Chapter 16 Rider
Rider
My wolf snarled inside me as I strode down the Divine Residence’s hallway toward Sage’s suite.
Tonight was my turn to watch her, and my wolf was too damn eager.
I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to spend hours near a woman who made my wolf howl with need every time I caught her scent. But she was surrounded by people she couldn’t trust after being attacked by a bunch of assholes, and she needed someone to protect her.
That, and I knew she was stuck somewhere in the human realm, most likely a slave, and I was going to get her out.
I just had to earn her trust first since I wasn’t supposed to know about her human-realm situation.
I huffed.
Easier said than done since I didn’t do feelings and always said the worst possible thing when I was around a woman.
I’d rather face a pack of ravenous shadows than make small talk. With shadows, I knew what to do. With women…
My thoughts jumped to Isemay, my mate — my only mate. I hadn’t been an idiot around her, hadn’t felt I had to say anything if I hadn’t wanted to.
But that part of me was long dead with her, with our unborn child, with the man I thought I’d be.
My wolf heaved under my skin. It didn’t understand what the problem was. It had claimed Isemay, now it was claiming Sage, and thought my emotions in the topic were pointless. Sage was his and it protected what belonged to him.
Mine.
Not. Mine, I growled back at it as if that, somehow, could convince it against what it had already decided.
And it didn’t really matter. Not now. I had to protect Sage, and I had to earn her trust, so she’d let me save her. Even if my wolf hadn’t claimed her, I wouldn’t have been able to turn my back on her. I—
Everything within me froze, my wolf suddenly alert.
I’d reached the door to Sage’s suite, but something was wrong. Yes, the hall was empty, and I didn’t hear anything, but—
My nose twitched, catching a musky, cloying scent, and my pulse leaped, my claws surging from my fingers.
That scent—
A growl rumbled in my throat. It was one of the scents from the sacred pool after Sage had been attacked. One of the two scents I hadn’t been able to match with a person.
One of those assholes had been here, right outside her fucking door.
Everything inside me went cold. Then hot. Then murderous.
Had they gotten inside? Had they gotten to her?
West would protect her… if West wasn’t involved in the whole thing.
I lunged for the door and kicked it in, the wood exploding inward with a crack that echoed down the hall. I was through before it finished swinging, claws out, wolf surging toward the surface.
The sitting room spread before me with its intricately carved furniture, enormous marble fireplace, tapestries and heavy rugs.
No sign of Sage.
West slammed into me before I could take another step.
The knight’s massive form drove me backward, his forearm crushing into my throat as he pinned me against the doorframe beside the splintered door.
A dagger tip pressed against my gut, the blade just under the bottom of my leather armor, angled up to slice through my bowels and give me an agonizing death.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t gut you,” he hissed, his voice low, his expression deadly.
My wolf snarled, claws flexing, but I forced myself not to fight back. West wasn’t the threat right now.
“Someone,” I growled past the pressure on my throat. “Outside her door. One of the men from the pool.”
West’s arm didn’t ease. His eyes searched my face, looking for the lie.
“I can smell him,” I said. “The scent is fresh. Less than an hour.”
His gaze flicked to the ruined door behind me, then back.
I held still. My wolf wanted to lunge past him and check on Sage, determine if she’d already manifested and was being held captive in the bedroom, but I couldn’t scent the assailant past the doorway, which meant whoever it was hadn’t been in the suite.
West’s eyes narrowed, but he stepped back, his dagger still pointed at me but thankfully no longer digging into my gut.
“Show me.”
“It’s a scent.” How the hell was I supposed to show him a scent?
He quirked an eyebrow, just a flicker of movement before his face returned to its usual grim expression.
Fine. I shifted to the side, unable to completely put West at my back, and took a few quick sniffs. The assailant’s scent was strongest at the door, concentrated near the frame and the lock.
“Here.” I dropped into a crouch, pressing closer to the floor. “He stood here. Recently. Less than an hour.”
West crouched beside me, his gaze running along the wood grain, and his nostrils flared as if he, too, could scent like a wolf.
I hadn’t thought his magic went beyond physical enhancements, but maybe I was wrong and West could enhance more than just his strength, speed, and durability.
If that was the case, we needed to be careful what we said around him. If he could enhance his sense of smell, he could enhance his hearing as well.
West frowned and turned back to the suite. “Inside as well?”
Guess there was a limit to his enhancement. Either that, or he was testing me.
My wolf huffed at that. We had the keenest sense of smell in the realm. West couldn’t be better than us and only looked like a fool if he was actually testing us.
“No. The scent stops at the threshold,” I growled. “He didn’t enter.”
West stood and sheathed his dagger, but his hand jumped to the hilt of his sword.
I rose and faced him across the doorway. My throat throbbed where his arm had crushed into me, and from the hard set of his jaw, he still wanted to gut me.
The feeling was mutual.
But we had a bigger problem. One of the men who’d attacked Sage had been right outside her door. Watching. Waiting.
“I found eight scents at the sacred pool,” I said. “I told the Order about it when they interviewed me, Talon, Ash, and Quill.”
Something flickered in West’s gaze. My best guess was frustration that the Order hadn’t mentioned anything about the scents to him. But since the expression happened so fast, it was hard to tell.
“Two of the scents didn’t match the dead or the men I already recognized. This is one of them,” I finished.
His grip on his sword’s hilt tightened. “You’re certain?”
Did he think I was an inexperienced idiot?
West’s gaze jumped back to the doorway, and my wolf heaved inside me, determined, ferocious.
I didn’t trust West. I didn’t know whose side he was really on, or if he’d follow orders regardless of what was right.
But right now, he was the only ally I and the others had standing between Sage and whoever had been lurking outside her door, and there was always a chance we wouldn’t get to Sage before she manifested in the Garden.
If that happened, it was just her and West until I, Talon, or Quill could get to her.
“The door needs to be replaced,” West said, his voice a low rumble.
He stepped into the doorway and jerked his chin toward the summon stone by the fireplace, his message clear: I had to summon the servant.
I bit back a snarl. As the Lord Commander of the Black Guard, I outranked him, and I needed to protect Sage. But given how obstinate he was about his duty, I doubted he’d step away from the doorway until the door was replaced.
I stormed to the stone and activated it with a touch of my fingers. A matching stone would light up in the servants’ quarters and the servant assigned to Sage’s suite would rush up.
“So Yarrow is in charge of the investigation,” I said, turning back to him and trying not to make it obvious that I was desperately trying to read his expression.
The muscles in West’s jaw flexed and his eyes narrowed a fraction.
Best guess: he wasn’t a fan of Yarrow, either.
But was it because Yarrow was an arrogant asshole who probably liked to remind West that he wasn’t pretty like every other fae, or because he didn’t trust the Order’s investigator.
“And now one of them is bold enough to come to her door,” I said.
“He didn’t enter,” West said, his voice low.
“This time.” My wolf heaved inside me, desperate to ensure Sage’s safety even though she clearly hadn’t manifested yet.
“Whoever he is, he’s not afraid of the Order and he’s not afraid to be in the Divine Residence.
He’s either confident we won’t catch him, or he knows the investigation won’t touch him. ”
The fire popped and something flickered in West’s eyes. He’d already thought of that.
Good. I’d thought the bastard wasn’t stupid. It was nice to have proof.
Footsteps sounded down the hall and I stilled. A moment later, someone gasped and a young male servant rushed into sight, staring at the splintered door.
“The door needs to be replaced,” West rumbled.
The man, who might not have even been old enough to manifest in the Garden and was likely physically present in the Divine Residence, paled at West’s glare, wildly bobbed his head, and scurried away.
My wolf snarled and heaved inside me, desperate to take action. Except there wasn’t anything we could do. We had to wait until Sage manifested and then I needed to convince her to trust me.
The door would be fixed, eventually, and until Crane and the remaining assholes made a move, I had to wait and protect.
Fuck, I hated waiting.