Page 31 of Ascendant King

“People fall, you know,” Joel called back. “My cousin was like, alawyer, you know? Like real lawyer and everything. And he got into powdering his nose, you get me? So now he’s one of those guys who spins signs on the corner. Real sad. His mom’s real embarrassed at Thanksgiving.”

“Cade.” I passed over the folder, tapping one of the companies Kaur had worked for. It was a pharmaceutical development company we’d been looking into. Declan had been spending a lot of money on different ones, but this was the only one we hadn’t been able to get any more information on.

“You think he’s connected to Leon?” Cade nodded. “The sap taking over the bathroom is what’s mysterious to me. The house istechnicallyon a ley line…”

“But?” I prompted.

“But not either of the House Bartlett ones,” Cade said.

“The poison is spreading?” I said.

Cade went over the meager information we had on our missing dealer. “It’s obvious he was experimenting with Thorn and the wolves upstairs were the results of his experiments.”

“Like the fairies,” I said, thinking of the desiccated husks we’d found. “But that means that the mystery ingredient in Thorn is the poison.”

Cade frowned at me.

“Let’s talk about it with the pack and the chemists.” The idea troubled me, more than I could articulate in a way that made sense.

By the time we got home, most people were asleep. When I tried to get Nia to call the chemists, she tapped her wrist significantly and raised an eyebrow.

“All right.” I sighed. “Yeah, it can wait. But I want them here first thing tomorrow.”

She nodded before directing Joel and Coral to put everything we’d collected in evidence into one of the house safes. When I tried to snag the file folder, she glared at me and pointed upstairs toward my bedroom.

“Fine, fine.” I held up both hands. “Mother hen.”

Then I jogged upstairs before she could kick my ass. As the beta on duty, Evelyn followed behind me and Cade, her silent footsteps saying that the tension between me and Cade had already run through the pack gossip mill. At his room, Cade paused, clearing his throat.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. I could only nod, heading to my own bedroom, Evelyn settling in a nearby chair to stand guard outside my door.

I’d taken over Declan’s bedroom, the symbolism more important than the actual room to me. My bags from the trip down south were at the foot of my bed, and everything smelled clean.

I went into the en suite bathroom and splashed water on my face, drying it with a towel as I came back into the room. Might as well get the unpacking over with.

“You took over my house and you didn’t even change the bed?” Declan asked. “Kinky, Miles. Didn’t know you were into that.”

Chapter

Ten

Ijumped, spinning to where Declan sat in the low reading chair next to his bookshelf.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice going up. “Evelyn!”

The door slammed open, and she stood framed, her eyes scanning the room. She looked straight through Declan, not even pausing on him. Her brows twitched as she squinted into corners. Finally, her gaze returned to me, puzzled. “Boss?”

She couldn’t see him. My heart rate doubled, tripled, and she had to hear it, so I forced myself to speak calmly. No one was going insane here.

“Nothing,” I said. “Did someone come in here while I was gone?”

“Yeah.” She winced guiltily. “One of the house cleaners came in. We weren’t watching carefully enough. Nia checked her out when we found her in here, but it was just a miscommunication. Pablo was supposed to be watching them, and he was…”

She gave me a significant look. I sighed. Another thing to deal with. Pablo could be an idiot, more than Joel or Samuel combined, but if he was starting to dip into product when he was supposed to be working, that was a major problem.

My eyes strayed to Declan, and whatever expression she saw on my face made her start talking fast.

“We checked her phone and her bag. If she took anything, it wasn’t with her when she left. I’m pretty sure she won’t be coming back—Nia put the fear of… well,Niainto her.” Evelyn looked around again, both eyebrows up. Declan licked his lips, but I kept my eyes on her. “You keep it pretty clean, boss. I don’t even know how you noticed.”