Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Dain
Leaving Lanche was a lot harder than I’d anticipated. It felt like my entire body was filled with warmth, but my heart ached more and more the farther away I drove.
What the hell was this feeling? Was it heartburn? Was it anxiety?
I rubbed at the feeling as I drove all the way home.
The second I opened my apartment’s door, I knew something was wrong. There was a strange feeling in the air. A strange scent I didn’t recognize.
Stopping in my doorway, I took a deep breath, using my werewolf abilities to scent the air.
A strange tang, a musk I didn’t recognize, filled my nostrils, and I wanted to hurl.
Someone had been inside my apartment.
The scent was old enough for me to know that the culprit was no longer inside, but they’d definitely been there. In my private space. Doing who knew what.
My stomach felt queasy at the thought.
It couldn’t possibly be Joshua, could it?
I shook my head. No. It couldn’t be him.
I took another deep breath.
No. That was stupid. It definitely wasn’t him. That was… impossible.
But then who?
Shit, did I have a stalker? Another fucking stalker?
My belly turned sour, and for a few seconds, I thought I might actually puke.
Fuck. Someone broke into my home, the one place I was supposed to feel safe in.
How the hell had they broken through the wards Tan had put up for me?
That meant magic was involved. Tan was a super powerful witch. For someone to break through his wards, they had to be using some really fucking powerful magic themselves.
I had no magic of my own. What could I possibly do against someone with magic? I was a werewolf. I could shift, and I had extra strength and higher senses, but what the hell good was that against someone powerful enough to break Tan’s wards?
I mean, Tan had told me a million times over the last year that he needed to come by and reinforce them, that they weren’t as strong as they should be, but still.
A magic user against a werewolf? There was no question who’d come out on top, and while they weren’t in my apartment right now, that didn’t mean they weren’t close by or hadn’t left me some kind of trap inside.
Anton, Jed, and everyone else always told me to follow my gut, told me to listen to my instincts. And my instincts were telling me to get help. Now.
I stepped back into the hallway and shut my apartment door to preserve the scent. Perhaps one of the others would recognize it.
Listening to my gut, I hit call on my phone.
Jed picked up on the second ring. “To what do I owe the pleasure? You never call anyone when you’re off work.”
“Jed.” My voice came out stronger than expected. “Someone broke into my apartment while I was out on a date.”
Jed’s goofing-off voice turned serious immediately. “Where are you?”
“Standing in the hallway. I know they’re not inside anymore, but I wanted to see if you’d come, uh, take a sniff and see if you recognize the scent?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes or less. Don’t go inside. Stay right where you are.” He lived a lot farther away than five minutes, so I guessed he was planning on running here with his vampire speed.
“I will. Thank you, Jed.”
“Anytime.” I knew he meant it.
The five minutes it took for Jed to arrive felt like the longest ten minutes of my life, and when he got here, I wasn’t even surprised to find that he’d brought his entire family.
Jed had three brothers and a sister—all sired by Anton—and all of them came, along with Anton and his viramore, Keryth, who Anton had apparently given a piggyback ride to. My eyes widened when I saw Oakley and Roman bringing up the rear—they must’ve flown here in dragon form.
Holy crap. Had Jed brought half the city with him? Geez.
“Thanks for coming,” I said.
“Of course,” Oakley said. “Tan and Dad are on their way too.”
“Wh-what? Why?”
They shrugged. “Tan’s pissed about the ward.”
Before I could respond to that, Jed asked, “Are you okay, Dain?”
I nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Um… do you just want to… go inside?”
After setting Keryth on his feet, Anton walked straight over to me and put his hands on my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length. “Are you injured?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? No bruises? I don’t smell blood on you. No—”
“Anton, I’m fine. The burglar wasn’t even here when I got home. I’m fine.”
He pulled me in and tucked me into a hug, holding me like a parent would. It made my heart do funny things as I patted his back. Anton whispered, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Me too.”
When he released me, Jed sent me a small smile and gestured toward the door. “Want me to go in and check?”
“Yes, please.”
Anton finally released me, so I opened the front door.
Jed walked inside, breathing deeply. He only stepped in a few feet before he stopped, taking in everything. After a few seconds, he said, “I don’t recognize the scent, but… it almost smells… artificial.”
Katja, Jed’s sister, strolled past me and up to Jed’s side. “You’re right. I think they’re using a masking spell to confuse their scent.”
Jed nodded. “Agreed.”
“Well, great. How the hell will we find them, then?” I asked, stepping in behind them and taking a deep breath. They were right. It did smell artificial, and not like a person was wearing cologne or perfume, either.
“We can track the artificial scent as far as it’ll lead us, but if they went that far to cover it up, there’s a good chance they had a way to disappear from our tracking,” Jed said, looking around my place before he faced me.
“Why don’t you stay here and see if there’s anything missing.
I don’t sense any other magic lying about, so it should be safe—”
Oakley cut him off, saying, “There’s no other magic in the apartment except for a few spelled items in the front closet—those are yours, though, right?”
That was directed at me, so I answered, “Yeah. I have a few shield sticks and things like that.”
They nodded. “Right. That’s the only magic I can sense, but Rome and I will walk around and double-check.” Dragons were probably good at sensing that sort of thing, so I figured that made sense.
“Thank you.”
Oakley sent me a small smile and a nod before they and Roman, who also nodded at me, walked inside.
Jed cleared his throat. “My siblings and I will follow the trail.”
Before I could respond, Anton said, “Good plan. I’ll stay with Dain as backup.”
Oakley added, “Rome and I don’t sense anything, but we’ll stay here too. The more backup, the better.” Oak shot me a wink.
I truly didn’t think I needed all of that, but if they were offering, I supposed I should take them up on it. After all, all the vampires were thousands of years old, and Oak and Rome were dragon shifters. As far as backup went, I couldn’t do better than that.
Jed and his siblings headed out, so I walked farther into my apartment, taking everything in and trying not to let the scent of a stranger bother me… even though it did. I hated the fact that I had a stranger’s scent filling my own private space.
I walked around the living room, but didn’t notice anything missing.
“Hey,” a voice said from the doorway, making me whip around, my heart racing.
When I saw Tan standing there, I blew out a relieved breath. “Hey.”
He grimaced. “I’m so sorry about your ward, Dain. I know I haven’t been back to reinforce it, but it should’ve held anyway.”
I waved him off. “It’s not your fault.”
He made a face, and I knew he didn’t agree with me. His hands moved around in the air, his fingers wiggling, and if I didn’t know him, I might’ve thought he was doing a weirdo wave or something, but I did know him, so I knew he was feeling for the ward.
After a few seconds, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy shit. Someone burned a hole through the ward.”
“What do you mean?” Garrick—the freaking king of Sedoba—asked as he walked into my place, staring at his viramore.
“It’s like… it’s like someone used some kind of tool to cut open a hole, the way you would a chain-link fence. The ward isn’t broken entirely. It’s still standing, but now there’s a person-sized hole in it. Holy fuck, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Garrick grumbled under his breath, then sighed. “So what you’re saying is that someone figured out how to break through wards?”
Tan nodded. “Seems like it. I need to call Seb and Ailin.” He turned to me. “Do you mind if I have my dads come take a look?”
I knew the Ellwoods, obviously, although I didn’t know them well. But they were good people from everything I’d seen and heard about them, so I nodded. “Sure.”
“Thanks.” He shot me a determined look. “We’ll figure this out so it doesn’t happen again. You’ll be safe here.”
I sure as fuck hoped so. “Thank you.”
While he worried about that, I went into my bedroom to check over my things.
If someone went through all that trouble to break in, they had to have taken something, right?
Why else would they break into my apartment?
Unless they were just testing out their anti-ward spell or whatever it was.
But… my apartment was on the third floor, and I knew there were other apartments in my building with wards. So why mine?
They had to have been looking for something.
But what? It wasn’t like I had a ton of money or owned anything of serious value.
I glanced at my bookshelf, but everything seemed to be in place, so I checked my closet. Still nothing missing.
Hm. What in the world could they have taken? And if they didn’t take anything, then why in the fuck had they broken in in the first place?
I glanced at my nightstand, and a gasp left my lips as I rushed over to it.
Even though I couldn’t see it there, I felt around all over the nightstand frantically. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“What’s wrong?” Anton asked from the door. “What’s missing?”
I dropped to my knees and began searching the floor, under the bed, behind the nightstand, everywhere.
It was nowhere to be found.