Kiss Of Twilight (25 page)

"Bobby Traylor was Ben's man. We all grew up together," Gray said. "He never had any reason to believe Bobby's son wasn't
also
his man."

"Ben wasn't that trusting," Elora reminded them.

"No," Kara said, and suspected except for Gray she knew that better than anyone here. Kara had spent more time with him than anyone else in the room except his distant cousin. "But Dupree wouldn't take the quad and there wasn't anyone else."

"He didn't even ask Gia," Dupree grumbled.

"Because he intended something else for her," she whispered.

"Okay. We don't have any proof Robert is behind this, or is involved. I don't like him, but I won't condemn him without proof," Winter said, looking around the table, her gaze settling on Dupree. "Bring it to me. I'll talk to the rest of the squad."

"You need to think about who to replace him with," he answered.

"I'll worry about that later. You and Elora go look for Todd so we can focus on Gia."

"Damn it," he muttered. "Give me an hour," he told Elora, taking Kara's hand and pulling her upstairs with him.

He didn't attack her when they walked through the door, which was a damned shame. Instead he grabbed a backpack from the closet, threw in a change of clothes and started adding weapons.

"Work with Winter while I'm gone," he ordered. "And do that research mojo of yours and see what else we can find out about the Cruzes. And if Gray sticks around badger him for information. He's more likely to tell you than the rest of us. He puts you in his class."

That last gave her pause. "That bothers you? That he thinks I'm...different from the rest of y'all?"

She'd almost said better, but it stuck in her throat. He must have heard something, or maybe she was projecting again, because he stopped what he was doing, stalked around the end of the bed and grabbed her shoulders.

"I don't give a damn what he thinks. We made choices, you and I."

But he looked like he was wondering if she regretted them. She looped her arms around his shoulders and smiled up at him. "We did," she said, standing on her toes to reach his lips. "Hurry home."

Kara faced Winter over the damned training mats again and prepared herself for the next attack. Would it be physical or mental? She never could anticipate and the joy of the fight, the thrill of the challenge, had faded an hour ago. How long had they been at this? Days, it seemed like.

Dupree was only supposed to be gone for a day. It had been almost two. He wasn't answering his phone and she didn't know how to reach him mentally. Not that she had the energy to try. If Winter wasn't working her, she was training her, and often the two seemed to coincide. Twice she'd stumbled to her room and slept like the dead. But it all must finally be paying off.

She ducked under an open palm, while spinning away from the threat
and
fighting back with a mental stab. There was no time to enjoy the small victory, though. Winter came at her in a blur of hands and feet. Even tired, Kara held her own. She was amazed how the demon changed her strength and speed. She'd be bloody and bruised by the time Winter called a halt, but a week ago she would have been dead fighting the commander like this.

She sensed someone enter the yard behind her but she didn't dare turn to look. Winter would take any advantage and push it. The low chuckle was amused and Winter, looking more annoyed than anything, straightened and moved off the mats. Kara sucked air into her lungs, taking any respite she could get. She turned just in time to catch the bottle of water being tossed her way and checked out their visitor.

Mitchell saluted her from the sidelines, and damn, the man was
hot.
That kind of sex appeal shouldn't be legal. It oozed from his pores.

"How is the little hybrid coming along?"

Her reaction was immediate and thankfully private.
What big teeth you have, alpha.
Dupree was probably more dangerous, but sometimes there was something so feral about Mitchell it made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Winter seemed to regard him as a favorite plaything. What did that say about the prowess of her commander? Kara decided she'd rather not have an answer to that.

"Fine." Noncommittal words but Kara heard the praise in her voice. Adjusting to the demon's demands wasn't easy, but she was a fast learner and determined to be the best. Hell, did she have a choice? She didn't have time for a steep learning curve.

"Got a message to meet Dupree here," he said.

Kara snapped her head up to look at him and he gave her a secret little smile that suggested he knew how interested she'd be to hear that. It set her teeth on edge. Did everyone have to know her business? And why the fuck had Dupree let Mitchell know he was coming home and not her? She had a thing or two to say about that.

"He's not back yet," Winter said. "You can wait in the office."

He followed them in the back door and went into Kara's office, while she and Winter went upstairs to shower. In her room, Kara glanced at the clock while she pulled off her clothes then went through to the bathroom. Where was he? How much time did she have? And what on earth did he want Mitchell for? She felt Dupree enter her room as she was drying off and went out to meet him with a smile. He dropped his bag on the floor and looked around while she pulled on clean jeans.

"We need to move to one of the suites," he said, sounding distracted.

She hid a pleased smile. He'd accepted they were together for the long haul. "There's one on the second floor with a sitting room and an office."

He nodded. "We'll take care of it after this meeting."

He turned that intent gaze of his on her as she reached up behind her to snap her bra closed. His eyes seemed to suggest she was wasting her time with the garment, but he didn't approach or stop her from pulling a T-shirt on over it. She slipped on a pair of flip flops.

"Ready?"

He sighed. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."

When they stepped out into the brighter lit hall, she took a good look at his face, noting the lines of fatigue etched around his mouth and eyes. She slipped her hand into his.

"What did you find out?"

"Not much." He shook his head. "I'll tell y'all after we get rid of Mitchell."

"Why did you ask him to come?"

"He left me a message about the tunnels."

"Was there a reason he couldn't tell me?" She was irritated. And insulted. That was her project.

"I'm sure it wasn't personal. He's used to going through me on this kind of thing."

"But
I'm
the contact on this." She didn't say anymore. It might be that simple but it still felt like he was suggesting she wasn't up to the job. Or something. Okay, fine, she was probably overreacting. Winter, Marcus and Nadia were waiting with him in the hybrid office.

Mitchell stood at a huge white board on an easel where they'd been adding new tunnels and caves as they were discovered and cleared. All of the south and east sides had been covered, but they knew those areas weren't as extensive. The north and west, where they'd been focusing, would take a lot more time, but she'd narrowed it down even more. She stepped up to the board.

"Focus here," she said, pointing to the center point. She took a blue marker and circled a large section due north.

"How did you figure that out?" Mitchell asked. His tone was curious and amused, and she knew he'd beat her to the punch.

He'd made fun of her just days ago for being so sure she might find something in the records, but it made more sense to search the papers than searching the tunnels blindly. Kara kept her expression neutral but inside it was all smirk.

Not nice,
Dupree sent mentally, but he sounded too amused for her to be concerned.

She shifted through the books and papers on the conference table until she found an old leather bound journal. It was an Order reprint of the diary kept by an early Catholic missionary. She handed it to Mitchell and he flipped through it while she continued.

"We don't know who wrote it. There were several priests through this area, part of Spanish expeditions, before the state was colonized by the British. Only a small part of the journal deals with this part of the state, but the guy who wrote it mentioned this area." She pointed to her circle on the map. "He says the natives called it evil. They said it was haunted by the damned and none would enter it. His commanders scoffed at that tale and sent in scouts anyway. None ever returned."

No one said anything for a long time. "Well, I guess that makes sense, doesn't it?" Mitchell said. "Obviously there's a portal here for demons to come through. I just never thought about the history of it, or looking at old stories to narrow down a region."

"Why would you?" Marcus asked. "I was born here. I heard those stories when I was a kid, but I haven't thought about them in years."

"So if we find the portal can we close it?" Mitchell asked.

"No," Winter said. "That's been tried countless times. Close the portal and another one will open somewhere nearby."

"So close it anyway." He was
such
a wolf. Kara reminded herself laughing would be inappropriate. Winter shrugged.

"Another opens. Close it and the cycle keeps going. It's like the universe wants these holes there. And finding the portals is not so easy. In a thousand years, even pinpointing small areas, we've found less than ten."

"Huh," Mitchell said and then grinned. "Guess I'm not out of a job then?"

Everyone laughed. "No," Dupree said, walking to the map. "Y'all take the north and we'll take the south." He drew a line bisecting the two and Mitchell nodded.

"No problem." He stood. Dupree walked him out and returned a minute later.

She held her breath when he returned. She couldn't help herself. He was just so striking. Tall, built, composed. He rounded the table to stand behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders with a subtle squeeze.
Hers.
He was all hers. She wanted to turn her head to look up at him but she didn't dare. There were too many people in the room. She wanted him too much. And that new demon side, it was hungry and greedy and desperate. Her fingers curled into fists, fighting urges she could not indulge in mixed company.

"Any luck finding Todd?" Winter asked.

"Not the good kind," he said. His voice was so bleak Kara knew what he was going to say. "He's dead. We found him in Contee's territory. Gray is having the body moved to Tim's lab."

"Wonderful. Fuck," Winter muttered. "If Gia was here she could probably tell us why Todd was in Contee's territory...Well, she isn't."

Kara remembered what she'd called Gia a few days ago. The secret keeper. Winter obviously knew her as the same thing. The commander looked at Dupree, and Kara knew there was a hell of a lot of personal history between the three of them she wasn't aware of.

"It gets worse. He was bound and gagged, split open and left to bleed out. I'm guessing it took a couple days." He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Winter. "And there's this."

Winter pulled out a sheet of paper. "Lab results from the New York region. Why's this important?"

"Funny you should ask," he said, not sounding one bit amused. "When I made the arrangements to move Todd, I asked Tim if he knew anyone in this lab and could find out. Those tech guys usually don't play well with others. He said he'd check but he could make a good guess. Turns out Contee didn't just get a copy of Nancy's autopsy. Tim kept a tissue sample. Since Tim was still backed up in the lab, he agreed to let Contee have it tested in New York."

"Looking for what?" Kara asked. "Tim was certain Nancy was killed by demons. It'd be pretty hard to prove something else from just a tissue sample."

Dupree shrugged. "Even Tim admits the lab was crazy at the time. He could have missed something. Anyway, he called the other lab and got lucky. A friend faxed him the whole file. Contee wanted to know if there were any metals in the sample."

Winter tapped the paper she still held. "This says the results were inconclusive."

Dupree's expression got grimmer. "Yeah, but Tim has the actual test results. There were trace amounts of obsidian and steel."

"So she was killed by a hybrid," Kara speculated. "Which forced Ben to go rogue. But why kill Baas and Todd? Neither of them could have stepped into Ben's position. It doesn't make any sense."

"We've talked about breaking away before," Winter mused.

Whoa. Kara knew Ben had played with the idea, but they'd talked about breaking away from the Order? Planned how to do it? Dupree's expression didn't change but there was something in his voice that set Kara on edge. "That was a training exercise. Years ago. And the point of that exercise wasn't exerting independence," Dupree went on. "It was to see how the regions would cope if something happened to disrupt the chain of command."

"Whoa. Wait a minute," Kara said. "How do you go from Todd being dead and Nancy possibly being murdered to declaring independence?"

"You said yourself there have been wars over power in the past within the Order and Ben's family--your family--was involved. You and Gray both agreed that Ben's loss created a power vacuum." Winter shrugged but her expression and voice were cold and calculating. Anything but casual. "Now two of his allies are dead. Gray believes he's going to be removed as Grand Master, and Cruz is trying to recruit out of my territory. I'd say the chain of command is disrupted." She glanced at Dupree. "And most of us in the senior leadership walked away from that training knowing with a little effort we could be totally self-supporting. That has to be why Ben started to focus so heavily on the businesses. The ones that belong to the region not the council." She took a deep breath. "Someone is going to fill that power vacuum and my guess is it will be the hardliners on the council. I have no interest in going to war with Cruz. Especially right now when we're in a weaker position."

Dupree looked uncomfortable and started to pace. "Fuck. We both swore an oath, and speculation and guesses aren't a good enough reason to break it."

"For now."

Her calm reply further agitated Dupree.

"It sure as hell isn't the time," he muttered.

He rubbed a hand over his face like he was trying to scrub away her words, and the vein on the side of his forehead bulged. Kara wanted to go to him but she didn't think he'd appreciate the offer of comfort with other people in the room. Oh, the hell with it. She moved to his side and put one arm around his waist, and was surprised when he raised one of his to drape across her shoulders.

"I don't like it," he grunted. "But I've followed you for years and I'm not stopping now."

Winter's lips curled in a half smile. "Well it hasn't come to that yet and it probably won't. I'll hear you and the quad leaders out before I make that choice."