8. Scarlet Sage
Scarlet Sage
Morning fog hangs low over the swamp road when Wes knocks on my screen door at five thirty sharp. I open the door wearing sleep shorts, an oversized sweatshirt, and enough suspicion that it qualifies as a weapon.
“You break into women’s property before sunrise often,” I ask, “or am I getting special treatment?”
“I thought the swamp kept early hours,” he replies. His gaze moves over me once before returning to my face with irritating discipline.
He’s back in his standard uniform of irritatingly tall, dark, and handsome. The black has been swapped for a gray shirt paired with dark jeans, and his boots are wet from the marsh grass. His hair looks slightly rougher than yesterday.
Next to him, Roman looks extremely polished and delicate for someone who has arrived in a swampy marsh before six in the morning.
Wes and Roman are standing close enough that their shoulders nearly touch. Cedar and spice drift through the screen between us, carrying the settled warmth of an established pack. It makes me want to cuddle up between them.
“We checked the fountain after we left here last night,” Wes says.
That wakes my brain faster than caffeine would have.
I step onto the porch, the thick, hot air curling around my bare legs. “And?”
“The flowers are gone.”
Something small and ugly yanks on my insides at the recognition that we lost the only possible lead.
“Town maintenance says they clean offerings every night,” Wes says. “Except nobody remembers throwing out swamp lilies.”
Roman moves forward, carrying a cardboard drink tray and a paper sack from Sweet Tooth. “Good morning,” he says. “How did you sleep?”
My gaze flicks to Wes. “The jacket helped.”
“You say that like it’s a problem.”
I take the iced coffee anyway. Honey drizzle, extra cream, and caramel syrup, exactly the color of a bad decision I’m going to make regardless. “You bribed Honey.”
“She seemed delighted by the opportunity.”
“She likes anyone willing to eat enough sugar to die respectably.”
Roman holds out a wrapped breakfast sandwich. “She also said you forget to eat when you’re researching.”
“I eat.”
“Powdered donuts are your go-to dinner, according to Junie.”
“That woman treats privacy like it insulted her.”
Wes watches the exchange with the same unreadable expression he’s worn since he arrived in town, but there’s a rough edge underneath it this morning.
Fatigue, maybe. Or the irritation of someone who woke up early with more questions than answers.
Beneath that sits the focused satisfaction of an alpha watching his omega accept food from his pack mate.
The thought appears without permission, and I remind myself I’m not his omega. My scent warms anyway.
“Tell me about the lilies,” Wes says. “They grow around town?”
I lean against the porch railing. Cypress trees sway beyond the yard, their roots disappearing into black water and long grass silvered by dawn.
“They don’t grow near the square naturally. Not anymore.”
Roman shifts. “Meaning?”
“Swamp lilies need standing marsh water and shade coverage. The town drained most of the old growth areas when they expanded the festival district.” I unwrap the sandwich and take a meaningful bite. No one needs to know I skipped dinner entirely after getting caught up reviewing my notes.
The salty ham and spicy-pepper jelly stacked between thick honey cornbread make the early morning bearable. Honey is trying to keep me alive through baked goods. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m grateful. After another bite, I manage to focus on the trouble standing on my porch.
“Tourists buy decorative sweetheart lilies now. Cultivated hybrids. Pretty, no history, and totally harmless.”
“But the flowers at the fountain were real,” Wes says.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
His gaze settles harder for a moment, evaluating confidence against performance.
I take another bite before his indecision about my intelligence can continue to annoy me.
Unfortunately, it works too well. There’s an involuntary easing in my chest that I’ve no intention of discussing aloud.
My instincts register the food the way they’ve been registering everything these two men bring within ten feet of me: as an offering of courting.
Roman notices, because he seems to notice everything. That’s handy professionally and inconsiderate personally. “Honey says food fixes most emotional crises,” he says with a warm smile.
“That philosophy explains a lot about the South.”
“It’s working though.” His fingers brush mine when he passes me a napkin.
The contact is light enough to be accidental. My body treats the touch like nourishment.
Wes unfolds his arms. “So if someone needed fresh swamp lilies yesterday, where would they go?”
“Old sweetheart gathering paths.” I wipe honey from my thumb with the napkin.
“The original ceremonies happened closer to the marsh edges, before the tourist areas expanded. Packs used to collect flowers and sweetheart stones directly from the water. Now they buy matching T-shirts and take pictures beside the fountain.”
Roman snorts into his coffee.
Wes stays focused on me. “Can you show us where?”
I hesitate, and not because I don’t want to.
Some of the older sites have been worse on me lately.
The wrongness presses against my sight more strongly at the older places, familiar but still too shapeless to name.
I don’t enjoy explaining that to anyone, let alone two investigators who are still deciding whether I’m a witness, the crazy swamp lady, or a suspect.
“It’s early,” I say instead.
“It’s five forty-eight.”
“Swamp creatures are still eating breakfast.”
Roman gestures toward Wes. “One of them is already on your porch.”
Wes doesn’t blink. “Get your boots.”
The command slides down my spine with far more effect than it deserves.
The old gathering path starts half a mile behind the springs.
Most tourists never see it. The newer sweetheart trail loops visitors toward the gift shops and observation docks rather than the deeper marsh, which suits the town’s purposes nicely.
It means fewer people asking what the original landscape looked like before the festival committee got to it.
The original path cuts low through cypress trees and flooded brush, narrow enough that Wes occasionally has to move branches before I walk into them.
The first time he did it, his knuckles brushed my shoulder. Casual contact shouldn’t register as dynamite. I filed that observation under the same category as everything else about this man—inconvenient, involuntary, and not something I plan to act on.
Humidity presses damp heat against my skin, while insects drone through the reeds. Roman walks behind us with his notebook tucked beneath one arm, his gaze moving constantly between the trees and the waterline.
I walk nestled between the two of them. The warmth of their pack frequency is an easy hum that fills the air. An embarrassing part of me wants to know how it would feel to belong inside the ease with them.
“This place feels older than the town,” Roman says.
“It is.”
The path narrows again. Wes reaches back without looking, his palm resting briefly against my waist to steer me around exposed roots slick with mud. My breath catches before I can stop it, and I lean toward his warmth before my judgment has time to weigh in.
His hand disappears quickly. He’s professional and controlled.
That makes it so much worse.
The heat of his palm remains through my shirt, and my scent softens toward him before I force it back.
Roman’s attention moves between us like a current. “So,” he says lightly. “How many people get brought to secret swamp ritual sites on their second morning with you?”
“This isn’t anything.”
“Technically, we fed you breakfast,” Wes says.
“Or is it bribing a possible witness?”
“God help me,” Wes mutters.
Roman’s laugh moves over my shoulders from behind.
Their combined scents settle around me as we walk, cedar in front and warm spice at my back. My body matches their pace without instruction.
The swamp opens into a shallow clearing wrapped in pale hanging moss. Water pools black and glossy beneath the trees, broken only by clusters of broad green leaves floating near the edges.
Swamp lilies.
Roman crouches near the water, examining the plants before rubbing his fingers together and bringing them to his nose. “These match the scent profile better than anything we’ve flagged so far.”
“That still doesn’t prove the flowers from the fountain connect to your compound,” I reply.
“No,” Wes says. “It doesn’t. We’ll need the lab to trace the residue and confirm.”
The answer settles me more than it should, because at least they’re thinking about this in terms of evidence rather than in convenience. That can only help me.
I move carefully toward the waterline, scanning the mud. Most people look at swamps by searching for what stands out rather than noticing what changed. A bent reed. Broken algae film. Fresh drag marks in the silt.
My next step disappears.
The mud sucks my boot down with a wet, slurping sound, and my body keeps moving while my foot stays put. “Oh, come on,” I snap, grabbing for the nearest branch.
The swamp betrays me.
Wes catches me before I hit the mud, one arm banding around my waist and the other closing around my elbow. The force spins me toward him, and for one bright, stupid second, my hands land flat against his chest.
He’s solid. Warm. A whole wall of alpha, cedar, and controlled breath.
My boot stays behind in the mud. My dignity considers joining it.
Wes’s mouth is too close, and mine parts on a breath I don’t mean to take. His brown eyes drop, just once, and the swamp does an incredibly rude thing by narrowing to the line of his mouth.
Then my lips brush his. Barely. Accidentally. It’s enough to light me on fire. Wes goes still in that dangerous alpha way that says every instinct in him has noticed, and none of them are behaving. His hand tightens at my waist. For one suspended breath, neither of us pulls away.
His cedar scent deepens around me, and my omega answers before pride can interfere. Heat unfurls low in my belly. My fingers curl into the front of his shirt, holding him instead of creating distance.
His gaze lifts to mine, asking a question he doesn’t put into words.
I should release him. Instead, I tilt my face the smallest amount.
He closes the last fraction of space.
The second touch of his mouth isn’t an accident. It’s a warm, cautious kiss, careful enough to make the restraint behind it unmistakable. That contained power makes me grip him tighter as I open my lips to let his tongue dart against mine.
Wes releases me by slow degrees, like it’s a decision he has to make more than once. His forehead nearly touches mine before he remembers where we are.
Behind us, Roman says far too softly, “That looked educational.”
I drag in air, which is a mistake because Wes is everywhere. “The swamp attempted murder.”
“The swamp missed,” Wes says, his voice rough around the edges.
Roman steps close enough for his hand to settle briefly between my shoulder blades. “You all right?” he asks.
My body softens between them with humiliating ease. “I’ve lost a boot and several layers of emotional stability.”
“That’s not a no,” Roman says.
I look at him.
Warm amusement lights his hazel eyes, but beneath it sits the same attraction I felt from him in the bakery. He’s open, interested, and clearly comfortable with what just happened between Wes and me. The recognition lands low and hot enough that I have to look away.
Wes keeps one hand at my waist until I’m steady. “Stay there.”
“That sounded bossy.”
“It was meant to.”
He steps into the shallower edge of the mud, grips the top of my abandoned boot, and pulls it free with a sucking sound that would be offensive in any context.
Roman takes the boot from him and holds it open while Wes steadies me by the hip.
Between them, they get my foot back inside without either man acting as though helping me is an inconvenience.
I purr. The sound is low enough that the swamp nearly covers it. Nearly.
Wes’s hand stills at my waist.
Roman looks up from my boot.
Heat floods my face. “No one heard that.”
Roman’s mouth curves. “Of course not.”
Wes’s thumb moves once against my side before he lets me step away.
I turn away before either of them can see how badly I want the contact back.
While trying to look everywhere but at Wes, I notice a patch where someone has been harvesting flowers. “There,” I say, pointing.
Wes appears beside me.
Footprints press deep into the mud near the thinned lilies, too large to belong to me and recent enough that the edges haven’t fully softened.
Roman joins us a moment later. “Boots.”
“Work boots,” Wes says. “Heavy tread.”
The sinking feeling in my chest returns. Whoever came here knew where to look and when to come, which means they knew the gathering site existed and that the town wouldn’t be watching it.
“Could be unrelated,” Roman says.
“Could be,” Wes agrees.
None of us believe it.
I crouch near the water, careful of the mud. A torn ribbon has caught against one of the reeds nearby. The white satin has gone brown with swamp water. I hold it up slowly.
Roman frowns. “Festival ribbon?”
“Sweetheart challenge participants wear ribbons during the spring ceremonies. The official ones are pink.”
“But this one’s white,” Wes says.
“Yes.”
“Meaning?”
I stare at the ribbon while tugging at my memory, old stories and half-remembered warnings in my grandmother’s handwriting, scrawled into her journal. The connection surfaces, faint but familiar. My grandmother used white ribbon beside several entries about old release rites and failed bonds.
“I don’t know yet,” I say, which is true and also the safest version of what I suspect.
Wes studies my face for a long moment, watching me with the discernment of someone who has learned to read the difference between I don’t know and I’m not ready to say.
Roman rises beside us, his gaze tracking deeper into the trees. “We should document the site before local gossip turns it into a tourist attraction.”
“Too late,” I say. “This town would monetize a haunting if it sold enough lemonade.”
That finally gets a laugh out of Wes. It’s low and brief, a sound that seems to surprise him as much as it surprises me.
My whole body tunes into it, along with the inconvenient truth that his mouth has been on mine. Roman’s gaze shifts to my face, and he gives me an approving smile.
For the first time, the pull toward pack doesn’t feel like deprivation reaching for relief. It feels like want. That’s considerably more dangerous than the swamp.