Chapter 21
John walked through the woods toward the main house.
He wasn’t sure why he was heading in that direction.
But ever since they had started getting messages—if you could even call them that—from Mia, he was restless.
His body buzzed like it was subsisting on sugar, when in reality he was exhausted from lack of sleep.
It had been two days since they’d heard from Mia, and he couldn’t help but wonder when the next shoe would drop.
Maybe he could see if Megan had finished reviewing his journals or if Jonas had found anything else in all of his computer programs. Sienna and Ryan were in Nashville for some sort of meeting today.
And that shouldn’t make him nervous, but she had been sticking close to the clan house since the attack on his cabin.
He didn’t like the idea that she was away, even with Ryan protecting her.
As he walked the path and came close to the house, the sound of a UTV had him moving to the side. Tessa sped along the path and braked hard next to him. “Whoa! I was just coming to find you. Get in.”
His chest cramped and he jumped inside. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to Sienna?”
“She’s okay,” Tessa said, turning the UTV around and heading back toward the house. “But she had some excitement in the city.”
“Tessa,” he growled.
“Okay! I’m getting to it. Mia approached her, talked to her for a few minutes, and then slipped away unnoticed.”
His hands clenched into fists. “Damn it.”
Tessa skirted a tree and picked up speed, the back of the house already in view.
“You need to calm down. Eric, Adam, and Marcus are in overprotective mode right now, and Sienna doesn’t need someone else barking at her.
She was just starting to explain things when I came to get you. We won’t have missed much.”
Tessa parked the UTV, and they both hurried into the house.
The sound of raised voices led them to the office, and they stopped in the doorway.
John took a deep breath when he saw that Sienna was not only okay but also standing up for herself against her irate brothers.
Marcus and Ryan stood to the side, and Megan stepped closer to Eric, looking like she was getting ready to referee.
“I can’t believe Mia came right up to you,” Eric barked.
“I can. She does whatever she wants, including throwing my wife out a sixth-story window!” Adam barked back.
Sienna held up her hands. “Okay, guys! I know that this is all coming from a place of love right now, but I’m fine. You need to calm down so I can tell you what happened.”
Megan rested her hand on Eric’s arm. “Let’s hear what Sienna has to say.”
Tessa stepped farther into the room. “Yeah, guys, give her some space and let her tell us what happened.”
Sienna nodded to John, and he was finally able to draw in another breath, before she turned back to her brothers.
She jumped right into the story, and John’s dragon rumbled in his chest when he realized how close Mia had gotten to her.
When she finished, the room was silent. Then everyone except him started to talk at once.
Sienna looked over at John, and something sparked in her eyes before she put her fingers to her mouth and a shrill whistle filled the air, stopping everyone’s outbursts. “Enough! I think this is a good thing. Mia obviously wants to work with us.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know why,” Eric said. “She didn’t answer you when you asked if she was trying to break the curse.”
John agreed with Eric.
“Mia’s not going to tell us everything right off the bat. She doesn’t trust us,” Sienna said.
Adam scowled. “She’s the one who reached out to me to begin with and told me about the curse. I thought she was helping us to break it at the time.”
“Well, maybe she was,” Sienna said. “And maybe she still is. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Why do you think she asked about another storybook?” Tessa asked.
“Because it might tell us the next steps to what’s going to happen. Or at least some representation of it. I told her that we searched the whole house and didn’t find another book.”
“It doesn’t hurt to look again,” Adam said.
Tessa leaned against her husband. “We knew Mia told her foster mom, Evelyn, that Lily was special, but her asking about Lily’s art means she knows for sure she’s an oracle.”
“Yes,” Megan answered. “We already knew that Mia was aware of oracles since she told Adam about them when she first approached him. Do you think she also knows we have the scroll with the curse?”
John’s stomach dropped at all these “what if” questions.
“She didn’t ask about the actual curse,” Sienna said.
“What would you say if she does ask?” Adam asked.
Sienna paused for a moment. “I guess it will depend on further conversations and if I think I can trust her.”
Eric took a step forward. “Sienna—”
“I know, I know, it’s scary. Let’s search the house again for another storybook. Megan, you and Jonas start comparing notes and see if there is anything we find that can help arm us for my next conversation with Mia.”
Marcus chimed in. “How did she know where you were today?”
John wondered the same damn thing.
“I didn’t see anyone following us,” Ryan said.
Marcus crossed his arms. “I think we need to recheck all the vehicles for trackers.”
“Honestly, they could be tracking any of us,” Eric said. “According to Jonas, there are numerous ways to track phones. We don’t know how much resources they have at their fingertips.”
“A centuries’ old secret group? I would say a lot,” Tessa said.
John stood silently while they all talked this out, but he had a question that he couldn’t keep to himself any longer. He turned to Ryan. “Where were you during all of this?”
Ryan looked him straight in the eye. Before he answered, Sienna replied. “Ryan was in the restaurant with me. He stepped out to take a call, and I was in the women’s restroom when she approached me.”
John frowned. “And Mia took advantage of that. Sienna needs a female guard in addition to Ryan.”
Marcus nodded. “I was already thinking that.”
Sienna shook her head. “And I think I can decide what I need or don’t need. Mia didn’t attack me.”
“That’s your gauge of a good meeting?” John growled.
“Getting Mia to communicate has been our top priority for months. And she’s finally reaching out to us.
I’m not locking myself away if that’s your next suggestion.
Mia wants to work with me, and I will meet with her when she reaches out again.
” Sienna glanced around the room at her family before settling on John with determined eyes.
He was awed by her. She was an amazing female. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried what all this could mean for her, the clan, and the curse.
Hours later John paced his small cabin. There was so much swirling around in his head right now that sleep was not an option. He was used to being the one constantly caught between the crosshairs. It was his destiny, and he would face it. But what he couldn’t face was Sienna being at risk.
What was it about her that set off all his protective instincts? Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time his dragon bothered to show himself, and since he met Sienna Simonson, the growling he suppressed whenever she was near wasn’t his alone.
The sound of a UTV had him turning toward the front window of the cabin, already knowing who it would be.
Headlights shone through the trees. Seconds later Sienna drove alone into the moonlit clearing.
She climbed out of the vehicle and headed with purpose to the small front porch.
He walked over and opened the door before she had a chance to knock.
She was wearing her Girls Rule T-shirt again with yoga pants. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun. Sienna wore her clan leader business clothes like armor. Seeing her there, unguarded and comfortable, made heat fill John’s chest.
“What are you doing here? Did you find the other storybook?”
Sienna shook her head. “No. We searched the house again and didn’t find anything.
Marcus swept all our cars and didn’t find any bugs.
So Mia has to be tracking us another way.
Jonas is going to put in some safeguards on our phones, but it won’t stop everything.
” She stepped inside. “I couldn’t sleep. ”
“So you decided to come here?”
“I decided to take a ride. I saw that your lights were still on, so I stopped.” She walked to the center of the room. “You didn’t have much to say earlier about the whole Mia episode except to question Ryan.”
He shrugged like it wasn’t a big thing even though it had been to him at the time. “I thought it needed to be asked.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Ryan was doing his job.”
He wanted to tell her that if Ryan was doing his job Mia wouldn’t have gotten close to her, but instead he swallowed it all down and said, “It doesn’t hurt to add more precautions now that Mia has resurfaced. You need to take this seriously.”
She crossed her arms. “I am taking it seriously.”
“Except you’re out here on your own at night.” And why exactly did he think he could question her? It wasn’t like he had the right to. He wasn’t her friend. He wasn’t sure what he was when it came to Sienna.
She frowned. “We’re on clan property. Marcus has doubled the guards. If I can’t walk our land, then I might as well give up.”
“And that’s not who you are.”
Her eyes flared. “Precisely.”
He stepped closer to her. “You are too stubborn for your own good.”
Laughter burst out of her. “Says the most stubborn person on the planet.”
“What about Tessa?” he countered. Damn. Was he teasing her right now?
Her eyes danced. “Okay, the second most stubborn person on the planet.”
“I wouldn’t dare take that crown away from her,” he said as he reached up and pushed a piece of hair that had come loose from her bun behind her ear. What the hell was he doing?
Her shocked expression told him she was thinking the same thing. He backed away. “Why do you think Mia is so sure your family has another book?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe because our great-grandmother wrote them? My mother told us part of the story. So she was either told the stories or the books were passed down to her.” Sienna’s eyes widened and her face paled.
He took a step toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“John. If my mother had something important that was handed down from her family, she would have kept it in a special place.”
His heart sped up. “The cabin.”
“Yes! We’ve never searched here.”
“Where do you want to start?” he asked.
She looked around the room before responding. “The bookshelves make the most sense, don’t you think?”
He nodded. The bookshelves along the wall were made of several longer shelves and also shelves with horizontal braces in the middle that created square cubbyholes.
Sienna started at one end and John the other as they methodically removed the books and various items from each shelf and cubbyhole before returning it and moving on to the next.
As each area returned nothing, Sienna’s enthusiasm ebbed.
When they reached the last shelf, her shoulders drooped.
“Don’t give up yet. We have plenty more to check.” John walked over to the sewing machine. “What about here?”
Sienna sat in the chair in front of the antique sewing table. “There isn’t much here to look at.”
“I think this is one of the folding tables that you can store the machine inside. Let’s see if we can move it. Maybe there’s a storage area beneath it.”
Sienna reached around the back. “There is some sort of lever back here.” She moved it and the machine started to tilt down. She peeked in the space. “I think I see something.”
“Here, let me hold the machine while you see if you can reach it.”
It took some maneuvering, but Sienna was able to pull out the thin leather book. Her hands shook as she held it up. “Oh my God.”
John righted the sewing machine, and they stared at each other in silence. She opened the book and read the inside cover. “It’s the same handwriting, and Margaret Collins’s name is here too.”
John led her over to the couch since she didn’t look too stable, and she dropped down, holding the book against her chest. “I can’t believe this has been here all along.” She opened the book again and flipped to the front of the story. “Are you ready to hear what happens next?”
“You don’t want to let everyone know you found it?”
“I’m not waking up the entire house tonight. I’ll show them first thing in the morning.”
“Then by all means, start reading.”
She smiled at him, and he felt a catch in his chest. He would do anything to keep that smile on her face. Anything.