22. Roman Osprey
Roman Osprey
Scarlet tightens her fingers around ours while the second camera feed flickers across my phone. Rain. Black trees. Two pale points low beside the water path. Then nothing.
The eyes vanish between palmettos and cypress knees before the camera catches enough detail to tell us whether we’re looking at a person, an animal, or the swamp making excellent use of bad lighting.
“Do we follow?” Scarlet asks. Her voice stays steady, but the rest of her is running on wrecked pride and fumes.
Damp velvet clings to one shoulder. Her skirt is wet at the hem, bright fabric darkened where it brushes her boots.
Her auburn hair hangs in tangled waves around her face, carrying rain and the soft disorder left by both our hands.
She is also standing with the carefulness of someone whose body has started sending invoices for the evening.
Wes’s thumb moves over her knuckles. “No.”
She turns toward him. “No?”
“Could be bait. Could be wildlife. Could be someone who knows exactly how little that camera sees from this angle.” He scans the water-side path and the tree line. “We preserve what’s here and go inside.”
Scarlet’s mouth tightens, but she doesn’t pull her hand away.
She looks at the evidence and then toward the dark path. “Whoever came back wanted us looking in two directions.”
Wes and I cover the remaining damaged flower bed with a plastic evidence sheet, weighing the corners down with stones from the path. We don’t linger. The yard feels watched, and Scarlet is swaying in a way she would stab me for noting aloud.
Inside, warm lamplight gathers around us.
The house still carries what happened before the alarms. The quilt lies twisted near the couch arm. A pasta bowl waits half-finished on the coffee table. The record turns softly at the end of its side, the needle whispering through the same tired circle.
Our scents remain everywhere. The room feels lived-in now, not because we have earned the right to call it ours but because she chose to let us leave traces.
Scarlet kicks off her boots and winces when her wet skirt brushes her legs. “If either of you says rest, I’m walking into the swamp on principle.”
“You’re safe,” I say. “I was going to say dry socks.”
She gives me a suspicious look. “That was slick.”
“I’m beloved for my subtlety.”
“You’re tolerated for your face.”
“Still counts.”
Wes locks the door and checks the camera feed again. He hasn’t settled since the first alert. Protective instinct moves beneath every measured glance toward the windows and every deliberate refusal to pick Scarlet up before she asks.
I understand the urge. After tonight, my own instincts want to pull her beneath every quilt she owns, put Wes at her back, and make sure nothing touches her unless she reaches first.
I grab a towel from the laundry basket near the hall and toss it to her. “Hair first. Socks second. Then you can glare at evidence from a seated position.”
“I miss when you were charming.”
“No, you don’t.”
Scarlet wraps the towel around her hair with one hand while the other grips the back of the couch. Wes shifts forward. I give him a look. He stops, but only because she is still upright.
Wes comes to stand beside the evidence wall, rain still caught in his dark hair.
“We need to test the bundle left here to see if there is overlap. For now, Pepper’s message lets us know the dock sample is more concentrated than her broader marsh collections.
That still doesn’t establish a shared source, but maybe it will help us narrow in. ”
Scarlet studies the sealed plant material on the table. “What about the flowers near the fountain?”
“Without a sample, we can’t compare,” I say.
Her brows furrow, and her expression falls. “Protection bundles.”
I glance at her. “What about them?”
“People are buying them because the Love Stone is gone.” She presses the towel against one side of her hair.
“Earl sells harmless ones. Festival vendors sell prettier versions. They’re familiar, trusted, and people carry them straight into their homes.
If the plant material can carry residue, the bundles need to be checked. ”
The reasoning is sound.
Wes reaches for his notebook. “We should verify suppliers and test samples tomorrow.”
Scarlet gives a faint nod. She blinks slowly. Once. Twice. Her hand tightens on the couch until her knuckles pale.
“Little menace,” I say softly.
“I’m listening.”
“You’re about to fold.”
“I’m literally standing.”
“Technically.”
She opens her mouth. Whatever line she reaches for disappears before it arrives.
Wes crosses the space between them, careful and close without trapping her. “Can I carry you?”
Her green eyes lift toward him, glossy with exhaustion. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“That’s a terrible argument.”
“It wasn’t an argument.”
She looks at him for another breath. Then at me. In her eyes is fatigue. She looks like an omega at war with herself.
She nods.
Wes lifts her with one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back. Scarlet settles against his chest, her cheek turning into his cedar. One hand curls loosely in his shirt. I gather her phone, her glass of water, and the quilt from the couch.
Her bedroom sits at the end of the narrow hall upstairs. Water whispers over the old shingles. The room smells like dried rosemary, cotton, paper, and wildflowers. A small lamp glows beside stacked notebooks and another tarot deck that looks smug enough to have predicted the entire evening.
Wes lays her down carefully.
Scarlet’s skirt fans across the quilt before she pulls one knee up and pauses.
“Sore?” I ask.
She squints at me. “You sound pleased.”
“I’m asking medically.”
“You have never sounded medical in your life.”
Wes kneels to unfasten her skirt. “It needs to come off before you sleep.”
Scarlet looks down at him. Her scent warms despite her exhaustion. Then she sighs. “Fine.”
He slides the wet fabric down her legs. I hand her a soft sleep shirt from the chair. She takes off her top and pulls the sleepshirt on while Wes folds the skirt over the chair in the corner.
I set the water on the nightstand and spread the quilt over her.
Scarlet curls onto her side, then looks at us. “Where are you sleeping?”
“Wherever you want us,” I say.
Her eyes move toward the bedroom door, then back. “You said I could choose.”
“Yes.”
“Stay.” The word is quiet but not uncertain.
Wes removes his wet jacket and sets it over the chair. “Bed or floor?”
She studies the space behind her, then the open side of the mattress. “Bed.”
Wes takes the place behind her while I settle on the other side.
The mattress is narrow enough that our knees overlap beneath the quilt.
Scarlet turns toward me, then reaches back until her hand finds Wes’s wrist. He lays his arm across her waist. I slide one hand beneath the pillow near her face.
She closes the distance until her forehead rests against my chest.
Her body releases a long breath, and the room softens around it.
Wes’s alpha purr begins low, no longer the controlled frequency he uses on frightened strangers in the field.
This one carries fatigue, concern, and the satisfaction of having her safely between us.
Scarlet’s shoulders loosen. A sleepy purr answers from her chest. My own beta frequency hums beneath both, quieter but steady.
Wes brushes auburn hair away from her neck. His fingers stop well below the place his teeth hovered earlier.
Scarlet notices even through exhaustion. Her hand closes more firmly around his wrist.
I press my mouth to her forehead. “Sleep.”
She makes a soft sound of protest.
“You can insult me tomorrow.”
“I’ll prepare notes.”
“I expect pages.”
Her breathing evens before she can answer.
Wes’s purr continues through the dark. Scarlet’s purr answers without waking.
I close my eyes with one hand curled lightly around hers, and the house settles around all three of us.