Chapter 4
four
Despite Goldie’s assurances that the new addition to Fayne’s backyard was an obstacle course for training, to me, it was a mishmash of every piece of playground equipment known to mankind.
Or dragonkind. Even the fort at the kids’ park wasn’t this big.
Rían had gone all out, and I had a sneaking suspicion as to why.
To start with, the playhouse was big enough to hold a half dozen kids. Three swings, monkey bars, a net for climbing, two slides, a rope ladder. Oh. And a fireman’s pole. Even an old tire wider than I was tall.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Fayne offered me a glass of sweet tea. “Took Rían ages to piece it all together.”
“He did this alone?” I whipped my head toward her. “Why didn’t he ask for help?”
“Liam pitched in, and I did too, but Rían enjoys tinkering. Mindless tasks help him unwind.”
“This was a mindless task?” I tipped my head back to see Goldie raising a pirate flag I hadn’t noticed yet. The skull atop the crossbones was dragon, not human. A cute touch. “Instructions for these things might as well be written in an ancient language requiring a Rosetta Stone to translate.”
“If I’d had a Rosetta Stone, I would have smashed parts A, E, and Q to splinters with it.”
Whirling around, I found Rían standing behind me with a towel draped around his shoulders. “Hey.”
“Hey back.” He mopped his face dry. “What do you think?”
“That, like most things Walsh related, this was a multilevel scheme.” I gravitated to his side, checking to be sure Goldie was still engaged before asking, “Does she have trouble making friends?”
A knowing smile tipped Fayne’s lips, but she deferred to Rían, who simply nodded once.
“Being the alpha’s kid is tough.” I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched Goldie swinging by herself. “Being the magnus’s kid sister probably isn’t all that different.”
Unsure when I had gotten close enough for my arm to brush his, I didn’t move away.
Neither did he.
“Pressure from parents to play nice with her so I’ll show them favor,” he murmured. “Jealousy when she gets preferential treatment, even though she earns the privileges through high grades, volunteer work, and extracurriculars.”
A determined grunt from the monkey bars prompted Fayne to go supervise Goldie, leaving Rían and me alone. Coincidence, I was sure. Pfft. Yeah, right. Walshes were a sneaky bunch.
“Goldie volunteers?” I gasped for dramatic effect. “For free?”
“Free might not be the right word. She tends to get permission to keep leftover supplies, decorations, or food items. Depending on the activity. Then she recycles them for her own use later with a few tweaks.”
“Do you think she would take me on as an apprentice?”
I was only half joking, but I didn’t get to hear Rían’s answer because Sloane burst into the backyard with us. Liam was right on her heels, his expression grim.
Dread bloomed in my stomach, a certainty they had come to deliver the results of the challenge.
I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t hide anymore.
I had to face the hard truths. That included learning the man I had believed was my father might have lost. And, as confident as Mercer sounded when he told me his plan, I knew he wouldn’t risk his new position by allowing Carmichael to live.
“Sorry I bailed earlier.” Sloane gripped my shoulder. “I had to check out a hunch.”
“I had Jess, so it’s fine.” I studied her. “It’s not like our timeline for reopening is set in stone either.”
“You also had Seamus, who will be in charge of my training as an enforcer starting next week, but he was chilling outside to monitor the situation until I got back.”
Though currently acting as my bodyguard—and, depending on what breed I became, she might get stuck in that role forever—she was also required to have a formal rank and title within the clan.
I had expected her to get tapped as an enforcer, but Liam enjoyed yanking her chain enough his nomination could have ranged anywhere from sanitation worker to daycare center teacher.
Ignoring the pang that she hadn’t told me about the appointment sooner, I focused on the problem at hand. “Why would I need him when I had Jess?”
“She lied about where she was and what she was doing.”
Trust in Sloane trumped any defense I might have mounted for Jess. “What do you mean?”
“The restaurant she mentioned is human owned, and it’s closed until next week.
She couldn’t have been there. The container she brought in with her?
Those weren’t leftovers. I don’t know if she fished it out of the trash or had it with her, but it was full of pebbles like the kind used in landscaping or for drainage. ”
“Maybe she’s secretly a rockhound and didn’t want anyone to know?
” People who collected rocks didn’t stop at what they found in nature.
Any cool shapes or colors were fair game, no matter their origin.
Even if that meant pocketing a neighbor’s landscaping material.
“Hold on.” I was missing something. “Why did you open the lid?”
“Steaks don’t rattle.” She heaved a sigh. “I sniffed the lid and smelled dirt, so I took a peek.”
Hand to my forehead, I rubbed away a headache. “And a box of rocks sent you running to Liam?”
Flicking a wrist in his direction, she dismissed him. “That’s beside the point.”
“There are a lot of besides in this conversation but very little point.” I lowered my arm. “Speak plainly.”
“A few days ago, I caught her coming out from under GSG. The crawl space. She had a box then too.”
“This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“I asked what she was doing, obviously, and she claimed she’d heard scratching under the floor and wanted to make sure there weren’t more goblins in sink drains or whatever.
” She stuck up a finger. “The box, she claimed, held her leftovers from lunch. She planned on using them to lure out whatever was under there.”
Not a bad plan. The goblins—er, kittens—would have come running had there been any more. “Okay…”
“As soon as I realized the box from today was a fake, I got to thinking about it and decided to investigate where I had seen her. We know someone is passing information to the Sartoris about the Walshes, and I can’t think of a better place to spy on you than GSG now that you don’t live at home.”
“She volunteers, though.” I couldn’t picture someone so timid working for the opposition. “She’s always hanging around the clinic. She wouldn’t have to hide under the house to listen in when she’s right there with us.”
“That’s why we’re going to snoop around and see what she’s been doing.”
“You’re a better judge of character than I am,” I conceded, still unsettled, “so I trust your gut.”
With Sloane angling me away from Rían, I had almost forgotten he was there, he had gone so quiet.
“What do you think?” I twisted to invite him into the conversation. “You know her best.”
“Jess is a good person, but even good people make mistakes.” His forehead pinched.
“I’m not willing to risk you, Ana. She passed a background screening before I recruited her to come to Brentwood, but I’ll have Liam dig deeper into her past. With your life on the line, we can’t afford any surprises. ”
“I should head back to GSG before it gets dark.” Sloane was already eyeing the door. “I’ll grab some flashlights from the potting shed, and I’ll bring my phone to record what I find.”
“You’re going in alone?” I gripped her arm. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“If she’s working for Sartori,” Rían weighed in, “she might have set traps to protect her secrets.”
“I’ll go with you.” I dusted off my hands. “Problem solved.”
“No,” Rían and Sloane forbade me in unison.
From day one, Rían had taken pains to let me make my own choices.
Even when it meant he ground his jaw until his teeth cried for mercy or clenched his fingers until his knuckles popped, he let me choose.
As soon as the thought surfaced, I was reminded how he told me he didn’t let me do anything.
I was my own person with a right to my own decisions.
But that wasn’t the only thing he told me that stuck.
He warned me it was getting harder for him not to protect me at all costs.
This was proof his control was slipping, that his primal urges were harder to dismiss.
I read apology in his eyes, and his lips had sealed shut with regret for ever having opened.
The evidence of his remorse was more than enough to soothe any sting from his rebuke.
It was nice. Him caring about me. I didn’t hate it.
“Fine.” I bent so that he wouldn’t have to break. “I’ll guard the entry point while you two go in.”
Because I had no doubt that was Rían’s plan. He would want to see for himself if he had been betrayed.
“Nice try.” Liam chuckled behind us. “Neither of you are going anywhere near a potential hot spot.”
Eyebrows rising, I faced him. “Does that mean you’re going in?”
“Obviously.” He jabbed a finger at Rían and then me. “You two can stand on the sidewalk in front of GSG and watch from there.”
“Wow.” I widened my eyes. “You mean we don’t have to cross the street and wait there instead?”
“You’re right.” He appeared to consider it. “That’s a much wiser course of action.”
“We need to verify Jess’s whereabouts first.” Sloane rubbed her hands together. “I’ll shift and hunt her down.” She smiled at Liam, with teeth. “Since Lizard Lips here is too big and slow to be of any real use.”
A growl rumbled through his chest as she swooped in to hug me.
Surprise radiating through me, I withdrew to stare down at her. “What was that for?”
“For not telling you about the enforcer gig sooner. You looked as surprised as I felt when Seamus met up with me this morning. He’s the one who told me about the appointment. I figured you and me could talk about it over dinner, but it didn’t work out that way.” She hesitated. “We good?”
Yanking her in for another hug, I squeezed her hard. “Always.”