Chapter Five #3
The woman continued struggling. Now that Rex was close enough, it was obvious that she was terrified.
Her gaze kept jumping from one person to the other as if she were wondering who was going to hurt her.
Rex wanted to reassure her that they wouldn’t, but he wanted to check in on Harmon even more.
He didn’t know what this woman was doing here or the reason for her attack, and part of him didn’t care.
That was the same part that cared about Harmon.
“And you call yourself a leader?” Merrick asked.
Rex turned to blink at him. It made him realize that Jacob had followed them, too. Instead of stepping in and stopping the woman from attacking, he was standing there, staring.
“What do you want me to do?” Jacob asked.
Merrick looked disgusted, which wasn’t far from how Rex felt. He’d hoped that Jacob would be an okay clan leader so they wouldn’t have to look for one for too long, but clearly, he’d been wrong.
“This woman is a member of your clan, isn’t she?” Merrick asked.
“She is.”
“Then you have authority over her. Use it.”
Jacob shook his head. “I’m not the clan leader.”
“And you never will be with that attitude,” a woman snapped.
It wasn’t the woman currently struggling against Arlen’s hold.
No, this one was striding toward them from the other side of the hallway.
Her blonde hair was tied behind her neck, and she was wearing jeans and a red sweater.
Rex tried to remember if he’d seen her before, but he didn’t think so.
It wasn’t surprising since he and the others had only arrived twelve hours ago.
“Sarah, what were you thinking?” the second woman asked the one still pinned to the wall.
Sarah didn’t answer. She just shook her head and sobbed. Arlen looked like he didn’t quite know what to do, but he didn’t let go.
“I’ll have her taken to her room,” the second woman said.
Arlen arched a brow at her. “You’ll forgive me for not letting go just yet. Considering the state of your leadership, I’m not sure it’s safe.”
The woman didn’t look offended, thankfully. Instead, she nodded. “I understand. I’ve already alerted the guards. Several of them should be here soon.”
Rex wasn’t sure it would be enough for Arlen, who looked like he was willing to keep Sarah where she was for the rest of the day.
Since everyone was distracted, Rex hurried toward Harmon. He didn’t look hurt or even shaken. He was watching Sarah as if he expected her to try to attack him again, but he didn’t appear scared.
“What happened?” Rex asked when he reached him.
Harmon shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d just hung up the phone and was about to come back when she attacked me.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“Just a few scratches on my hands.”
Harmon raised both of his hands to show Rex. Rex swore when he saw the bright red lines of scratches on them. He reached out, gently cradling one of them closer.
“I’m fine,” Harmon said gently.
“These don’t look fine.”
“She could have done a lot more damage if she’d shifted.”
“She wouldn’t have been able to hurt you like this if she hadn’t shifted her fingers.”
“If she’d really wanted to hurt me, she would’ve attacked me in her dragon form.”
Rex looked around the hallway. “She wouldn’t have fit in here in her dragon form.”
“Then she wouldn’t have attacked me here. Rex, I promise I’m fine. I know that telling you not to worry is useless, but I’m right here. You can see that I’m okay.”
Rex could, but he was still freaking out. What would he have done if Harmon hadn’t been fine? If Sarah had managed to hurt him much worse than she had? If Mallory hadn’t been there to grab her?
“Please take her away,” he heard the second woman say. He looked up in time to see three men wearing some kind of uniform step closer to Arlen and Sarah. They looked wary of Arlen—as they should be considering what had just happened—but they didn’t hesitate to obey the second woman’s orders.
Rex was curious. He hadn’t met this woman yet, but she’d already shown them that she was a better leader than Jacob.
“Eva,” Merrick said, tilting his head at the woman.
So he knew her. That was interesting.
“Merrick, Arlen,” the woman said. “I can’t say this is how I thought I would see you again after so many years.”
Merrick snorted. “You didn’t expect to see us at all after we left.”
“Considering that Martin ordered us to stay away from you, I can’t say that I did. I’m sorry for what he did to your club.”
“We’re already rebuilding.”
She nodded. “Good. Please let me know if you need anything.”
“Are you offering the clan’s help?”
Jacob made a sound that caused all of them to turn toward him.
He didn’t look happy, and he was glaring at Eva as if she was doing something wrong.
Rex had a good guess at what that something wrong was.
Jacob might not be the official leader, but he didn’t like that Eva was here and had taken charge.
She rolled her eyes, and Rex liked her even more. The fact that she ignored Jacob in favor of giving Merrick her full attention was a good sign.
“We have a meeting with Jacob to talk about the clan and Brian,” Arlen said. “Why don’t you join us?”
Jacob looked like he wanted to say no, but no one asked for his opinion. Eva turned to Arlen to nod at him, then back to the guards. “We’re going to want to talk to Sarah soon. Please find the closest empty room and keep her there. You can take her to her room once we decide what to do with her.”
Rex turned back to Harmon. He was still holding one of Harmon’s hands, and he checked it again, just in case. The scratches were still there, but that was all Rex could see. Harmon had been lucky. “I’m glad she didn’t hurt you.”
“I am, too. Why don’t we follow the others to the conference room? I’m curious to find out why Sarah attacked me.”
Rex wasn’t eager to hear what her reasoning had been or for Harmon to tell them what had happened in more detail, but he was going to have to.
The fact that he felt that way was proof of how important Harmon was to him.
If he was freaking out over a few scratches, what would happen if Harmon was seriously hurt?
He was a coven leader, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that he could be.
Rex was going to have to move in with the coven just to keep an eye on Harmon, wasn’t he? He wasn’t sure his heart would survive it if he didn’t.
* * * *
HARMON HAD BEEN LUCKY, and it wasn’t the first time. He’d been lucky during the fight in pack territory, too, but he was pretty sure that his luck would eventually run out if he continued fighting dragons, so he hoped today had been the last time.
He missed his coven. Yes, they’d sent him running with their bickering, and he wasn’t looking forward to going home to the responsibilities of being the leader, but they’d never attacked him. They’d never tried to kill him.
The same couldn’t be said about the dragons.
Harmon had never been attacked as many times as he had since he’d decided to help Kieran and his pack.
He didn’t regret it because it had been the right thing to do, but he was done with getting attacked for a while now.
His arm still hurt from when he’d been wounded during the fight in which Martin had died.
Today’s attack hadn’t made it any better.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rex asked as they walked toward the conference room.
“I’m not dying. I’ve been better, but she didn’t hurt me.” Harmon didn’t count the few scratches on his hands. If Sarah had wanted to hurt him, she could have done so easily. The fact that she hadn’t told him something.
He just wasn’t sure what yet.
“You need a keeper,” Rex muttered.
“Are you volunteering?”
They were joking around, so Harmon didn’t expect Rex’s expression to turn serious. “What if I am?” he asked.
Harmon had no idea what to say. He wanted to tell Rex that of course he wanted him to be his keeper, but at the same time, they still hadn’t discussed what being together meant for them.
Harmon knew that Rex didn’t want to stay with the pack, but would he be willing to leave his family to move in with him?
He wouldn’t become the coven leader or even second-in-command, but he’d still have some authority over the coven.
Once the coven got to know him, Harmon had no doubt that they would like him and might even go to him when they needed advice or help.
He wasn’t sure Rex would be comfortable with that.
It was something they needed to talk about, but it would have to wait, like many other things.
Thankfully, Harmon didn’t have to answer right away. They walked into the conference room, and things immediately went to shit.
“You can go,” Jacob said as he turned toward Eva.
She blinked at him as if she wasn’t quite sure why he was giving her that order. Harmon wasn’t sure, either, but he could guess. Jacob didn’t like that Eva had taken the situation in-hand earlier. She’d shown everyone who’d been present how bad a leader Jacob was.
As if they’d needed her to notice it.
Jacob hadn’t stepped in to stop Sarah. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just stood there, waiting for someone else to intervene. No matter what he told himself, that wasn’t the sign of a good leader—or of a leader at all. Jacob was out, and he knew it.
“She stays,” Merrick snapped. “She did more in the past five minutes than you have since we’ve arrived. She’d be a better leader than you are.” He turned to Eva. “Have you ever thought about it?”
“About what? Becoming clan leader?”
“You’d be better than Jacob, although that’s not hard.”
Jacob turned an interesting shade of red. “How dare you? You don’t know me.”
“I know enough to be sure you’d be a shit leader. Hell, everyone with eyes knows that.”
Harmon didn’t think that letting those two bicker was helping anyone. They still needed answers and to find out what had happened to Brian. “Do we think that Sarah killed Brian?” Harmon asked, hoping to distract everyone.
He wouldn’t put it past Merrick to turn the fight with Jacob physical, and that wasn’t something they could afford right now.
He wouldn’t mind kicking Jacob down a few pegs, but he didn’t want to go to war with the dragons.
Merrick didn’t seem to have the same problem.
He looked ready to take things into his own hands.
“Why would she do that?” Mallory asked.
“I don’t know, but it can’t be a coincidence. We’ve been looking for the person who killed Brian, and she attacked one of us.”
“You’re vampires,” Jacob spat out. “She probably doesn’t want you here any more than I do.” He seemed to realize what he’d said and snapped his mouth shut.
Harmon had to stop himself from laughing in Jacob’s face. He didn’t care what Jacob or any of the other dragons here thought about him or his presence in the house. He was here for a reason, and it wasn’t to make friends.
He just hoped no one else was going to try to kill him.
“You need to be careful with your words,” Merrick said with a growl.
Jacob glared at him. “This is my home, not yours. You had your chance, and you wasted it.”
Merrick snorted. “My chance? My chance to do what? Become a murderer because someone ordered me to? Become a drug dealer? How involved were you in both those things, Jacob?”
Harmon loved Merrick, but sometimes, he wanted to strangle him.
Today was one of those times. Merrick was making everything more complicated by being snarky and annoying.
Harmon was pretty sure that he was doing it to push Jacob to the point where he would expose himself, but he was done with the bickering.
His arm hurt, and he wanted to go back to bed, even though he’d just gotten up.
He wanted to spend time with Rex and get to know him.
Hell, he wanted to take Rex home to his castle, lock him in his bedroom, and not allow him to leave until he was satisfied with how much time they’d spent together.
He was pretty sure there wasn’t an upper limit.
“Enough,” he said, staring at Merrick.
Merrick frowned, then nodded. At least he understood.
Harmon turned to Eva. “Do you think it’s possible that Sarah killed Brian?”
“I think it’s more than possible. Brian killed her brother.”
Jacob made a sound like he disagreed with that, but Harmon didn’t even look at him. “What happened?”
“Brian was one of Martin’s supporters. He obeyed Martin’s orders, so when Martin ordered him to kill Alex because he’d stood up to Martin, he didn’t hesitate.” Eva paused and looked around the room. “Sarah and Alex’s mother died soon after that. I think it was heartbreak.”
So Sarah had lost two people she loved because of Brian. That would push anyone to kill him. “We need to talk to her.”
Eva nodded. “I’ll get her.”
She left the room, and Harmon turned to Jacob. “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know if you actually had plans to become clan leader, but you should rethink it if you did because you’d be a shitty leader. Since we have a say in this, we won’t allow it.”
Jacob glared. “This isn’t your home. It’s not your clan.”
“It’s not. And trust me, if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be involved in anything that has to do with you and your clan.
We both know how dangerous dragons can be, though.
You’ve already attacked many people without a reason.
You’ve hurt and killed. Kieran and his pack and every supernatural community in the area want this clan to stop being violent, and you don’t have a choice.
If you don’t go along with this, you’ll pay for it.
Your entire clan will. Is that what you want? ”
“You can’t do this.”
“Either the clan accepts a leader we agree with, or the pack will have to step in. You have a choice, Jacob. Just know that as long as the pack has a say in this, you won’t be the leader.” Harmon turned to the others. “I think we agree on that, don’t we?”
Everyone nodded, including Rex, who looked like he wanted to eat Harmon.
Harmon wouldn’t say no if they were in any other situation, but unfortunately, they still had to talk to a possible murderer.
Once they had, they’d need to choose a new leader so that they could decide what to do with Sarah.
It wasn’t Harmon’s place, even though she’d attacked him.
What she’d done to Brian was much worse, even though it didn’t look like anyone would miss the man.
“Now, everyone, sit down,” Harmon ordered.
He wasn’t surprised to see Jacob scurry toward the closest chair instantly.
The man had struck him as a follower more than a leader since the beginning, and now, he was sure of it.
He prayed that Jacob wouldn’t try anything stupid when they chose the new clan leader, but that would be none of Harmon’s business, either.
He had two things to do today—talk to Sarah and choose a leader. Once that was done, he’d be out of here, and he was eager for that part of his plan to happen.