d always been pretty fair with him, but still. Why did Strike get to bring his girlfriend into Skywatch, but Rabbit couldn’t bring his?

And okay, so Myrinne wasn’t his girlfriend. But there was something there; he was sure of it. He just didn’t know what yet, and wasn’t going to be able to figure it out if he went along with Strike’s plan.

Then Leah stepped down from the entryway and the scene snapped from freeze-frame to play, and Strike was getting up off his stool and advancing on Rabbit, his dark blue eyes hard and angry.

Rabbit braced himself to get his shit knocked loose. Instead the king stopped just short of him, his expression leveling out some when he said, “News flash, kid: I’m not your old man. I’m not going to ground you or call you names. What I am going to do is tell you to man the fuck up, stop thinking with your dick, and factor your teammates into this equation. You bring Myrinne here and things go south, what do you think happens?”

A big chunk of the anger died a quick death, but Rabbit couldn’t back down, couldn’t let it lie. “I have to find her. I can’t explain it; I just know I have to find her.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Strike paused and traded a look with Leah before he said, “I’ll have Carter look into it. Leah can call in a few favors too. Once they find her, we’ll see what the situation looks like and figure out the next step from there.”

“I want to go back to New Orleans,” Rabbit said, feeling all itchy and tightly wound. “I can help look.”

“I can’t spare you for that. I need you in Boston.”

Rabbit had braced for the argument, so it took him a second to reorient. “What’s in Boston?”

“Jade’s tracked down two more of the artifacts. Leah and I are working on one of them. I want you, Sven, Patience, and Brandt to go retrieve the other.”

“Oh.” Rabbit’s gut churned. Strike wasn’t just avoiding his demand to see Myrinne again; the king was also throwing him back together with Patience and Brandt. Bad sign. “In other words, you think their marriage is either fixed now, or so broken that having me around them won’t fuck it up any more than it already is.”

“No! Never that.” The protest came from Leah, who crossed the landing, righted Rabbit’s toppled stool, and perched on it beside her mate. She took his mug and snagged a hit of his coffee before continuing, “We know how much they mean to you. We wanted to protect you, not punish you.” She paused, letting him see the truth in her cornflower blue eyes. “We were trying to make things easier.

I’m sorry you thought otherwise.”

Shame coiled around the anger inside Rabbit, dimming the whole mess a little. He looked down at the floor. “Sorry about calling you Strike’s pet just now. If it helps, you’d be something cool, like a rottweiler.”

Amusement sparked in Leah’s expression, and she lifted a shoulder. “No worries. I don’t get mad. I get even.”

Rabbit grinned some at that, and she grinned back, and the two of them, at the very least, were okay.

In the moment of mental calm brought by forgiveness, his brain processed the rest of what the king had said. His head came up and he focused on Strike. “You said ‘retrieve’ the artifact. We’re not buying it?”

“The thing’s in a museum.”

Rabbit grinned. “So what you really mean is that we’re going to steal it.”

Strike shifted, shooting a vaguely uncomfortable look at his ex-cop queen. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the plan.”

Rabbit nodded. “Cool. I’m in.” As if there had been any question of it, really. He might be on the outskirts of the real action, and only a half-blood, but he was still a Nightkeeper. He did what his king said. That didn’t mean he couldn’t add on a few things, though. Like keeping in touch with Carter, and making sure he was the first one to get to Myrinne.

As far as he was concerned, that was as nonnegotiable as a fricking royal decree.

“Hello?” Lucius banged on the storeroom door again, hard enough to sting his hands, though the blows made little impact on the heavy paneled door. “Anyone? Hello? I need to talk to Anna. It’s important!”

He didn’t know what time it was, though he’d slept until he wasn’t exhausted anymore, which suggested it was well into the day after his arrival. Maybe already too late.

He rattled the door against its padlock. “Anna!”

A sick feeling locked his gut. He remembered how he’d gotten there, remembered the shock of traveling in search of Sasha Ledbetter and finding Anna and the Nightkeepers instead, but his memories of the prior night were hazy and unreal, like they’d happened to somebody else. An angry, resentful version of himself. In the light of day—okay, in the light of a single fluorescent tube, but after a good night’s sleep—he felt more like himself. And in getting his brain back online, he’d realized he’d left out a crucial detail when he’d been talking to Anna.

Drawing a breath, he thumped on the door again. “Hello! Can anyone hear me?”

The lock rattled on the other side, and an irritated male voice said, “Hold on to your ass. I’m coming.”

The man Lucius had been the night before would’ve looked for a weapon and taken a swing at whoever was on the other side of that door. The guy who’d woken up feeling more at home inside his own skin than he had in a long time backed away and dropped down to sit on the edge of the cot, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

Which was a good thing, he realized the second the door swung inward, because the guy who stood in the opening was below average in height and weight, in his late fifties, with peppered hair and a quick, economical way of moving . . . and he held a machine pistol with easy familiarity.

Lucius raised both hands in an I’m unarmed; please don’t mess me up gesture, and said, “I come in peace.” Hope you do too.

He was no gun expert, but the thing pointed at him looked like something out of a war movie, or maybe a cops-and-gangs flick, automatic and nasty-looking. The guy, on the other hand, didn’t look nasty. He looked wary and drawn, as if he had a ton on his plate. Then again, that’d make sense. If Lucius had truly found the Nightkeepers, they had to be gearing up for the end of the world, the battle they’d spent generations preparing for. And if that wasn’t a mind-fuck, he didn’t know what was.

“You said you had a message for Anna?” the guy said.

“Yeah. I, uh . . . I’d rather give it to her personally.” He had a feeling it wasn’t going to go down big regardless, but didn’t feel so comfortable telling it to Mr. Armed-and-dangerous.