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“And how do you know you can trust me?” Darragh met her eyes.

Nore stewed on her words. The Order was made of monsters. But Darragh had proven to be a worthy ally before.

“Because you’ve never shown me any reason that I can’t.” A silence followed as Darragh’s jaw worked. Nore didn’t dare say another word.

“You have a deal. If you tell a soul, including that brother of yours, the deal is off. And you’ll find out that there are fates much worse than death, Miss Ambrose. Now, get out of my car.”

Nore had a plan. It would work. She knew where the family vault was. She just had no idea how the heck to get inside it.

Eight

Quell

The look in Yagrin’s eyes when I shut the door on him still haunts me as I sit, waiting, at the dinner table. He really thinks he’s doing the right thing. Boiled potatoes, rice, and roasted meat are laid out. Every face at the table, all dozen or so of us, is tight-lipped and wide-eyed. But it’s Willam whose attention sends a shiver down my spine.

The gentle giant doesn’t say much, but he’s hard to miss. His skin is drier than leather, the plaid shirt he always wears is buttoned all the way to the tip-top, and usually a straw hat covers his head. But this evening he sits across the table, staring right at me with narrowed eyes. The top button of his shirt is undone, and an angry, circular red burn scar is on his throat. Someone passes him a plate and his broad frame rotates away to grab it. But when he hands it off, his eyes settle back on me.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Knox asks, and the events of the last half hour send goose bumps up my arms. She heard everything.

“Why did you do that?” I ask, reconsidering the glass of water in my hand. “Offer to let me stay but make him leave.”

Willam and Knox meet eyes.

“Because I know your mother,” she says, and my glass slips from my hand.

“I—”

She shakes her head. “When we’re alone.”

I’m frozen. Kedd, one of the younger men here, nudges me with an empty plate and I take it, my body and mind out of sync. My mother never mentioned anything about a safe house or anyone named Knox. Someone else passes me a tray of something and I go through the motions. Dimara, across the table, hands me a warm bowl of potatoes. A question glints in her eyes, but the scrape of Willam’s chair as he gets up from the table grabs my attention. As he passes, the scar at his neck is easier to see. Faint lines for a column, cracked in half, are as red as if they were dug right into his neck. The symbol reminds me of the coin Yagrin wore when he was after me.

“Are you a Dragun?” I blurt.

“I’m just Willam,” he says as he leaves the dining room with Knox on his heels.

My stomach gurgles but I force a bite into my mouth. I lean in and listen, my hearing senses keenly sharpened since binding with my toushana.

“I’m going to make preparations,” Knox says. “You leave by midnight.”

“Rein is almost full-term, and the twins are sick.” Willam’s voice is pinched with frustration. Knox sighs.

I don’t know how they ended up here, or how they know each other, but Willam and Knox run this house like a well-oiled machine, always in step with one another. I’ve never seen them disagree.

“This is hasty,” Willam says, and I imagine his domineering frame hovering over Knox insistently. “Yagrin isn’t stirring up trouble. He’s running from it.”

“We follow protocol,” Knox says. “Always.”

“He’s not like the rest of them. You can see the heart better than anyone, Knox. You know I’m right about this.”

“I’ll start a search for a new nest,” she says. “Midnight.”

For a moment, there is only dining room chatter, the others oblivious to the way all their lives are about to change. Then Willam blows out a heavy breath. “And the girl?”

“We’ll talk about that when she’s not eavesdropping.”

I straighten in my seat. Willam and Knox rejoin us. He looms at the edge of the dining table like a tree with heavy branches.

“After dinner, everyone will prepare their things. We begin roaming protocol tonight.” He wipes his mouth with a napkin, then leaves.