Escaping Death

Chapter 50

Ace

"How can you be sure it's him and not someone trying to fuck with you?" Unlike Tate, I'm not one to jump to conclusions. Especially ones involving the notoriously mythical Nightshade.

"These are nightshade berries. This sprig alone is enough to kill every one of us."

Nightshade. The myth we've been hired to hunt down not only threatened one of my pack mates, but also managed to enter my house undetected.

How did the crew watching the house not notice him? How did Tate not notice? Why didn't I pick up on his foreign scent? Working with someone to cover his scent could explain how he's been able to flit around like a murderous ghost all these years.

"So this is a message. Why?" I ask Tate, but really I'm telling him he needs to explain why Nightshade is targeting him. I knew Tate would be our best chance at hunting down any clues about Nightshade's whereabouts, but this guy might be more dangerous than we first thought if he's able to get inside my house without raising any alarms.

Tate's expression flashes with guilt for a nanosecond before he replaces it with an unapologetically impish grin. "I might have written down a name for him."

"I told him he had no business doing that," Solana mutters under her breath and I whip my head around to look at her so fast I practically spin.

Grey is seething now. It's one thing for Tate to go rogue and gamble on a mark, it's another for him to involve my mate in our jobs. Which is exactly what I say to him.

"You want to tell him, Sunshine, or should I?" Tate levels at Sol, serving only to fan the flames of my frustration even more.

"That sometimes I work the bar at Caligo?" She deadpans.

"That you're either working with him or working for him." Tate does not make idle threats, so I'm inclined to believe that the truth lies in one of those choices.

"As I said, I make the drinks, I pass on the names."

"You didn't think we should have known this sooner, Solana?" I fail to keep the incredulity out of my tone. She should have told us, if not to help us find him then to at least let us do our job and keep her safe.

"No," she shrugs off my question as if I've asked her if she wants eggs for breakfast. "Because me working there is irrelevant to locating him. And as far as keeping me safe," she pauses and crushes me with a look that penetrates through to my soul, "not only has he not killed me after all these years, nor any employee for that matter, it's really not in his best interest to kill the Queen's daughter."

She has a point. But I'm certainly not going to admit that to her. Plus it raises yet another question for me, a rather unsettling one, and it begins to feel like if I don't get at least my hands on her I'm going to burn down everything within a ten mile radius.

"Is that why he hasn't killed you, Sol?" I encroach into her space. Standing behind her I cup her waist delicately and lower my head so my mouth is next to her ear. "Or is it because you're more than an employee to him?" She shudders in my hands and the rope from which my self restraint hangs begins to fray. I drop my mouth to her neck and brand her skin with my lips causing a hint of her arousal to perfume the air. But I still don't have my answer.

And now I want to know if she's aroused by my touch – or the thought of him.

"Does he touch you Sol?" My hands begin to roam over her stomach, feeling how strong her core is but how feminine and soft she is, too. Between kisses to her neck, I watch Tate getting closer and closer to us. It's not a conscious movement, he looks entranced, mindlessly drawing nearer.