69. Dom
DOM
As soon as I lunged forward, Lady let a deep bark rip from her chest as she leapt up, grabbing the thick, ropey jute sleeve. Even through the thick pad, I could feel her teeth sinking into the guard.
I tried to rip the arm away, teaching her to adjust for the resistance of my arm. She’d gotten pretty good at keeping her grip, even in the two weeks since we brought her home.
Much to my dismay.
But I was happy to take advantage of the unseasonably warm day to keep up her training. If her slobbery ass was going to be on all of my furniture, I sure as fuck was going to get a guard dog out of it.
We’d all been trapped in the house a lot more lately. A photo from Gabe’s apartment break-in had leaked on Spyre’s surveillance network: a fuzzy picture of Kiera in my jacket, rushing away from the building.
We were a blur of motion behind Gabriel’s security team as they were photographed rushing onto the scene. But it had been enough for the AI sensors to match Kiera’s face to the thousands of images of her that Spyre had uploaded to their database.
Though, by whatever stupid luck, it didn’t manage to catch me. I’d turned to look behind us at just the right second, obscuring my face.
That was way too fucking close. Should’ve made her wear a mask.
It was too late now, though. We were on lockdown while everyone outside hunted for Kiera. And as their search began closing in on Valemont, our world shrank again.
All of us were starting to lose our minds.
“Drop it.” I growled at Lady, a word that wasn’t meant to be a release word for this kind of training. Only when she managed to grab a snack off the countertop.
Like a good girl, she kept her grip. Until I whistled her tune, which immediately unlatched her jaw from the sleeve and put her at attention in front of me.
Her eyes were a bright orange in the afternoon sun, fixed on me and my every word. Just how I liked it.
Until she heard the patio door swing open, a goofy grin taking over her face and replacing the focused scrunching of her eyebrows with hope.
Kiera padded across the lawn, bare feet on the dried out grass. “Hi, puppy.”
Lady immediately sprinted over to her, the zoomies setting in as she saw her favorite person.
Just as I had suspected, my ‘guard dog’ was more like a family pet the vast majority of the time. I’d been very clear with my housemates. No furniture. No dining room. No kitchen.
And within two hours, they’d managed to break every rule I had.
Kiera knew the power she had over me, especially after everything I’d done to hide our past from her. As soon as she slipped into bed on Lady’s first night, she patted her duvet and invited the beast up.
They’d all slept like that for two weeks now: Kiera, Leo, Spencer, and Lady all piled on the king-sized mattress. As much as I avoided thinking about them all together like that, I was surprised that Spencer and Leo fit together, let alone the hulking dog.
From the lawn, I watched Kiera get down on the ground and give her dog endless pets. And despite myself, I was glad to see her smile. Ever since her revelations, she’d been overwhelmed by flashbacks and memories, most of which she needed contextualized.
I hated doing it, reliving everything I’d let happen to her. Looking back, I would’ve sooner killed my own father and spent my life in prison if I could’ve taken the pain from her.
But it was too late now. And I had to find a way to live with that.
As much as I hated the dog on my furniture, I knew I wasn’t in a place to make demands.
Even with my best efforts to make up for it, Spencer and Kiera hadn’t let up. Their anger was still palpable in most rooms. Especially sweet Spence. I’d never known her to hold a grudge. But like Lady on the jute sleeve, she was locked in.
Kiera stood up from the grass, moving closer to me with Lady in tow.
Once we were a few feet away, the dog rolled in the grass, putting her belly up in the sun as she looked between us for more attention.
“How’s the training?” She asked.
“Good before you got here.” I nodded toward the dog, rubbing her back on the dead lawn.
I deserved the eye roll from Kiera. Of course every snarky comment I made hit deeper now, and I was trying to stop but I couldn’t seem to cage all the rage I felt.
Despite my best efforts to make it up to Spencer and Kiera, they still couldn’t quite understand how bad of a position I was in from the second they walked into my life. I wasn’t given a choice, The Oracle dictated far too much of how I interacted with them, what I could reveal and what I couldn’t.
I was done with that. No more conciliation prize for The Oracle.
Just as I was about to try and snap Lady back into training, I felt a buzz from my pocket.
I threw the sleeve to the ground and pulled my phone from my pocket, swiping on the blocked number. “Yeah?”
Through the phone, a distorted voice mumbled to me. “The Oracle will see you now. Take the pilgrimage to Delphi.”
Before I could reply, the line went dead.
I stared at my screen for a moment, tapping the hunk of metal against my hand as I met Kiera’s bright green eyes. They were so vibrant in the winter sun, the green as vivid as spring buds.
“Well?” She pushed.
Holding her gaze, I nodded. “It’s them. They’re ready for us.”