Chapter 23 #3
The thought arrives out of nowhere, and I sink to the ground, both palms flat against the cool grass.
I am happy. The realization moves through me slow as honey.
The debt is gone, the man I love is inside that house, the child I love is chasing a foam ball through the grass at my feet.
There are still problems. There will always be problems. But the weight that has been so heavy on my shoulders for two years has lifted just enough that I can feel where it used to sit.
The thought has barely formed when I realize I can’t see Ethan.
“Ethan?”
The ball rolled toward the line of pines at the edge of the lawn. The grass thins where the lawn meets the woods. He should be standing at the boundary with the ball in his hand, looking for me to throw it back to.
He isn’t.
Why isn’t he calling back?
“Ethan!”
I cross the yard at a half run, my heart climbing into my throat. The tree line resolves as I get closer. Pines and low brush, a deer trail that runs along the inside of the fence. Then I see him.
He is past the line. Five feet inside the trees, the foam ball forgotten in his hand. He is standing very still, his small head turned to face something deeper in the woods, his shoulders rigid in a posture no four-year-old wears out of curiosity.
He is standing the way a child stands when he has seen something he doesn’t understand.
“Ethan.” My voice comes out lower than I want it to. “Come here. Now.”
The sound of my voice seems to allow him to shake off the tension. He turns and runs to me. The ball drops in the grass behind him.
I catch him under the arms and lift him onto my hip and start back across the lawn in one motion, my eyes on the tree line the whole way. The dusk in the woods has gone darker. Nothing moves at the edge that I can see. Nothing crosses the boundary.
“Buddy. What were you doing in there?”
His arms come tight around my neck.
“There was a man.”
I stop walking, my blood going cold.
“What?”
“In the trees.” His mouth is at my ear, his voice small. “He was looking.”
Without missing a beat, I turn toward the house and shout for Grayson at the top of my lungs. The kitchen door is open before the second syllable has left me. Grayson is across the lawn in seconds. Derek is two steps behind him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ethan saw a man.” My arm is locked around the boy, and I cannot loosen it. “In the trees. At the line.”
Grayson’s eyes go past me to the woods, and the amber has already burned through to gold.
“Where?”
“Past the deer trail. Five feet in.”
He doesn’t wait. He’s gone, Derek with him, the two of them moving across the lawn faster than two men should be able to. They reach the tree line and don’t slow down. They go straight through into the dusk, and I can’t see them anymore.
I sit down on the back step with Ethan in my lap and hold him so tightly that he squirms.
“Miranda, my arm.”
“Sorry, buddy. Sorry.” I loosen my grip and press my mouth into his hair. “I’m sorry.”
His small hand finds the front of my shirt and twists it.
Two minutes pass. Then a third, slow enough that I count every breath he takes against my chest. The grass at the edge of the lawn rustles, and I’m on my feet. Grayson and Derek emerge from the line side by side. Grayson’s shirt has a long scratch of pine sap down the sleeve. His face is grim.
“Someone was here.” His voice is low and tight. “The ground is disturbed. But the scent’s all scrambled.”
Derek catches up behind him. “Scent neutralizer. He had to be using one. There’s no trail at all.”
I glance between the two of them. “What’s that?”
“A chemical wash.” Grayson’s eyes haven’t left the tree line. “It hides a shifter’s scent from another shifter. Most of them also flatten a human scent on the same wearer. They aren’t cheap, and they aren’t easy to get.”
Derek’s jaw tightens. “That’s how he got past the patrol. They track by scent. Mask it well enough, and a man can walk right up to the tree line.”
“So whoever it was knew what he was doing,” Grayson says harshly.
“Yes.”
Ethan’s hand fists harder in my shirt.
Grayson turns to me, and the gold has receded a little but not enough. “Inside. Both of you. Now.”
I don’t argue. Carrying Ethan in through the back door, past the abandoned dinner plates, up the stairs to his bedroom, I keep his face pressed into my shoulder so he doesn’t have to look at anything.
He clings to my neck the entire way. I get him into his pajamas with my hands steadier than they feel, brush his teeth at the small sink in his bathroom, and settle him into bed with ChuChu wedged under his chin.
“Miranda.”
“Yeah?”
“He was looking at me.”
I climb up next to him on top of the blanket and pull him into my side. “You’re never,” I murmur into his hair, “leaving my sight again, buddy. Not in this yard. Not anywhere. Do you understand me?”
He nods against my chest.
“Now go to sleep. As long as your dad is here, nobody can take you away from us.”
He just burrows into me. He doesn’t seem to understand why everyone is upset, but it’s impacting his mood as well.
I stay there until his breathing has evened out and his small fist has loosened in my shirt.
Then I ease him onto his pillow, pull the blanket up to his chin, kiss his temple, and close the door behind me with a soundless click.
I make it three steps down the hallway before voices reach me from the kitchen.
Coach has come back.
I stop on the landing and listen, my hand on the banister.
“...the boy. Is he all right?”
“He’s all right.” Grayson’s voice. “He’s in bed.”
“Vanessa?”
“Could be.” Grayson sounds grim. “She has the resources. She has the motive.”
Derek’s voice now, quieter than the other two. “Whoever it was knew enough to come prepared and knew enough to retreat the second Miranda called out.”
A long beat passes before Coach speaks again.
“Then she does not get to know any more about Miranda than she already knows. Not who she is, not what she is to you. If word reaches the Crimson Rock pack that Grayson has a fated mate who is a human, Vanessa can take it to the Council herself and force a hearing. Right now, she is fighting a custody case in a human court. If she opens that other door, we lose every option we have. Until the custody case is closed and we have a clean path to a petition, Miranda’s identity stays sealed. ”
Derek murmurs his agreement.
“Fine.” Grayson exhales. “I’ll tell her.”
“You don’t have to tell her every little thing, Wolfe.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Grayson.”
“I want a relationship built on trust, Coach. Not on hiding the things I think she can’t handle.”
My throat tightens with emotion. I round the corner into the kitchen, and three heads turn toward me at once.
Derek’s expression warms first, his mouth pulling into a small smile that he aims at me. “He settled all right?”
“He’s asleep.”
“Good.” Derek glances at Grayson. “I should be on my way.”
“You’re welcome to crash here,” Grayson offers. “Spare room’s made up.”
Derek shakes his head and pushes off the counter. “I’ll do another sweep of the perimeter before I head home. Better to know now if there’s a second set of prints somewhere we didn’t check.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Stay.” Derek lifts a hand. “Be with your mate and your son. Keep them safe. I’ve got this.”
Grayson holds his eye for a beat and then nods. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, brother.”
Derek smiles at me on his way past. His hand brushes my elbow, friendly and brief, and then he’s out the side door, and the latch clicks behind him.
Coach finishes the last of his coffee and sets the mug in the sink, and I see the look he gives Grayson on his way past, the silent reminder. He nods at me once before he goes.
The house is suddenly very quiet.
Crossing the kitchen to where Grayson is standing at the island, I press myself against his chest before he can say anything. His arms come up around me, slowly at first, then tight, his chin settling against the top of my head.
“Do you think,” I murmur into his shirt, “that man was just watching us?”
His arms tighten. “No.” His voice is low and dark and not entirely human. “I think he was waiting for a chance to take Ethan.”
I had been hoping I was wrong, but his words make my heart sink.