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Louis chuckled. “My, we’re touchy tonight, aren’t we? But I will say, she is pretty, and that accent of hers is so cute.”

Alain snarled at him. “Casse-toi, Louis.”

This time it was Pierre who punched his brother in the arm. “Stop poking the beast.”

Alain turned his back on the twins, facing her. “Set your feet apart and hold your arms out.”

Grace did as she was told, and Alain ran the scanner over her, starting with her earrings, running over her arms, under them, beneath his jacket, down her back and across her corset. Now the twins had assured her she wasn’t going to end up dead in a ditch behind a gas station, her body and her mind were free to return to their previous preoccupation with Alain. And the things she’d seen in that room. It was hard not to think about being restrained and at his mercy as she stood there, unmoving, while he ran the scanner over her stomach and down her thigh. Then down her other thigh. Moving behind her, he ran it over her bottom and across the backs of her knees. If it affected him the same way it did her, he didn’t show it.

He returned to stand in front of her again and ran the scanner over her left ankle and stiletto, then shifted to her right foot. The scanner beeped. Alain paused, looking straight up at her. Grace was at a loss. He waved the scanner over her right foot a second time. Again, the beeping.

“It…it must be a mistake. I wouldn’t know where to buy a bug or a GPS tracker, let alone how to use one.” She looked to Pierre and Louis. Both of their expressions were serious. Back to Alain. “I’m not lying. The machine must be broken.” Please let it be broken. But she knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Cordelia putting a tracking device on her and not telling her about it.

“The machine isn’t broken, Grace.” There was a tightness to Alain’s voice. “Take off your shoe.”

Her hands shaking, she unbuckled her right heel and handed it to him. All three of them were staring at her, the easy humor of the last few moments gone.

Alain ran the scanner over it for a third time, and again it beeped.

“Here.” Louis handed Alain a pocketknife.

Alain exchanged the scanner for the knife and pried the heel off her shoe. He dug into the heel and pulled out a round, black object smaller than a nickel.

He tossed her shoe aside and held the gadget up to the light for her to see. “Want to tell me again that you don’t have any GPS trackers on you?”

Chapter Fourteen

“Give me your keys.” Alain swapped the GPS for the archive boxes. He’d never seen a GPS tracker that small before, though with the DGSE involved it shouldn’t surprise him the Faucherians had had a tech upgrade.

“Why?” asked Pierre.

“Because you and your connard twin here,” he said, jerking his thumb at Louis, “are going to take the GPS tracker, jump in the car with Laurent, and the three of you are going to drive the scenic route to some random town a long way away from here.”

“Meanwhile, you’ll be sneaking away in our car.” Pierre handed him his car keys. “It’s parked on the other side of the lot, right at the end, under a broken light.”

“Good plan,” said Louis. “I like it.”

Louis’ idiotic grin had Alain itching to hit him again. “We’ll wait for a while after you leave, then Grace and I will head off. I’ll text you when we’re safe in pack territory. Then you can ditch the GPS and get the hell out of there.” He pointed at Louis. “Don’t you fuck this up. The last thing we need is for the DGSE to get one of us in their clutches.”

Louis feigned hurt. “Fuck this up? You wound me.”

“I’ll do more than wound you.” The connard was getting under his skin. With Grace’s heartbeat erratic and the scent of her distress clogging up his nose, he was on edge. His pride in her figuring out what he was so quickly, and his relief he’d avoided the ‘I’m a werewolf’ conversation, short-lived.

“Make sure you stop at the house,” said Pierre. “Maxime wants to talk to both of you.”

Louis grimaced. “That sounds like as much fun as root canal surgery.”

It did. Which was why Alain had no intention of doing it. He’d sneak in through the back gate and go straight to his cottage. Maxime would be pissed off at him, but that was nothing new. He’d deal with his alpha in the morning.

“D’acc. Stay safe.” Pierre headed toward the parking lot, Louis in tow. He turned back at the corner of the building. “Alain, a piece of advice. Don’t make the same mistake we did. Don’t keep things from her. Communicate everything. Even the bad stuff. Especially the bad stuff.”

Tell her everything? Given Grace was working for Cordelia, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Louis winked. “Have fun, you two.”

Pierre rolled his eyes at his twin and dragged him away. “Come on, Louis. I love you, brother, but not enough to step in if Alain decides to turn you into a toad.”

Alain stared after them. “How someone hasn’t killed that fils de pute already defies belief.”