Meanwhile, on the screen, Mae and Griz had stepped away from the microphone and were conversing in low voices. So low his shifter hearing couldn’t pick it up. Wait a minute. Just a damn minute. Did that mean he’d lost his shifter hearing? Could Range discern what they were saying?
He leaned close to his brother. “Can you make out what they’re talking about?”
“Nope.” Range turned to Jason and Davin. “Can you two?”
Both of them shook their heads.
Well, there was that, at least. Maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t lost his shifter hearing.
Range cleared his throat. “Mae, Griz, what are you two talking about over there? We’ve had enough of secrets. If you think you know something that can shed some light on this situation, we’d appreciate it if you brought it to us.” Irritation underscored his words, and Asa could appreciate what he felt.
Griz stepped close to the mike, eclipsing Mae from the screen. “Can you meet us? It’s time some matters were settled.”
“Meet you where? What for?”
“It’s time you met your father. Perhaps he can shed some light on this.”
“You know our father?” Fury burned within Asa. Griz knew who their father was? Knew their father? And all this time, it had been kept from them? “Will he have some answers about how to control my wolf?”
That was the key. Making his wolf come to normalcy, so it didn’t attempt to kill him. He couldn’t keep it locked away indefinitely, his brothers’ wolves would try to kill him if he did, that was plenty evident.
Mae stepped next to Griz, shouldering him enough to be able to be on screen. “Your father brought you to me. I didn’t know what he was when he brought you. I found out later. And we can’t discuss this over this. These things are never secure, no matter what steps you’ve taken to make them so.”
“Where do you want to meet?” Asa was sure she’d say Bear Canyon Valley, as that was where she lived and where they’d spent some of their teen years.
She surprised him instead. “New Orleans. Find a place called Quake. Go to the blue door. Tell them you’re there to see Mae and Griz.” She glanced at Eira and Emme. “They can’t use the blue door. Not sure what—”
“I’ll meet them at the blue door and can get them in,” Griz said. “Just ask for me when you get to the blue door.”
What the fuck was this about? Blue doors? New Orleans? Quake?
Chapter Fourteen
Emme was on a plane heading to New Orleans. Her duffel had gone from the Hummer to the house and now to a six-seater plane without being unloaded. Except she’d managed to sneak her crossbow out and put it on. She didn’t plan on being unarmed. Not with the things she’d been seeing lately.
The man named Griz had taken it for granted she’d be accompanying them, lumping her in with Eira. She wasn’t sure what to think. He’d simply accepted her presence as though there were nothing strange about having another Valkyrie in the mix.
Reflecting on this, Emme had to say she felt a sense of belonging, being with these people. She knew she wouldn’t have felt this way if Eira hadn’t been here. Or would she? Asa was quickly becoming someone she couldn’t see not being around.
If they’d told her she couldn’t go, she’d have kicked some ass. There was no way she was letting Eira out of her sight at this stage, not after just having found her, not while the Fist was a credible threat. Question was, why wasn’t Eira bothered about the notion of being hunted by the Fist?
After even more self-reflection, she knew she wouldn’t have found it easy to walk away from Asa without knowing what happened between him and his wolf. She’d hate to go about life without knowing this drop-dead, sexy man hadn’t found a way to coexist with his beast.
“Are you okay with this?” Asa asked her after they’d gotten on a plane that held six.
Jason was pilot. Davin was next to him in the other seat. Range and Eira in the seats behind them, while Emme and Asa took up the very back. “This isn’t how you’d planned on your day going, I’m sure.”
They’d been in the air for several hours, and she’d watched him sleep for most of that time. Now, he was wide awake, his blue eyes gleaming in the plane’s lamp.
“I think it’s safe to say that when I woke up this morning, expecting to see a wounded wolf and found a wounded man, that I knew it wouldn’t be just like any other day.”
He smiled, taking her hand. “Thank you for saving my life. And thank you for Freyja’s Redemption. I know it isn’t easy for my brothers right now, but it’s been a reprieve from the homicidal attempts of my wolf. Can’t put a price on that.”
The sensation that washed over her when he’d taken her hand had been an unfamiliar one. Like coming home. No… more than that. Oddly enough, she knew she couldn’t explain it if anyone were to ask her to. Having him next to her was akin to being on a tropical island with the Caribbean washing over her feet while her toes dug into silky sand. How could you tell that to someone? It was inexplicable.
“Who’s Griz?” she asked, leaving her hand in his.
He absently rubbed a pattern into her wrist with his thumb. “He’s a grizzly shifter that’s meant a lot to a community of shifters. Not a community as identified by locale. Let’s say he’s important to a whole lot of us. He fixes shit. He and Mae, both. They fix problems.”
“Do you think they can help with this situation?”
“If anyone can.”
She rubbed her burning eyes. She hadn’t slept well the night before. She should have taken the opportunity to catch some shuteye while he did but couldn’t have closed her eyes for fear of his regressing back into the maniacal beast he’d been before.”
He took her other hand in his, holding both. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll be fine.” He pulled a pillow from a compartment overhead. “Here.” He placed it against his shoulder, and she leaned in.
She couldn’t sleep. He was crazy. She couldn’t.
Until she did.
Emme’s eyes flew open when the jarring sensation of the plane touching down awoke her.
“We’re here,” Asa whispered, his face alarmingly—and wonderfully—close to hers. “New Orleans. Mae sent a car to collect us. They’re meeting us at Quake.”
The drive wasn’t long, maybe 30 minutes, giving Emme time enough to study New Orleans. The flatland march gave rise to concrete highways and bridges, then yielded to the inner city and its semi-fortified streetscapes, common-wall plastered brick houses, and walled courtyards used as gardens and utility spaces, shotgun houses, dilapidated or regentrified. Boutique hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, narrow streets, varying types of music coming from all open windows and doors as they reached the French Quarter, as Asa had informed her in the back of a large van with black-tinted windows.
The van stopped in front of a building. Balconies laced with metal architecture over each door and in front of windows on the second floor created the illusion there were several buildings, not once giving a hint the original structures had been fitted into one building.
“The establishment known as Quake occupies the entire block—a fact known only to the paranormal beings inhabiting the area or visit Quake know,” Range explained from the seat in front of Asa.