“He sprang to my mind too. I’ll be having a talk with him.” Dylan’s Irish accent made the words sound casual, but Jace heard the steel behind them.
“If they’re going door-to-door, what about the workshop?” Jace asked.
Dylan shook his head. “They haven’t found it yet. Lie low here, and I’ll send for you when it’s clear. If it is.” Dylan looked Jace up and down. “We might want to stop the experiment anyway. It’s affecting you.”
“Agreed,” Deni said quickly.
Jace shook his head. “No, we’ll never get the Collars off by being afraid to have them off. I want to keep at it.” It was tempting to turn his back on the agony, and Sean with his soldering iron, and run for home, but learning all they could about the Collars was too important. Besides, Deni was here.
“We’ll see.” Dylan gave him another hard look. Jace knew his display on the porch had not won him any favors from Dylan, but Jace had definitely not liked Dylan touching Deni, even innocently.
“Why did you want me to meet you at the fight club?” Jace asked him. “I could have come to Shiftertown and waited for you.”
Dylan’s face shuttered. “For reasons that are no longer important. Don’t leave this house until I let you know it’s all right. Catch up on sleep or something.” Dylan glanced from Jace to Deni. “I mean real sleep.”
Jace didn’t bother to answer. Deni went pink, but only because Ellison was rolling his eyes.
* * *
Ellison agreed that Jace could stay downstairs until Dylan gave the all clear. Safer, he said, in case the cops tried to surprise them. Police had been known to walk right into Shifter houses, the rules about warrants being a little relaxed when Shifters were concerned.
Deni was glad Ellison shared her worry for Jace, though Ellison was a bit grumpy about it. Finding Jace and Deni in flagrante hadn’t been the highlight of his day, he said.
“It’s not like I’ve never come home to you and Maria in the living room,” Deni reminded him.
Ellison gave her an innocent look. “That’s different.”
“My ass,” Deni said, sending him a smile.
“I know it was, and I don’t want to see it again,” Ellison said. “Or Jace’s. Yetch.”
At least he was teasing now, even if he was annoyed.
When Will and Jackson returned home—Jackson worked for a moving company and Will at a warehouse; humans liked Shifter strength—Ellison apprised them of the situation. Maria, now growing plump with Ellison’s first cub, was home by that time too. She was taking classes at a community college in preparation for entering the university next year and spent the rest of her day taking care of Shifter cubs. Maria had lost the haunted look she’d worn since she’d been rescued, and Ellison had lost his look of deep loneliness. Now if Deni could just lose hers.
They played video games in the basement, Jace proving to be very good at them. Will, who was turning out to be a computer genius, had a hard time keeping up with him.
Deni worried that the games might start drawing out Jace’s feral anger, but they didn’t. Maybe knowing it wasn’t real, only pixels on a screen, made a difference. Deni was never upset by the games either. But then, games had no scent, no texture. Shifters were more stimulated by things that assaulted all the senses at once.
By the time Will and Jackson went to bed, they’d expressed more respect for Jace. He might be twenty years older, but his knowledge of games and computer programming helped him rise in their estimation.
Before Deni could start arguing with Ellison that she wanted to stay downstairs and sleep with Jace, Sean arrived at the back door to tell them the police had gone, had been for several hours.
“But we wanted to wait until we were certain,” Sean said, lounging against the kitchen doorframe, his sword gleaming under the porch light. “Didn’t want them doubling back and saying just fooling.” He glanced at Jace, who stood behind Ellison, Jace conceding Ellison’s place to guard the house. “You ready for more torture, lad?”
“You’re not going to do more tonight, are you?” Deni asked sharply. “Leave Jace alone. He needs to rest.”
“Liam wants to continue under cover of darkness,” Sean said. “We’ll leave sleeping for the day. Felines are mostly nocturnal anyway, lass.”
“It’s all right,” Jace said. “I want to finish this.” He looked less crazed—maybe gaming did have a good effect on the mind. “Liam’s waiting there?”
“Liam’s at the bar, as usual, in case whoever is calling in tip-offs reports any out-of-the-ordinary activity. Me and Dad will be working on you tonight. Plus a little extra help.” Sean looked at Ellison. “Liam says you and Maria are to go to the bar. Laugh it up, talk to your friends, have fun. You too, Deni.”
“Nope.” Deni took a step closer to Jace. “I’m going with him. You Morrisseys are too eager to dig knives into him. Someone needs to be there who’s on his side.”
Sean lifted both hands and didn’t argue. Of the two Morrissey brothers—much alike with their dark hair and blue eyes—Sean was the more easygoing. If Deni wanted to throw her lot in with Jace, Sean was saying, who was he to stop her?
Ellison wasn’t happy to let Deni go to the workshop, but Maria took Deni’s side, saying she wouldn’t let Ellison go alone if she had to make the same kind of choice. The ladies prevailed, to Deni’s satisfaction.
They left the house together, Ellison and Maria breaking away to walk to the bar, Ellison’s arm firmly around Maria’s waist. Sean and Deni put Jace between them, with Jace walking in the hunched manner he’d been taking on, the hood of his jacket up to hide most of his face.
Deni caught a whiff of a strange scent when they approached the workshop’s door, one that had her hackles rising. The wolf in her was growling, and she felt the bite of nausea that was a prelude to her losing herself. She clutched Jace’s arm, and he stepped away from Sean to her.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“There’s someone . . .”
“I know,” Jace said. “I smell it.”
It was an acrid odor, one ripe with ancestral memory. Sean said, “No worries. That will be the father-in-law,” and he ushered them inside.
Chapter Eight
Jace stepped into the room and faced a strange apparition. A tall man, so tall he looked stretched, turned toward them, a metallic whisper sounding as he moved. He was dressed in chain mail, which was covered with a cloak so black it was like an opening into darkness. The man’s hair, in contrast, was pale white, and fell in dozens of braids past his waist, but the effect wasn’t effeminate, nor was he elderly. The man’s face was sharp, his dark eyes rivaling his cloak for the deepest hue of black. He wore a broadsword on his back, one larger than the Sword of the Guardian, its hilt sticking up above his head.