Chapter 26 #2
His answer was a kiss that nearly buckled my knees, fierce and tender all at once. His arms enveloped me, creating a fortress of warmth and security I never wanted to leave. When he finally pulled back, his dark eyes glistened with tears.
“I would’ve protected you forever,” he said gruffly. “Even if they’d never been caught.”
“I know.” This methodical, careful orc would have moved the very plain itself to keep me safe. “But now we can build a life without looking over our shoulders.”
The realization bloomed inside me like the prettiest sunrise: I could truly commit to this life, to this town, to this remarkable male who had stolen my heart.
For the first time in years, my future stretched out ahead of me, not a series of temporary safe houses and assumed names.
This life could be something real and permanent.
I belonged here. With Dungar, his aunt, and his brothers and their mates. In this quirky town with its tourist attractions and genuine community. The golden mark on my wrist wasn’t just a symbol of orc magic, it was a promise I could finally keep.
“Let’s finish this case, then we can celebrate properly.”
Dungar’s slow, heated smile sent warmth spiraling through my core. “I look forward to that, breela.”
The sun had fully risen by the time we reached the luminook pens, casting long shadows across the trampled grass where we’d pursued the intruder.
After we’d removed the spider web from the camera, carefully relocating the spider to a better location, Dungar and I checked each security sensor we’d installed around the perimeter.
“This one’s been moved.” He crouched beside the small device nearly hidden in the tall grass. “It’s facing the wrong direction.”
I stooped down, studying the sensor. “You’re right. It’s been turned about fifteen degrees east of where we placed it.”
“Check the others,” he said, already moving to the next one.
What we found disturbed us both. Nearly half of our carefully placed motion sensors had been disabled or repositioned, creating blind spots in our surveillance network. Someone had studied our security setup and found ways to move through our defenses undetected.
“This wasn’t a random thing,” I said, holding a sensor without a battery. “This was deliberate.”
“They’ve been watching us for days, learning our patterns, finding the weaknesses in our system.”
“We need a comprehensive security review.” I glanced toward the luminook pens where the creatures huddled together, their spines glowing. “Before they make another attempt.”
For the next several hours, we cataloged every sensor, camera, and alarm on the property. Dungar created a new map, marking compromised equipment in red, functioning systems in green. The resulting pattern showed clear paths where someone could move undetected.
“They knew exactly what they were doing,” I said, standing to stretch my back after bending over the map for too long. “This isn’t amateur work.”
“Agreed.”
As we worked our way around the perimeter, checking each piece of equipment, I noticed something white laying on the ground where the intruder had fled from the back area of the luminook pens.
I crouched, using a pen to carefully lift a tourist brochure for Lonesome Creek, the glossy surface worn and heavily creased. Some sections had been circled in red ink, specifically the luminook tour schedule.
“Do you think it belongs to the person we were chasing?” I asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Locals wouldn’t need the brochure at all.” Which meant we could be after a tourist.
They’d written on the back, Young luminooks can leave their mothers at fourteen weeks old. Not sooner or they could die.
“Someone who planned to take luminooks would want to know this,” I said.
As I shifted position, something metallic caught the morning light. Reaching carefully through the grass, I found a small pin designed like a luminook, its spines made of tiny blue crystals that caught the sunlight.
“We stock these in the gift shop,” Dungar said. “Allie designed them specifically for Lonesome Creek.”
I bagged the pin, turning it over in my fingers through the plastic. “If this belongs to our suspect, they may be engaging with the luminook experience.”
“Enough to study them carefully. But they also know enough about security to disable some of ours.”
We returned to the sheriff’s office with our new evidence, spreading it out on Dungar’s desk beside our security maps.
“They’ve been watching our surveillance patterns and adapting,” I said, pacing the length of the small office. “Every time we change our approach, they find a way around it.”
Dungar tapped his pen on the desk exactly three times before setting it down perfectly aligned with his notebook. “We need to change our strategy completely.”
“How?”
His dark eyes met mine. “We set a trap.”
I nodded, understanding what he wasn’t saying. “We let them think they know our patterns.”
“While creating new ones they won’t expect.”
“We make them come to us.”
Dungar smiled. “Exactly.”
We began sketching out our plan.