Adalind's apartment had transformed into a war room.
Books covered every surface—Hexenbiest grimoires, historical records, photocopied pages from archives that shouldn't exist. The Mellifer network had delivered three boxes of additional materials within hours of my request, intelligence gathered from sources across Europe.
Somewhere in this mountain of knowledge was the key to killing Kimura. We had less than forty-eight hours to find it.
"The regeneration is biological, not magical." Adalind traced her finger across an ancient diagram showing Mauvais Dentes anatomy. "That's important. It means it can be disrupted through physical means."
"Physical means like what? I put a sword through his chest, and he heals in seconds." I pushed aside another useless text. "The Bestiary confirms over two hundred kills. None of them figured out how to stop the healing."
"None of them had Hexenbiest archives." She pulled out a leather-bound journal, its pages yellowed with age. "This is from the Vienna Council's restricted collection. My mother's contacts smuggled it out three hours ago."
"Your mother's contacts." I kept my voice neutral. "I thought Catherine was dead."
"I thought so too." Adalind's expression was carefully controlled. "Apparently, I was wrong. She's been in hiding since the incident with Nick's aunt. But when I explained what we were facing, she... responded."
The implications of that were troubling. Catherine Schade was dangerous—a Hexenbiest who'd manipulated Royal politics for decades, whose schemes had cost countless lives. Having her attention on our situation was a double-edged sword at best.
But we needed the information. I'd worry about Catherine's motives after we survived.
"What does the journal say?"
Adalind opened it to a marked page. "Mauvais Dentes regeneration comes from a unique cardiovascular adaptation. Their hearts don't just pump blood—they produce healing factors that distribute throughout the body. Damage anywhere else, and the heart compensates. The wounds close, the tissue regrows, the predator keeps fighting."
[INTELLIGENCE CONFIRMED: MAUVAIS DENTES WEAKNESS]
[TARGET: CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM]
[REQUIREMENT: DIRECT HEART DAMAGE TO DISABLE REGENERATION]
[CHALLENGE: ACCESSING HEART THROUGH COMBAT DEFENSES]
"So we need to destroy the heart." I considered the tactical implications. "That means getting through the ribcage of something that can move faster than I can track."
"Not necessarily destroy. Disrupt." Adalind flipped to another page. "There's a Hexenbiest poison—old, complex, rarely used. It causes temporary cardiac arrest. Heart stops, regeneration fails. The effect only lasts a few minutes, but during that window, the Mauvais Dentes is as vulnerable as any other Wesen."
"Do you know how to make it?"
"The formula's here. The ingredients are rare but available." She hesitated. "There's a catch."
"There's always a catch."
"The poison requires willingly given Grimm blood to activate." Her eyes met mine. "The compound is designed to disrupt enhanced healing—it needs biological material from something that exists to end monsters. Grimm blood is the catalyst that makes it work."
I understood immediately. "You're asking me to give you a weapon that could specifically kill me."
"I'm telling you the cost." Adalind's voice was steady, but her hands trembled slightly against the journal's pages. "If we make this poison with your blood, it becomes attuned to you. Anyone could use it against you. I could use it against you."
"Could you?"
"Theoretically." She set down the journal. "The question is whether you trust me not to."
The question hung between us—heavier than our romantic evolution, deeper than the strategic alliance we'd built. This wasn't about attraction or partnership. This was about vulnerability at its most fundamental level.
I thought about the weeks since I'd arrived in Portland. The alliances forged, the enemies defeated, the relationships that had grown from nothing into something real. Adalind had been there for most of it—watching, calculating, slowly revealing pieces of herself that she'd hidden from everyone else.
She'd saved my life at the factory. She'd shared her mother's secrets. She'd kissed me on the dock and stayed the night when neither of us was ready for more.
If I couldn't trust her with this, I couldn't trust anyone.
"Make the poison." I drew my knife. "How much blood do you need?"
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure." I opened my palm, letting the blade bite deep. Blood welled immediately—red, human-looking, carrying whatever biological factors made me what I was. "Make it. Whatever happens after, we'll deal with."
Adalind caught the blood in a silver bowl she'd prepared. Her expression was complex—gratitude, concern, something else I couldn't identify.
"This means something." Her voice was soft. "What you're giving me."
"I know."
"Not just the blood. The trust." She looked up from the bowl. "No one's ever trusted me like this. Not with something that could actually hurt them."
"Then don't hurt me." I smiled—an expression that came easier than expected given the circumstances. "At least not until after we kill the sabre-tooth monster."
She laughed despite the tension, the sound breaking something between us and rebuilding it stronger.
"I'll need the night to prepare the compound." She moved toward her kitchen, which had been converted into an alchemical workspace. "The formula is complex—timing matters, proportions matter, everything matters."
"What can I do?"
"Rest. Heal. Prepare for tomorrow." She paused at the doorway. "And Cross? Thank you. For trusting me."
I spent the night on her couch, dozing fitfully while Adalind worked. The sounds of her preparation filled the apartment—grinding compounds, mixing liquids, the occasional Latin phrase muttered over boiling solutions.
By dawn, she looked exhausted. By dawn, she was holding three small vials of amber liquid.
"One for the fight. Two for backup." She pressed them into my hands. "The poison needs to enter the bloodstream directly—injection or absorption through an open wound. Skin contact isn't enough."
"How long does the effect last?"
"Two to three minutes. Maybe less if his biology is particularly robust." She held my gaze. "Don't miss. This hurt to make."
I kissed her forehead—a gesture that felt natural despite everything.
"I know."
"Cross." Her voice stopped me at the door. "When this is over—if we survive—we should talk. About what this means. About what we're building."
"When this is over." I tucked the vials carefully into my jacket. "That's a promise."
The morning light was cold and clear as I left Adalind's apartment. Forty-eight hours had become twenty-four. Kimura's deadline approached, and I had three doses of poison that might kill him.
Or might just make him angry.
Either way, I wasn't running. The Pack was positioned, the kill zone was prepared, and I had a weapon the assassin wouldn't expect.
Time to hunt the hunter.
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