Free INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) by Mary Buckham Page B

The words escaped before he could pull them back. That and the increase of his heart rate. Alive? But why hadn’t she notified anyone? Or maybe she had, only it wasn’t him, in spite of what he’d done to safe guard her brother and father.
    Why wasn’t he surprised ? He and Alex had a few trust issues. More than a few, but now wasn’t the time to linger on them.
    The pause on the other end of the line told him Stone caught the mixed emotions simmering beneath Bran’s words. Still, Stone was all business as he answered, “I trust my source.”
    “So where is Miss Noziak?” Bran demanded. Stone wasn’t the only one who could be abrupt.
    “Let’s talk.” Then before Bran could point out they were talking, the other man lowered his voice. “I don’t trust the phones.”
    Valid point. Bran wondered if the issues were on Stone’s end or Bran’s. Focus on what mattered now. “Tulieres, near the Café de Pomone . One hour.”
    “I’ll be there.”
    So would Bran, in spite of the fact he’d seen the IR Agency break faith with Alex by revealing her father’s role in her imprisonment a year ago. Now they wanted to find her? Why? And why hadn’t she sought them out?
    Only one way to find answers. Bran had less than thirty minutes to clean up, eat and get to one of Paris’ busiest parks. A location he hoped would keep him safe long enough to discover what he needed to know.
    Which was where the h ades was Alex? And if she was hiding, from whom? And why?

     
    Chapter Thirteen
     
    The voices woke me, though I don’t think it was intentional . Two men arguing made a rumbling sound that was enough to wake the dead. Which is what I felt like.
    I was still on the flat metal gurney, but the bright lights above warned me I was in a different place. My main focus, though, was on the pain exploding from within. I swear my neck was on fire, an acid-burning blaze running from neck to head and neck to body. This wasn’t a mass of bruises complaining, this was full-body screaming to shut down.
    Then there was the other problem as I glanced to my left. The two men who were arguing looked back at me. One seemed familiar, as if I’d seen him somewhere before, but I wasn’t sure where. The other? He was the problem. Even woozy I knew what he was if not who he was. He was Were, through and through, and pissed off to boot. At me.
    What had I done to him?
    I slipped my fingers against the table I was on to raise myself to a sitting position. No way did I want to face an angry Were flat on my back, even if sitting meant I wanted to puke.
    “Who are you?” I squawked. I was trying for forceful but my throat was too raw for that.
    Were Guy didn’t seem to mind though, as he grinned, and not a nice one, more a nasty, see-my-sharp-incisors kind of grin. A lot like the Were who’d tried to kill my brother had done. The Were I’d killed in return and ended up in prison almost two years ago. Then I’d thought things couldn’t get worse. As if!
    “ Where’s Van? Where’s my brother?” I asked, hope forcing the question past desert-dry lips.
    The doctor shook his head. “The wolf shifter? The other killed him.”
    I’d known that. Known and avoided, hoping somehow I’d been wrong. But once the words confirmed what I thought I knew, I could no longer hide from the truth.
    A scream welled up from within. Not Van. Please not Van. Who killed him? Even as I asked, my gut told me I wouldn’t like the answer.
    “Who?”
    The doctor chuckled, one of those break-your-heart sounds. “The warlock, of course.”
    There was no course about it. I’d hoped I’d made up the nightmare. Bran. How could he? He’d come to help me save Van. Like flashbacks from a grainy, silent era movie, images roared against me. Fighting. Weres converging on me. Shouting at Bran to save my brother.
    Instead , he’d killed him. Didn’t know why. Warlocks were enemies to witches. I knew that, and yet I had trusted him.
    My fault. My fault and Bran’s that