Chapter 1 #2
Without another word, he handed me a mug Goldie hadn’t doctored with the creamy, burnt topping. Our fingers brushed, and his breath hitched, his eyes dilating. I wasn’t faring much better, the way my heart kept throwing itself against my ribs.
Luckily, the awkwardness faded when I got an eyeful of what he meant.
“Ha.” I slapped a hand over my mouth too late to stop my laugh. “That girl is something else.”
A thin layer of whipped cream had been added on top of the hot chocolate and styled until it lay flat. Then Goldie had taken a stencil, placed it over the mug, and sprinkled cocoa powder to form a design.
A QR code.
The same one, I bet, from her business cards.
“I apologize for my sister.” He tipped his head back, but divine intervention was slow in coming. “Room and board are free, no strings, and you absolutely do not have to tip her.”
Clearly Goldie had taken one look at me and confirmed a sucker was born every minute, because it took restraint not to pull up my camera app in front of Rían.
“I don’t usually toot my own horn, but you deserve the warning.
Goldie is my sister, and I love her, but she is pure dragon.
She will do anything to increase the size of her hoard, which, in her case, means the money market account I opened for her last spring to stop her from sleeping under a duvet stuffed with dollar bills.
Don’t let her act trick you into thinking she rose at dawn and slaved over a hot stove to make this spread.
I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a little of everything from the bakery across town. ”
“You did this?” I swallowed through a tight throat. “For me?”
“And Sloane.” He rubbed his nape, the scar on his bottom lip tugging. “But, yeah, mostly for you.”
“Thank you.” I took a sip of cocoa, recognizing the taste as familiar, but one thing still puzzled me. “Goldie painted a tray and dressed for the occasion. How did she know your plans?”
“She has access to my account on GrubDash, the food delivery app. She probably saw a notification on her phone when I placed the order last night, and the wheels of commerce began turning in her head.”
As dangerous as it was to admire her ruthless streak, I couldn’t help wishing I was more like her.
Bold. Clever. Motivated.
“Good morning,” a rich voice poured over my shoulder, and I jumped, sloshing my drink.
“Liam,” Rían growled, steadying me, and he slid his gaze past me. “Why can’t you use the front door like a normal person?”
“Normal is boring, and the window was open.”
Careful to return the mug to the tray, I pivoted in time to watch a smaller, prettier version of Rían climb into the room with an ease that left me curious if he was the one who taught Goldie her stealthy moves.
“Are you brothers?”
The family resemblance was too strong for either of them to deny a connection, and he had called Fayne his Gran.
“Cousins,” Liam said slowly, eyeing me like I had sprouted a tail.
“Introduce yourself.” Rían smacked him upside the head. “Idiot.”
“Hey.” Liam danced out of Rían’s impressive reach. “Ana already knows me.” He prodded his scalp with two fingers, mostly as an excuse to restyle his hair. “I’ve spent more time with her than you.”
As Rían unleashed a low rumble that filled the space, I clued in to what Liam meant and stifled a gasp.
“Bowie?” I jabbed the Rían lookalike in the cheek with my finger. “This is the real you?”
For the past year, the Walsh clan spy before me had worn the face of my least favorite Sartori packmate, Bowie Ferguson.
The Walshes concealed Bowie’s death in a fatal street race so this guy could assume his identity, with help from a transformation spell woven by Fayne, and infiltrate the pack to keep tabs on my dad. And, I was sure, on me too.
This was my first look at him in his own skin, but I was too busy kicking myself in the butt to take in more than the basic details.
I wouldn’t have recognized Liam’s earthy, faint sweetness with an undercurrent of petrichor as Bowie, not without his usual wolfy musk, but I should have smelled him before he called out his greeting.
That I hadn’t, even with a breeze at his back, served as a reminder of how reckless it was to mute my senses while among strangers.
Most of the time, I dulled them to avoid overstimulation from the barking, whining, and general chaos of working with animals in close quarters.
I missed a few things that way, but I had never been allowed to rely on myself for protection, so I hadn’t seen the point in suffering eight hours a day for nothing.
But, until I made my choice, Sartori or Walsh, I couldn’t afford to miss a thing.
“Damn it.” Liam cringed up at Rían. “I’m so used to being Bowie, I forgot I was me.”
“Yeah.” Rían pinched the bridge of his slightly crooked nose. “Hence the reminder.”
“Ana, forgive me.” Liam mimed a curtsy, holding up imaginary skirts, setting a thick vein throbbing in the center of Rían’s forehead.
“I am the infamous Liam Walsh.” He peered up at me through his thick lashes.
“Little cousin to Rían, big cousin to Goldie, favorite child to Gran, and maguri of the Walsh clan.”
Huh. I figured his inflated ego and swagger were to blame on his portrayal of Bowie. Apparently not.
“Nice to officially meet you, Liam.” I couldn’t help but smile at his antics. “I see the family resemblance.”
“Yeah.” He straightened with a wink. “Everyone says I’m a hotter, smarter, cleverer version of Rían.”
A long sigh parted Rían’s lips, and he shook his head, but real tension stiffened his shoulders.
Part of me wondered how often Liam was chosen over Rían to put that dent in his self-confidence.
Rían had the title of magnus, which would make him a desirable mate, but he spoke freely about his betrothal.
No hope of a future as Mrs. Magnus would cost him points with the ladies, but not every relationship was based on duty or love or the future.
Plenty happened in the moment as a result of desire or loneliness.
And he had been alone for a long time.
So had I, for that matter.
“I meant Goldie.” I gestured toward the window, watching for Rían’s reaction from the corner of my eye. “You both strike me as agents of chaos.”
Hand scrubbing across his mouth, Rían failed at hiding his smile while Liam deflated on the spot.
Hard knocks on the front door tipped those same tempting lips into a frown. “I’ll be right back.”
Alone with Liam, I couldn’t shake the sense his appearance at my window was more than a coincidence.
“Maguri.” I found myself eager to fill the silence. “Is that the same rank as beta in a wolf pack?”
“Yes and no.” Perhaps sensing my unease, Liam used the open window as a chair and sat. “I’m second-in-command behind my cousin, but I’m also acting spymaster, a title I inherited from Gran, which is how I ended up in your neck of the woods.”
As thoroughly as she had fooled me, I could picture Fayne in the role. “Fayne is a remarkable woman.”
“You have no idea.” He linked his hands between his knees. “She raised us all…after…”
Dread carved a hollow in my stomach. “After…?”
“Our parents died.” His fingers clenched tighter. “I was already living with Gran, had been since I was ten, after my parents were killed by dragon hunters. Then my aunt and uncle…” He blew out a controlled breath. “Anyway, Rían, Goldie, and I are more like brothers and sister than cousins.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” And I was too afraid to ask for details, of learning Dad had been responsible.
“Me too,” he said sadly then drew in a fortifying breath. “What are your plans for the day?”
“Work.” I relaxed into the mundane topic, grateful for the reprieve from heavy family history I had yet to learn, let alone accept as the truth. “We’re transferring our clients to Pampered Pooches in Springvale.”
For the sake of the animals, and their owners, I preferred that they be evacuated from ground zero until Brentwood was safe for them again. As much as it felt like failure, I reminded myself the pets came first.
“We as in Rochele, Mindy, and Jess, right?”
“I haven’t asked them.” I speared him with a frown. “Sloane and I were going to handle it.”
“I would get asking then.” He tried playing it off as a joke. “You’re not allowed outside the wards.”
Ah. Here we go. The other shoe was dropping. I was only surprised impact had taken so long.
“That’s cute.” Sloane prowled in wearing nothing but a towel. “You think you can tell her what to do.”
“Ana must be kept safe.” Liam rose slowly. “We can protect her better in here than out there.”
“Careful.” A growl edged Sloane’s voice. “You’re sounding an awful lot like her father.”
All my life, I had been told where to go and what to do.
For my own good. I had been conditioned to follow orders.
From Dad or Mercer, sure, I could forgive myself the engrained habit.
But I hadn’t even pushed back against Liam.
The second he applied pressure, I shut down and just accepted the situation.
How could anyone believe I possessed the heart of a dragon when I had the spine of a wet noodle?
“I won’t cage her.”
Power swept through the room alongside the words, and I pivoted to find Rían standing in the hall.
“No one said anything about a cage.” Liam lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “But we should restrict her movements to locations within the wards, maybe put extra guards on her. Just until this blows over.”
Extra guards had a way of becoming permanent as each threat snowballed into an excuse to keep them.
I had seen that logic in play over and over until I had gone from one sentinel trailing me to a full security detail that had shadowed me right up until Bowie herded me into an SUV and drove off pack lands.
With a disgusted curl of her lip, Sloane shifted her weight until we stood shoulder to shoulder, us against the Walshes. “And here I thought you were different than the Sartoris.”
“We are different.” Rían gripped the doorframe as if holding himself back from snatching me up before I turned tail and ran from the grim future Liam had painted for me. “I am.”
Shivers tickled my spine, my breaths coming faster, and I wasn’t sure I could blame my response on fear.
“Prove it.” I was shocked to taste the dare on my tongue. “Let me go.”
“I never intended to stop you.”
“Hmm.” I slid my gaze between him and his cousin. “You sure about that?”
“That was Rochele at the door. She picked up a rental van. I know you have a mobile grooming service, but I thought nondescript might be the way to go for this mission. Jess and Mindy both volunteered to help with the transfer.” Deep grooves cut his forehead.
“And…I was hoping…you might let me join you too.”
Extra hands would be a godsend, and until I picked a side, I would be an idiot to advertise my movements with a vehicle slathered in advertisements for Gwinnett Street Groomers.
“To babysit me.”
I had owned my van turned mobile grooming salon long enough for Mercer to have bugged it a hundred times over.
It probably had enough trackers to ping from space.
A rental was a much better idea. A safer one too.
Even if it allowed Rían an extra layer of control over me by sending his people along in a vehicle he could have tagged just as easily in case I bolted at the first chance.
“No.” The glare he turned on Liam could have cut diamonds, but his voice remained soft for me.
“To spend time with you. To help you. To learn as much about your job as I can, so I know how to support you better.” His fingers flexed open, the fight draining out of him, and he turned to leave. “Maybe next time.”
With zero subtlety, Sloane elbowed me in the ribs hard enough I hissed through my teeth. “Wait.”
Every muscle, and Rían had plenty of them, locked him in place, but he didn’t glance back. “Yes?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” I returned Sloane’s jab. “If you came with me. Us. With us.”
As if the offer had stunned him, he threw out an arm to brace against the wall. The way his fingers dug into the drywall with the effort of holding his ground, crumbling dust onto his boots, did things to me.
No one had ever wanted to touch me so badly they had to restrain themselves.
And it stirred the primal heart of me, that sliver of spirit as yet unbroken, the rebellious part that bought forbidden charms off witches, until I couldn’t stop imagining Rían losing the ironclad grip on his control.
I was playing with fire, letting myself wonder how it might be to touch him, and if I wasn’t careful, I would burn up in the hungry gaze he finally leveled on me as if reading my thoughts.
“Then I’m coming too.” Liam cut between Sloane and me to join his cousin. “Meet us at GSG in fifteen.”
As soon as he shut the door, Sloane stuck out her tongue. “And I thought he was obnoxious as Bowie.”
Skin tingling from the heat in Rían’s eyes, I reeled my thoughts back on track. “Still regret letting him eat the breakroom chips?”
The last time he was on babysitting duty as Bowie, he had stolen chips from the basket where we put flavors we didn’t like, most of which were out of date by a year, but we never tossed them because it gave us the illusion of having more options.
Sloane felt guilty. I hadn’t had that problem then, and I certainly didn’t have it now.
“No.” Her lips hitched up on one side. “As a matter of fact, I might bring him a snack later.”
“The sour cream and cheddar are left over from my grand opening, if that helps.”
Preservatives aside, that bag was downright geriatric. A true relic of ancient times, for a potato anyway.
“It does indeed.” She rubbed her hands together. “I take it you’re not a Liam fan either.”
“I trust Liam less than I did Bowie, and that’s saying something.”
The Sartori mindset had settled in him, convincing him the best place for me was under his watchful eye.
“It comes from a good place,” she said, lips thin, “but it comes from a good place with your dad too.”
And, Sartori or Walsh, that was the whole problem.