Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Caelan sat on my couch early the next morning, chowing down on an enormous plate of pancakes. He’d gotten in sometime in the middle of the night and woken me up enthusiastically.
He had so much enthusiasm, I was late to work the next morning.
“Are you free tonight?” I asked.
“I have a meeting at five, but it shouldn’t go longer than an hour. Are you digging for whatever Gianna might have had on her?”
I nodded. “Whatever it is must be important if Nadia resorted to taking the Lords. With Donovan gone, she won’t be able to overpower any of you.”
“Nadia is clever and vengeful. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“Are all swans mean as hell?”
Caelan laughed. “I’ve only known a few. With my limited experience, I can say definitely, yes. They are.”
We grinned at each other. “I have to get to work. Moira is there by herself. Meet me here at 6:30?”
“Done.”
I pressed a kiss to his lips and was about to head out when he tugged my hand. “Hey. Are you okay after your father announced your heritage?”
I shrugged. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it hidden forever. Now that it’s out, maybe they’ll think twice about screwing with me.”
From Caelan’s grim expression, he did not agree. He grunted. “I think you’ll receive more attention than you want. But they won’t try to marry you off anymore.”
“That’s a bonus.”
Caelan snorted. “Not so fast. They won’t try to marry you off to each other anymore. They’ll try to claim you for themselves.”
I groaned. “This is dumb. They know I don’t want anyone else.”
Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. “Good.”
“My father suggested I start killing them.” I smiled at him and dropped a kiss on his nose. “Maybe I’ll do that next time.”
Caelan blinked, opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.
I winked and grabbed my purse before heading outside.
Maybe Cernunnos had a point. Killing a Lord might put the fear of the gods in them and stop them from making my life hell.
The thought stuck with me all the way until I got to the store.
Moira wore a cute Norwegian sweater and a smile when I walked in. “Have a little too much fun last night?”
I breezed past her. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Well, duh. It’s as dry as the Sahara in my house. Of course I want to know.”
“Eww.” I waved her away. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“One day I’ll get Hazel to send some more of that good booze, and we can see what happens.”
I fixed myself a cup of coffee and brought it over to the register desk. “Spill. Tell me what you did while I was gone.”
Moira’s eyes twinkled. “Those potions came in handy. Seriously.”
“They did. Caelan is sending a wire transfer to pay for your supplies later today.”
“Good, because I need to make a few more. I visited Ethan’s Keep last night.” She rolled her eyes.
“It looks just as stuffy as the man himself. Gold everywhere. And marble.” Moira shuddered.
“Did you set his house on fire?”
Moira flashed a grin. “Nothing so obvious. I want them to wonder if someone sabotaged them and then bam, they’re glittering in the sun like a Cullen.”
The sight of Thorvin glittering every time he lied brought a smile to my face. “Clever and unexpected. How long will it take to wear off?”
“If he hired a witch worth her salt, he could break the spell immediately.”
“He’s rich, so I assume that will happen soon.”
“He still has to write a big fat check to repair his foundation.”
“Care to share what happened?”
Moira untangled her long legs and took a sip of her tea. “Ethan has staff. Butler, kitchen and dinner staff, people who run the stables, everything.”
I stared at her, a terrible feeling unfurling in my stomach. “Is everyone okay?”
Moira gasped. “Evie! I don’t hurt innocent people.”
I pressed my hand against my stomach. “I know that, but there was a terrible moment where I wondered.”
She clicked her tongue. “I know you’re worried about me, but my personality has not changed. I am still the same Moira I ever was. And, yes, everyone is fine. I simply made everyone tell the truth for a period of forty-eight hours.”
My hand crept up to cover my mouth. I wanted to laugh, but that felt like encouraging her. “How’s it going?”
“I waited inside a closet for Ethan to return home last night. One of the maids told him she was sick of him throwing his jackets everywhere and that he was completely insufferable.”
A terrible thought occurred to me. “What if he fires them?”
Moira let out a throaty chuckle. “Rowan has already agreed to take them on.”
“But they’ll have to move territories. Moira! What if they have families?”
“Ethan is smart enough to realize they’re under a spell. He’ll figure it out.”
“And if they say something that angers him? Ethan isn’t like the other Lords. He’s vindictive.”
Moira waved my concerns away. “They’re all shifters in his Pack. He doesn’t hire humans.”
I pushed my chair away and stared. “That’s better, I guess.” Ethan wouldn’t put out Pack.
No Lord or true Alpha would, but this still felt meaner than usual. And not toward Ethan, but toward his people.
“Oh, come on. These are his people. And Ethan isn’t the same Lord to his people as he is to the public.”
“Is he better?” For some reason, that would surprise me. He was totally insufferable any time I spoke to him.
She nodded. “Surprisingly. And built like an Olympic swimmer.”
“Moira! Did you hide in his bedroom closet?”
She looked away, a wicked smile playing over her lips.
“Oh my gods.” I cackled.
“He seems like a hard nut to crack, but I think what you see from him is not what you get if you had a different relationship with him.”
“But you still sabotaged his crew.”
Moira shrugged. “He’s a shithead to you. Of course I did.”
We high-fived each other. “Thanks, friend.”
No matter how far she had to take it, Moira would always have my back.
Moira was on one corner of my land, Ash on another, and Caelan and I would take the other two. Armed with flashlights and metal detectors, everyone was doing a thorough search for anything Gianna might have dropped.
“I think we should bring in some wolves,” Caelan said. “They’ll be able to sense Gianna’s presence and find anything she may have dropped far faster than Moira or Ash.”
“We don’t know who we can trust,” I argued. “If Nadia has anyone on the inside, and she gets wind of our search, she’ll know we’re on to her.”
“Garrett and Simone, then. You know they’re beyond reproach.”
I thought about it. We could use more than one delicate nose tonight. “We should have done this during the daytime.”
“I disagree,” Caelan said. “Searching now might make things more difficult, but we won’t be so obvious. Moira and Ash are equipped with stealth flashlights and know not to use them until they’re sure they’ve found something. Both have impressive night vision. The quieter we keep this, the better.”
“Alright. Just them. No one else. Got it?”
Caelan smiled. “Got it.” He pulled out his cell and fired off a text.
“Should we start?”
“They can both get in the wards?”
I nodded. “I thought about keeping him out, but Garrett proved himself when he took a bullet for us.”
“He’s softened toward you as well. And Moira, though he has concerns about her impulse control.” At my look, he laughed and held up his hands.
“His words, not mine.”
I couldn’t tell him what Moira had done to Ethan.
He wouldn’t tell on us, but it would put him in a difficult position if he was ever questioned about our potential involvement.
Bad enough he knew about Thorvin. “Well, he didn’t try too hard to stop any shenanigans, so he wasn’t too hard to like. At least the other night.”
Caelan tugged me close to him and pressed a kiss against my temple. “Garrett isn’t used to females like you. Wolves are different from you two.”
“Simone seems pretty stubborn herself. She can’t be too different from us.”
“My Omega is much sneakier. You have trouble lying when asked a direct question. Simone can snap on a guileless expression in an instant.”
“Well, maybe she should come with us next time.”
“Hell no,” Caelan growled.
I snickered and sat on the ground. “Just wait. We’re already working on her. Soon we’ll drive you all into an early grave.”
Caelan sighed. “I’m going to look around, but I won’t stray too far. Anything in particular I should be looking for?”
I shook my head. “No idea. I can’t fathom what she might have had on her. Maybe a flash drive? Maybe a spell?”
“I’ll search for anything that seems out of place. You don’t get many trespassers, so that narrows things down.”
“Not anymore. The wards keep people out, but I didn’t always have them. I walked through a few times and cleaned things up. Humans are total litterbugs.”
“Ten minutes?” Caelan asked.
“Make it fifteen. I’m going to search as far as I can. It’s been a few months, but I don’t think anything she dropped would become too buried.”
He touched my hair and shifted in a flash of light. A massive dark wolf stood in his place. I reached up and ran my fingers through his soft fur, tugging a little at his ear. Caelan bumped me with his nose and trotted away.
A smile tugged my lips up. Magic rose to the surface the moment I stuck my fingers in the dirt next to the spot they buried Gianna. There was no lingering magic here, nothing to tell the story of how violently she’d died, but I didn’t like sitting here, knowing what had happened to her.
Every trace of Gianna was gone, her body decomposed and her bones scattered to ash, swept through the earth and faded to nothing.
Even so, I still felt a trace of her in the dirt.
Nothing physical, no, only her essence. And maybe it was because I knew she’d been there that I felt her presence, but grief filled me all the same.
For all her faults, she didn’t deserve what happened to her. No one deserved such a violent end.
I steadied myself and pulled my magic closer to where she had lain, searching for anything in the soil I may have missed.
When Cernunnos had shown me she was here, I’d panicked and swept every trace of her away, but I only had power with organic material—at least back then.
I could do a lot more these days, if I practiced my magic.
After the tree, all my training with my father had stopped. The trauma was too fresh, and I needed a substantial amount of time to recover.
Even now, the thought of it made my teeth clench. The fae would always remind me of what I had gone through and what I’d almost lost thanks to them.
But even so, I had a moment of regret that I couldn’t do more to speed this search along. I swept through the soil and went several feet out on either side, carefully investigating anything that wasn’t biological or organic material.
I grimaced at the amount of plastic I found swimming through the soil—plastic soda lids, pieces of water bottles, nails and screws, and other miscellaneous things that didn’t belong in the dirt.
But no trace of anything linked to Gianna.
Frustration filled me as I pulled my magic back to the surface. Caelan lay a few feet away, his head on his enormous paws, the gold of his eyes focused on my face.
“Nothing,” I said with a sigh. I rose and wiped my hands on the thighs of my jeans, swooping down to pick up the go bag I’d brought filled with extra clothes for Caelan.
The temperature had dropped into the low forties this evening. Tolerable but still chilly.
Better than a few feet of snow, I thought. Caelan bumped his head into my hip as we walked. “Nothing on your end, either?”
He shook his head.
“Damn. How far did you go?”
He trotted ahead and looked back. Smiling, I broke into a jog to follow.
Garrett and Simone showed up ten minutes later, a sullen young woman following behind them.
“Hey, Thalia.” I shot Caelan a wtf look.
He huffed and rolled his eyes, the sight of the huge wolf’s annoyance bringing a smile to my face.
“She won’t say a word,” Garrett assured me.
Thalia stuck her tongue out at Garrett’s back. When I stared her down, she sighed. “Garrett rarely lets me out of his sight, so here I am.”
Simone turned her head to hide a smile. The Omega was dressed in dark clothing, her light hair tucked under a black beanie.
At my silence, Thalia huffed. “I won’t say a word.” Thalia mimed a zipper motion.
I let a flash of red roll over my eyes. “You better not.”
She blinked and took a step back, fear flashing over her face.
“Evie. That’s unnecessary.” Garrett watched me carefully.
“Is it? She’s still a stranger.”
Thalia smirked. “Am I?”
My brow furrowed. “Err. Yes? This cannot get out to anyone, Thalia. If it does, I’ll know who to come visit.”
She waved a hand. “I don’t plan to help. I’ve got a game on my phone. Go play in the woods or whatever you’re doing tonight.”
“Helpful as always, Thalia,” Garrett said dryly.
The seer rolled her eyes and plopped down to rest her back against a tree trunk. “It’s dark and I don’t have wolf eyes.”
Something about this bothered me.
“What?” Thalia snapped when she caught me staring at her.
“How did you get through my wards?”
Her expression turned guileless, though a spot of color touched the tops of her cheekbones. “I have some fae blood. Maybe that’s how?” She shrugged.
Garrett didn’t look at me. “She was holding onto my arm when we passed through. Maybe that’s it?”
“Shouldn’t be.” How the hell had she gotten through?
I was diligent when building my wards. If Cliona couldn’t get through, a seer shouldn’t be able to either.
I studied her thoroughly but could sense no other magic around her.
She was fae, I could tell, and there was something extremely familiar about her.
I’d noticed it the first day we met, and the feeling I knew her had never left.
But I know we’d never met. I would have remembered.
Simone stared at Thalia, too, before she turned to meet my eyes. An unfamiliar emotion flickered over her face before she dropped her gaze. “I’m ready to start when you are.”
Caelan nudged me with his nose. I ran my hand over his head and nodded. The Thalia problem could wait until later.
We had to find whatever Nadia was looking for before she came for the rest of us.