Warrior's Hope (Dark Protectors #16)(7)

Hope typed rapidly, watching the blue blip. Two years was a long time for anybody to elude her. She’d first caught wind of him through an internet search that had led to several skirmishes in the vampire and demon worlds. Then he’d siphoned off funds from both kingdoms, and he’d somehow managed to hack into the King of the Realm’s personal schedule three times in the last month alone.

The breach had been discovered in time, and the schedule had been changed. If this jerk wanted to kill her uncle, she’d hunt him to the end of the globe. “Libs and Derrick? You’re getting closer to him. Be ready for him to launch more explosives at you.”

She’d spent weeks following the money trail of her prey to first Prague and then Nuremberg after she’d found his secret headquarters in Scottsdale and confiscated his entire computer system. Which had, unfortunately, wiped itself before she could find anything except two obscure files referencing a group called the Seven, who she was determined to protect. She was glad Bo?ena had followed orders and coated him with tracking dust. The woman was no doubt already out of the country now. “Go faster, teams.”

Collin sighed. “You need to report this mission, and you need to do it now.”

“I already did,” Hope said. “I’m not stupid.”

She’d take a gamble or two, but she wasn’t going to risk the wrath of the King of the Realm, also known as her uncle Dage. She thought fleetingly about contacting another one of her uncles, Garrett, since he was a member of the Seven, but quickly discarded the notion. After she caught the enemy, she’d call G.

The Seven was an elite group of warriors tasked with ridding the world of a true monster, a Kurjan leader named Ulric. It wasn’t Ulric she was chasing today, but no doubt it was one of his soldiers. The only description she’d gotten from an arms dealer in Iran was that her enemy was male, tall, and pale—just like the Kurjans and the members of their religious order, the Cyst.

“Tell us the rest of it,” Liam ordered, obviously forgetting he was three months younger than Hope. Twice as big, though.

She swallowed. He had every right to ask. “Last week, one of my sources hinted that he might be here taking a meeting with Christopher Larkin about the Seven, but I thought it was unlikely. I just texted Larkin, and he reluctantly admitted he’d been contacted,” she explained. Larkin was thought to be a psychic vampire, and since he was four thousand years old, it was possible. But he only gave readings in exchange for trucks of gold or baskets of diamonds.

Silence came over the line.

She sighed. “I can hear you judging me.”

It was Collin who spoke first, and his voice was rough with anger. As the mellow cousin, he rarely lost his temper. “You have clear orders to stay away from the Seven. Period.”

“I haven’t disobeyed orders. We received concrete intel that an enemy of the Realm was going to be here buying illegal computer components.” She’d also had a hunch they’d find the Interloper. Yeah, her hunches were psychic, so were they really hunches? “If you ask me, fate has intervened again.”

“Damn fate,” Libby muttered.

Hope could agree. She thought through the weapons she had at her disposal, mainly her cousins. Though young, they were deadly and they were strong. She had to take back control of the mission. “Derrick,” she reminded him. “If you throw fire underground, there’s going to be a smoke problem. You need to keep that in mind.”

“Affirmative,” Derrick said.

“Liam and Collin, you come in strong from the other side,” Hope ordered, typing rapidly, trying to find the best place for them to take this guy.

“Not a problem,” Liam said.

“Got it,” Collin said.

She tracked her swiftly moving team by their dots on the map. Liam and Collin worked perfectly together, sweeping each area before they went forward, moving in a synchronized dance. Derrick did the same with Libby, but he stayed slightly ahead of the shifter no matter what, willing to get shot to prevent her from being harmed. Hope admired that in him, but she didn’t want to see any of her cousins hurt.

“Hope.” Liam’s low tone came over the line. “I’m thinking maybe it was more than a hunch, considering you got your source to toss tracking dust on this guy.”

She winced. “You know I’m always prepared.”

Triple sighs came through the line, along with a small chuckle from Libby.

Hope winced. “Honestly, I didn’t think we’d actually find him here.” She’d been chasing this guy all over the world for the last two years. She leaned forward. “Wait a minute, he’s gone south.” There was no tunnel to the south. It looked as if his body was moving through solid rock. “Twenty feet ahead of you, Derrick and Libs. He somehow turned left.” Liam and Collin approached from the other direction. “Ten feet ahead of you, guys, there’s a doorway. There’s a passage or something.”

“We don’t see it,” Derrick said. The sound of tapping and pounding came over the line.

“It’s solid brick,” Collin muttered.

Panic rose in Hope. “It’s not. I can see him moving.” She’d made it her mission to catch the man she’d dubbed the Interloper, and she was the best strategic planner in her generation. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know why, but she felt like her first big test was to catch this guy. “There’s got to be a way in. Derrick, if you have to use fire, do it.”