Page 46 of Hell on Wheels
Our girl shivers a little, but she doesn’t back down. Instead, she leaves a trail of floral scented arousal as she stomps over and gets in his face. “You don’t get to tell me who to make nice with. That’snevergoing to be how I work, Angelo. Play is for the bedroom—put the D away when we’re not naked.”
“Sound advice,” Damon mutters to himself, and I snort.
Blinking as something occurs to me, I raise my hand. “If you’re done whipping them around, I have a question.”
All three of them look at me with raised brows and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Shifters, fae, and demons are so very different; it’s never been more obvious than this moment. Even the placid, submissive Damon is ready to go to war with me for interrupting.
“If your dad is going to be at the meeting, we’re going to either hide this from him or tell him. But if we tell him, it’s going to get back to one of my dads and probably Javi’s parents. They run in the same circles when it comes to rich people's shit. Graciela and Odhran won’t know unless they’re told by someone, so that’s not a concern, but someone is gonna spill to Reb.”
“Luca,” Angelo and Damon say in unison. “Fuck.”
“Before the box, we had options and time to break it to everyone. Now we don’t. Plus, we haven’t even started looking at the damn riddle,” I say with a smug grin. I rarely get to be the brains in the operation and I’m savoring it for every second.
The blue-haired Fae buries her face in her palms, muffling a small scream of frustration. When she gets it out of her system, she sighs heavily. “As much as I hate to admit this, I have to defer to you guys. My parents don’t give a fuck unless it’s about Rebel, so I have zero experience breaking big news like this without causing a war.”
That’s when a knock sounds at the door and we all jump. Rogue walks over and calls out, “No, thanks. We’ve already got one. It’s very nice.”
A snicker is followed by Javi’s voice. “What do you mean, you already have a grail?”
We might be insane, but we definitely understand one another—maybe thiswasdestined.
She giggles and flicks her fingers to disengage whatever magic she put on the locks before letting the phoenix in. “You’re my favorite because of that.”
“Hey!” The twins look infuriated as they cross their arms over their chests. “No fair.”
Lounging on the bed, I shrug when she looks at me. “I’m happy to be here. I’ll earn favorite someday.”
“Damn,” she mutters. “Now I’m reconsidering because you didn’t act like a tool. What the hell am I going to do if youalllearn to behave?”
“Buy a lottery ticket,” Javi says as he pecks a kiss on her cheek. “However, I might have a suggestion about our protocol situation. We need to figure out the riddle first, though, so we have a finite time frame.”
Angelo and Damon reach out to take the paper Javi salvaged from the pile, but he yanks it out of their grasp. Shaking his head, he looks at all of us before walking over to sit on the bed. Rogue grins at him, following suit to scramble up into the middle of the huge mattress and sit cross-legged. The twins roll their eyes and join us, looking grumpy as hell that the phoenix is taking charge.
“Okay, boys. Who’s ready to solve a mystery?”
Jinkies, Daphne.
Secrets
I look at the paper again, scratching my jaw.
Rogue Olive Kelly, you and your mates are cordially invited to a formal summit.
Accept this gift of appropriate attire as a token of our respect.
Be at the infamous prison at moonrise on the next day Saturn transits to Neptune.
Attendance is mandatory.
“The prison has to be Alcatraz,” Damon says. “The family headsadoresymbolism and it’s barely a half hour away.”
Archie frowns. “That place has bad juju for shifters. It’s where the Society kept their prisoners when it was open.”
“Wait!” Rogue looks at him in disbelief. “The Birdman of Alcatraz was anactualbirdman? How did I not know this?”
The lion shifter shrugs and grins. “Every species has their little scary tales they frighten misbehaving children with, babe. Alcatraz is one for shifter kids because they sent the bad guys who could shift—like that famous eagle guy—there to keep them away from the humans. Legend says he got the suppression cuffs off and off he went.”
She frowns, looking uncomfortable with his answer, so I reach over and squeeze her calf. “They have to lock up criminals, just like humans do, and part of that is keeping their gifts from aiding in their escape, Dragonfly. It wouldn’t help to lock someone up if they have super strength and can bend bars, now would it?”