Chapter 13
thirteen
Moonlight glittered across the pale sheets draping over my toes.
A dip in the mattress drew my head to one side, and I found Sloane curled in a ball next to me, just shy of touching me.
Weight on my feet had me lifting my head to discover Goldie had fallen asleep on them, her hair spilling over my shins.
Shadows twitched on my periphery, revealing Rían conked out in a chair that did its best to hold him.
He jerked in his sleep, lines carving deep furrows across his brow.
His long fingers danced where they rested on his thighs, as if he were playing a symphony in his dreams. His breathy growls, however, convinced me if I were to ask, he was more likely to admit imagining his hands wrapped around Carmichael’s throat than to confess he was a secret pianist.
“You’ve been asleep for two days,” a rough voice murmured from somewhere below me.
“Burnout?”
“Burnout.”
Twisting to peer over the edge of the mattress, I noticed Liam stretched across the floor, using his arms as a pillow. He sat up and nudged me back down with a gentle hand to my shoulder. I let him do it, not wanting to cause a scene and wake the others.
“Jess?” I swallowed a few times to wet my throat. “Rochele?”
Sloane would have been my top priority if she hadn’t been chasing rabbits in her sleep beside me.
“Jess was treated with antivenin for the cocktail of poisons in those darts, and she’s on the mend.
Sloane too.” He gestured toward her. “She escaped the urgent care center twice before I carried her here and put her in bed with you.” He sighed.
“Rochele had a concussion, but she’s fine.
” He exhaled. “She’s messed up over Mindy’s betrayal.
She’s requested permission to transfer to the pride her sister married into last year, but she’s not going anywhere until we get to the bottom of this. ”
Dread twisted my gut, but I had to know. “Mindy?”
“She didn’t make it.” He shook his head. “Hell of a thing.”
“I can’t believe—” bile burned up the back of my throat, “—I killed her.”
“What?” He gripped my shoulder. “No.” He gave me a shake. “It was a car bomb.”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see.” I hated how the room turned watery. “I couldn’t control my fire.”
“We arrived in time to see what happened with Mindy.” He angled his chin away from me, but I swore I saw a smile fighting to break free. “You burned down Harlan Wentworth’s privacy hedge and part of his neighbor’s storage building, but you missed the car.”
“Are you sure you’re not just trying to make me feel better?”
“As soon as Mindy turned the key, the bomb ignited. The timing must have made it seem like you were the one to blame, but…you missed her by a mile.” He folded in his lips. “Wentworth’s backyard butts up to the house she parked in front of. You overshot. By a lot.”
“Okay.” I shoved him off me. “You don’t have to keep rubbing it in.”
“I’m just trying to ease your guilt.” He chuckled once then sobered.
“That reminds me. I’ve been thinking about what happened at the lake with you and Rían.
I’m not an expert on mates, but it seems to me that forging an intimate connection with him via power sharing might have roused your dragon.
She might’ve been attempting to claim him.
Except mating bonds originate between dragons, not humans, and you’re not fully fledged.
Maybe she sensed her mate nearby, got greedy, and used blunt force to slam through you and into him, burning you both out in the process. ”
Hand going to my chest, I ignored the uptick in my pulse. “You think she’s that close to the surface?”
“If she wasn’t before,” he said, sucking on his teeth, “she is now.”
“Did I miss anything else while I was out?”
“No. That’s about it. You’re up to speed on everything else.” The skin around his eyes tightened as he let out a sigh. “I still can’t believe Mindy was in Sartori’s pocket this whole time.”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t known her long enough to form a solid opinion of her, but I wouldn’t have pegged her for this. “Wait.” I leveraged myself up onto my elbow. “How do you know that?”
“We searched her apartment, got our hands on her laptop. She was careful. Hid encrypted USBs in multiple locations, all with duplicate information as far as we can tell. Her primary cache was at GSG, which is likely why she made it her last stop on her way out of town. She was cleaning up after herself. We don’t have the full picture yet, but we will soon. ”
“But if she was the mole feeding Carmichael information, then who did this to her?”
“I don’t know, but I promise we’re going to find out.”
“There was a scent on the door. Wolf. Not someone Sloane or I recognized, so not Sartori.”
Beneath every packmate’s personal scent lingered proof of the bond to their alpha, and this wolf had none of the markers I had come to associate with Carmichael or the others.
“Sloane told us. We cleared the plumber, who is an ocelot as it happens. Our best tracker filed the scent and is hunting the wolf as we speak.”
A soft yawn at the foot of the bed had me zipping my lips and lying down, but I couldn’t turn off my brain for the longest time. Too many dots were connecting in my head. Carmichael going into hiding, location unknown. Mindy tying up loose ends then becoming one herself.
Lowering my lashes, I stared at the backs of my eyelids until the void sucked me under again.
A faint burning smell woke me from a dead sleep, and I stop-drop-rolled myself right out of bed.
I hit the floor with a thump that brought footsteps thundering toward me, but I was cool with lying there, one leg tangled in my sheet on the mattress while the rest of me got reacquainted with the wooden planks.
At least my hands weren’t on fire. That was a plus.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Maybe I spoke too soon.
Either a Godzilla-sized parrot had sneaked into the house, or the smoke alarm was warning of our imminent demise.
For good measure, I rechecked my hands and then my surroundings.
No smoke. No flames. No screams.
A faint knock on the doorframe prompted me to lift an arm in an imperious wave. “You may enter.”
Rían padded in barefoot, wearing jeans dusted with flour and a tee smeared with batter. “I may, huh?”
“I would stand, but as you can see, I’m all tied up at the moment.”
Hitting his knees beside me, Rían took in my position—trapped—and swung a leg over my hips.
The breath rushed from my lungs, and my heart attempted to leap up my throat and choke me. “Rían.”
He wrestled the fabric while maintaining a gap between our bodies, his jaw flexing as if the restraint pained him. An exhale parted his lips as the sheet came free, and he rolled off, sprawling beside me.
“That was harder than I thought it would be,” he said after a minute.
“I couldn’t tell,” I said dryly, and his face burst into—thankfully not literal—flames.
“Ana.” A groan ripped through him as he threw an arm across his eyes. “I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“Do gentlemen often straddle women they find bound by sheets in the floors of their spare bedrooms?” I smirked at him, grateful circulation was returning to my leg. “Asking for a friend.”
“Probably not.”
“Then it sounds to me like gentlemen are overrated.”
His faint grunt told me he wasn’t convinced, but he did lower his arm.
“I don’t want my desire,” he murmured, “to scare you.”
Delicious shivers dappled my arms. “Trust me when I say what I was feeling wasn’t fear.”
“Oh?” He wedged his elbow under him. “Tell me more.”
Metallic clatters rang out as two dueling voices spat ripe curses and one airy laugh tinkled through the air.
“Um.” I shivered as he leaned over me. “Should we be worried about that or…?”
“Nah.” Rían slid his hand behind my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. “Liam is supervising.”
“I’ll ask again.” I raised my face to his. “Should we be worried?”
Gently, Rían brushed his lips over mine. “I’m sure they’re—”
Chirp-chirp. Chirp-chirp. Chirp-chirp.
Thump. Thud. Thwack.
Chiiirp. Chiii. Ch.
Lowering his head, Rían breathed against my cheek. I raked my fingers through his hair, holding on a moment longer, but a burnt smell was tickling the back of my throat, and I couldn’t stop my cough.
“We can pick this up later.” I kissed his chin. “After we stop them from burning down the house.”
Grumbling under his breath, he pulled back and stood, reaching down to help me to my feet.
Hand in hand, we approached the kitchen with caution and found all the doors and windows thrown open.
“Ana.” Goldie barreled straight at me. “We made you pancakes.”
The plate in her hands held five black discs, and I noticed a second dish on the stove piled high too.
“They’re to commemorate your first solo fire summoning.
” Sloane turned her face into her shoulder, but I saw her smile.
“From what Liam told me, it’s an accurate representation of the ornamental hedges slain during battle.
” She almost twisted her head off her neck trying to hide her tears, but her body betrayed her as she shook with laughter.
“Your heroism will not soon be forgotten.”
“There’s bacon too.” Liam selected a charred squiggle off a greasy paper towel. “Want some?”
Nausea roiled in my stomach at the goop congealing the crispy edges, and had Goldie not been gazing at me with so much pride in her work, I might have torn a page from her book and dove out a window to avoid spending the day sucking down Pepto.
“Those pancakes look delicious.” Rían stepped up beside me. “Can I have some?”
“You’ll have to ask Ana.” Goldie linked her fingers at her navel. “They’re all for her.”
Dear God in heaven, say it ain’t so.
As Rían claimed half the stack off my plate, a twist in my chest warned I was falling for him. Fast. And not only because he was willing to suffer gastric distress with me.
“Wait.” I lifted the rest of the pancakes like a sandwich. “We’ll do it together.”
“On the count of three,” he agreed, tapping his against mine. “One. Two—”
Before I clocked his intentions, he struck out, biting down on my stack and ripping them from my hands. He threw his head back while crunching and crunching and crunching and then swallowing them with an audible gulp that left him choking black flecks onto his lips.
Unable to bear the idea of him suffering alone, I snatched his portion from his hands and shoved them in my mouth before he could stop me. Teeth grinding, I urged my aching jaw to hold out a little longer then braced for what came next. Swallowing took a few tries, but then I croaked, “Three.”
“That’s true love right there.” Sloane elbowed Liam in the ribs. “Now I kind of feel bad for paying Goldie five bucks to go along with the joke.”
Bitter char coated the inside of my mouth as I set my sights on her. “This was a joke?”
Goldie, smart girl that she was, stole my idea and beat a hasty retreat through the nearest open window, which was what I should have done as soon as I set my sights on breakfast.
“Um.” Sloane hid behind Liam. “He told me to do it.”
“You little liar.” He wrestled with her, shoving her in front of him as a shield. “It was her idea.”
Rían and I exchanged a weighted glance. Nodded. We knew what we had to do.
Busy bickering and wrestling, they didn’t notice I took a hefty stack of pancakes and left Rían the bacon. I waited until Sloane clinched Liam in a headlock, until she threw back her head in a victorious laugh, to cram every last scrap in her mouth.
Liam used the distraction to break free and lunged toward the nearest door.
Too bad for him, Rían caught him, hooked his elbow around Liam’s throat, and yanked his cousin against his chest. As soon as Liam opened his mouth to protest, Rían stuffed a dozen brittle strips of bacon in his mouth, smearing grease on his lips, then clamped his hand over his lower face, forcing him to swallow or choke.
Standing over our victims, who hit their knees to plead for orange juice, Rían and I watched them claw at their throats, moaning. As soon as they realized no help was coming, they rolled onto their backs, arms and legs twitching like dead bugs.
“Ana.” Rían extended his hand to me. “Would you care to join me for a walk?”
“That sounds lovely.” I meshed our fingers, and we left the house. “Did you have somewhere in mind?”
“The corner store.” His lips twitched in a grin. “We could buy one bottle of Pepto and bum two straws?”
“Aww.” I couldn’t hold in my laughter. “It’s like how couples share milkshakes in the movies.”
“But with more indigestion.”
“Count me in.” I leaned my head against his biceps. “Thanks for saving me.”
“You saved me right back.”
“I said I was all in, and I meant it.”
We might not be ready for the L word, and the M word was a big one too, but Rían and me? Whether our mothers wishing on a scale, fate, or simple chemistry were responsible, we fit. He was a partner I could picture investing my days with to build a better life for us and the ones we loved to enjoy.
“’Til food poisoning do us part?”
“’Til food poisoning do us part.”