Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Saber
A phone was ringing.
Setting the sanding sponge down on the step of a short ladder beside me, I veered around a small stack of paint cans near the bedroom door. In the hallway, I paused to listen. The persistent chime-like ring was coming from the primary bedroom.
My phone, left on my nightstand like usual, was silent. I sped around the bed to the opposite nightstand and pulled open the top drawer. A black phone, plugged into a charger with the cord hanging from the drawer front, glowed with an incoming call from a private number.
As my fingers touched the phone, the ringing stopped.
I unplugged it. Gripping it tightly, I left the room, dodging more renovation supplies on my way to the front door. I grabbed my jacket, pulled it on, and shoved through the door.
The meadow of wild grasses, mountainsides blanketed by the enduring green of Lodgepole Pines, and the overcast gray sky scarcely registered. I scanned the landscape until I spotted all four horses grazing contentedly. Ringing phones were of no concern to them.
Tucked in the shadows at the edge of the trees, its roof decorated with scattered yellow leaves, was the work shed. I gave the door a single quiet rap before pushing it open.
Zak stood at the table in front of the shed’s single window. He straightened, his head turning toward me.
“Your phone rang. It was a private number.”
Tension stiffened his shoulders. I held the slim black device out to him, and he entered a rapid eight-digit passcode. For a moment, he gazed intently at the screen as though expecting it to ring again, his dark brows creased above his green eyes.
“Did they leave a message?” I asked.
“No.”
Our gazes met, no words needed to communicate the unease we both felt. The number of mythics in the world who knew Zak still lived was minuscule. The number of mythics who also knew his current phone number was even smaller.
“Maybe you should turn the phone off,” I suggested.
“I can’t.” Zak slid the phone into his pocket. “Not right now.”
I understood his reasoning, but the two mythics who might call him, who might need his help, were greater magnets for trouble than ever before.
A long sheet of drafting paper lay across the worktable, its pristine surface covered in geometric lines, shapes, and runes. Small bowls and vials of ingredients sat within circles on the page.
“Isn’t this already enough?” I asked quietly.
Zak followed my gaze to the shelves filling one wall of the shed.
A couple of months ago, they’d been barren.
Now, lines of potion bottles and vials gleamed in the weak light from the window.
Rough-cut crystals hung from leather cords, and cloth-wrapped bundles occupied the shelves, artifacts and weapons hidden within.
“Probably.” He studied his work. “But it doesn’t feel like enough.”
I pressed a hand to my lower belly, an unconscious gesture I’d been making more and more often.
Zak’s gaze tracked the movement of my hand. He’d barely lifted his arms before I stepped into his embrace. I leaned my head on his shoulder and breathed in deep. The scent of alchemical herbs clung to him, earthy and comforting.
His warm palm passed gently over my midriff before curling over my hip. “You’re in your second trimester. Shouldn’t you be showing by now?”
“I’m barely in my second trimester.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “You worry more than I do.”
“Would you rather I didn’t?”
Fair point. I tucked my cheek into the crook of his shoulder. “Elisabetta said that because it's my first pregnancy, and because I’m taller, thinner, and fitter than average, I’ll show later than average.”
“You need to eat more.”
Huffing, I slid my hand down to take his. “Come work on the nursery with me. I’m tired of sanding.”
A faint smile pulled at the pink-edged scar cleaving diagonally across his face. “I can—”
He broke off. We both looked north.
A vehicle, Keelar growled in my head as she shimmered through the shed wall to join us. It won’t leave.
“What do you mean?” I asked sharply.
The shaggy black varg shook herself. It drove past our territory, then came back again. I thought it had left, but now it’s returned and is driving back and forth. Grenior is watching it.
Zak’s eyes blazed. “Someone is searching for our driveway.”
“They won’t find it.” I stepped away from him, my unease hardening into blades of protective anger. “But I should see who wants to pay me a visit so badly.”
I strode toward the door with Zak right behind me. When I stepped out into the chilly breeze, the thud of hooves greeted me.
Artear waited a step away, one hoof digging into the earth. His black coat shone over rippling muscles as he turned his head to fix a burning orange eye on me. I grabbed his mane and leaped, swinging a leg over his back. As I settled into place, Zak put a hand on my knee.
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t offer to go in my place.
Artear didn’t need my guidance. His quick, smooth trot carried us into the deep shadows of the forest. We didn’t use the hidden driveway. We wouldn’t risk revealing its location. Instead, the fae stallion chose one of his many routes through the untamed wilderness that surrounded our valley.
The vehicle trolling up and down the logging road was a large SUV, its black paint splattered with mud and its tinted windows hiding its passengers.
When it rounded a tight bend in the winding mountain route, I had already dismounted.
The only thing the occupants of the vehicle could see was a lone woman waiting in the middle of the road with her arms folded.
The SUV decelerated to a crawl and stopped fifteen feet from me. The driver and passenger doors clunked open in unison.
Two men. Tall, muscular, dressed in simple black clothing and leather jackets long enough to conceal any weapons that might be on their belts. Sunglasses hid their eyes.
“Saber Rose Orien?” one of them asked as they walked toward me, leaving the SUV’s doors open and the engine running.
I lifted a hand. “Stop.”
They stopped. Smart men.
The man who’d exited the passenger side lowered his glasses. “I can see your horse familiar behind you, Miss Orien.”
“Can you?” I smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “A witch should know better than to trespass in a druid’s territory.”
He turned the leather rectangle hanging from a cord around his neck, revealing a silver badge on the other side. “MPD. I can go anywhere I like.”
“In theory.”
As I spoke, heat rushed over my back. I didn’t turn to look at Artear, but I knew he had shifted out of the fae demesne so both men could see him—as well as the crackling flames wreathing his legs, mane, and tail.
The witch’s non-Spiritalis partner didn’t betray any fear at the appearance of a fiery, thousand-pound fae with hooves that could crush bone.
He was either already comfortable around fae or he had nerves stronger than most mythics.
I didn’t look away from him and the witch, letting Artear—and my other fae companions—check our surroundings for the witch’s familiars.
The witch’s expression hardened. “We’re here to ask you a few questions.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“The MPD—”
I spoke over him. “My guild master hasn’t informed me about an MPD summons. If you haven’t issued a summons, you have no questions to ask me.”
“You—”
The second man raised a hand, silencing the witch. A cool smile played over his lips.
“You should reconsider your attitude, Miss Orien.” He withdrew a packet of folded papers from his jacket pocket. “A convicted murderer shouldn’t be so antagonistic toward the MPD, especially when we’re investigating multiple murder cases in which you’re the primary suspect.”
A sharper tension stiffened my limbs like splinters of ice embedding into my muscles. “Those cases were closed. I’m not a suspect in anything.”
“Those cases were closed.” He stepped closer, waving his clump of papers. “And if you cooperate like a nice, demure, properly rehabilitated convict, we might be able to close them again without … trouble.”
Implication weighed down his last word.
“That’s better,” he said, mistaking my silence for compliance. “Let’s begin, shall we? What do you know about the Ghost?”
I stared at him for a heartbeat. Then I laughed. Both men leaned back from the mirthless, throaty sound drenched in contempt. “Risking your lives over a literal ghost. How pathetic.”
“Risking our lives?” the witch echoed, his gaze jumping along the trees bordering the road. “Is that a threat?”
“Of course not,” I purred. “I’m a law-abiding mythic. But you’re a witch. Don’t you know that Hell’s Gate is dangerous? Especially … in winter.”
I breathed the last two words—and a gust of frigid wind swept down the mountain road, shoving the men forward a step.
Snow whited out the world around us, and ice formed on the ground, spreading like a disease.
The SUV sparkled under a coating of frost, with icicles descending from its side mirrors, bumper, and open doors.
As the men gawked at the winter freeze, I raised my voice over the wind. “A storm is on the way, agents. You should leave before you’re trapped.”
They attempted no more bravado as they scrambled toward their vehicle, slipping on the thickening ice. The doors slammed shut. The engine revved.
I stepped to the side, and the vehicle blasted past Artear and me. Gravel and ice chips spat from the back tires, peppering my legs, but I didn’t flinch. I’d never let them see me flinch.
The SUV rounded another bend and disappeared. I didn’t move, still watching the road. The wind had already died, the tundra-like cold waning to the usual late November chill.
On silent wings, an owl as white as the fresh snow glided out of the trees. He alighted on my shoulder, his long talons gentle through my jacket, and fixed pupilless azure eyes on the road.
Do you think this will become a problem, dove?
I pressed my lips together. Not wanting to answer, I turned around.
Sitting astride Tilliag’s broad back, one hand resting on the horse’s dark mane, Zak met my eyes from the shadows beneath the trees. Keelar and Grenior flanked him, their red eyes gleaming against their black fur.
“It won’t become a problem,” he said. “We won’t let it.”
My hand drifted to my belly again, and I thought of the stockpile of potions, alchemic weapons, and artifacts he’d crafted or retrieved over the past months.
“No,” I agreed. “We won’t.”
But even as I said the words, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t a threat we could dismiss as easily as we’d dismissed those agents.