Enthralled: Tainted Book Four

8. Refined By Fire

Rome

Instead of making food with Gigi like she said would, Mira surprised me by saying we were going out to eat at one of Valhalla's restaurants. Apparently, the two girls thought it would be a good idea for us to take the weres out "to build good relations with them," Gigi said, then Mira added that it would cheer me up because I seemed sad after Spin's team left.

I tried to tell her I wasn't sad; I was preoccupied with making sure I hadn't missed anything before sending them off to rescue Emily Argaud's children and hopefully gain an address for Penns Aldridge, the final contestant in our Alchemist hunt! I also pointed out that I could have reorganized the teams: Now that we had Hank and Gina here, she and I could have gone with Spin and Chance, but she didn't like that idea.

"Kerry needs us here with him," she insisted. "Besides, Hank, Gina, and Angelo are still at Bennie's with Drott Josef's team and couldn't have gotten back here in time to replace us."

Too tired to argue further, I let her take my hand and pull me along with Gigi, Jax, and Kerry.

"My mom never lets me eat out this often," Lilas chirped as she skipped along, holding Jax's hand.

"Don't tell her we let you eat a bunch of junk," he teased, "or she won't let you hang out with us anymore."

She giggled, the first happiness I'd seen out of her since Bertie ... unhinged, and I admitted that seeing the child smile again made the walk to the restaurant worth the effort.

We stopped by the second safehouse, which was only a block away, to pick up the weres. Grey and Konstantin were the only takers, although Poppy asked us to bring some food back for her and Elijah, and then we were off, following the directions on Gigi's phone to a place that Titus Wray's fiancée, Naomi Glase, had recommended.

"I asked Mimi if she wanted to join us, but she said Titus was playing in a hockey game tonight, and she wanted to be there to cheer him on," Gigi explained.

Eating at a favorite haunt of the future Witch of Endor didn't sound like such a good idea to me, but Mira was set on it and - as Kerry once said - it was good to just roll with things that mattered to her and not me. I did hope it wasn't one of those granola places that only served dishes with bean sprouts and tofu, but promised myself I'd find a cheeseburger tomorrow no matter what.

As we walked and the others chatted, I mulled over the "problem" Mira had told me about after my shower.

While I was interrogating Christopher Remington, Angelo's team was worming the truth out of Runa about the baby she-wolf she'd kidnapped. The girl, Imogene, was alive - well, sort of - and I'd failed to see the problem until Mira explained that her wolf was all but feral.

It took awhile for me to get the full story from my woman because she cried a little and I had to comfort her with lots of hugging and kissing as she slimed up my shirt, but eventually I learned that Bennie and Runa had separated Imogene from her wolf, Veery. The wolf ran the human body, and Bennie stored the girl's soul in a moonstone that Runa wore as a pendant on a necklace.

As Chime Karma tore Runa into little pieces, Poppy put the wolf into something like a coma until she figured out how to help her, then reunited Imogene with her body. Poppy strengthened the girl's bond with her twin, Elijah, to give her incentive to come back to the land of the living and assured us that, between her coven of witches and their pack's luna, Posy Everleigh, they should be able to save the wolf, which was good news.

So far, however, Imogene remained unconscious, and I prayed for the family's sake that the girl wasn't so traumatized that she would never wake up. To come so close to being reunited with her would be devastating.