Page 10

nine

Sloane brought oatmeal raisin cookies the size of my hands and two glasses of milk upstairs, but I was too depressed to move from where I had dropped face- first into my pillow to enjoy the treat.

Sloane, who I was learning was a nervous snacker, nibbled and gulped until I wanted to burrow under the pillow to avoid hearing her chew.

“Myrtle has to pee.”

A muffled grunt was the best I had to offer.

“She’s doing a cute little gotta go dance.”

More grunts with a grumble for spice was my answer.

“She’s squatting over your boy band rug.” She hummed. “Good choice, Myrtle. I never liked Nick either.”

Growling, I shoved onto my knees and then clambered off the bed, ready to tear into them both for ganging up on the clearly superior member of my favorite singing group from my teenage years.

Except Myrtle was curled in a ball on my ratty beanbag chair, and Sloane was smirking at me.

“Wallowing never fixed anything.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“Whatever.” I scooped Myrtle against my side, snarling at the guards flanking my door, and pounded down the stairs. I locked gazes with the sentinel on duty and bared my teeth. “Keep out of my sight.”

Usually, I was more polite, but tonight I wasn’t feeling nice.

Not when the world had cocked its leg and kicked me square in the lady bits yet again.

We took a winding path meant to give humans a safe trek through the woods, and I stuck to it until the house was lost in the trees. I waited until we hit a small creek then walked through it, muddying our scents, and hit a slope that led up to my favorite vantage point of the property.

Myrtle, who had curled her lip when she spied the great outdoors looming, insisted on being carried the whole way.

I wasn’t sure if I was impressed she was that spoiled or annoyed that I was stuck playing her chauffeur.

Either way, she didn’t otherwise complain as I lugged her up to the flat strip of rocky earth and plopped on my butt, legs dangling from the overhang.

That was, apparently, her limit. She wasn’t interested in heights or maybe it was the cuddling that did it. I let her go, and she walked to the end of her leash before sitting while Sloane joined me with a sigh.

“What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea.” I tipped my head back to admire the stars. “I loved that Brentwood wasn’t in pack territory. That alone limited the sentinels’ presence in the area. Now that’s bitten me on the butt.”

“Your aunt gave you the house,” she said slowly, considering. “And you bought the Victorian later?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure I had ever told her, but downstairs would have been humming with the news.

“The whole thing had felt like divine intervention. I turned twenty-one, got the news my mysterious aunt had left me a house in an area just far enough away from Dad I could breathe but still close enough he didn’t push back as hard as I expected since no one had formally claimed the territory, and I thought I was set. ”

“You own the house and GSG. They’re legally yours. He can’t twist your arm and force you to sell them.”

“The new pack in town—aka the Walsh situation—doesn’t want me in Brentwood. So, either I bow out gracefully and rebuild somewhere else, or Dad throws down with our new neighbors and a lot of people get hurt because I didn’t want to give up my slice of freedom.”

Magic, thick and pungent, stung my nose, and I twisted around in time to see Myrtle explode into light.

About to lunge for her, to try to save her from whatever powers were at work, the brightness flicked off like a thrown switch, leaving us to gawk at the naked elderly woman sitting where Myrtle had been.

“You see this too, right?” I blinked a few times. “I didn’t have a stress-induced stroke?”

“I don’t have long,” the woman, who must have been in her sixties, shimmered with a dull glow.

Sloane palmed the charm that would allow her to shift in a blink if required to defend me.

“Who are you?” I kept my seat to give Sloane room to maneuver. “I’ve never seen a shift like that.”

“I’m Fayne Walsh.” She rubbed at her shiny arms. “I’m not a dog, usually. That just seemed like the best way in without attracting undo attention. People can be…intimidated…by my natural form, so I wove a spell to give me an alternate animal temporarily.”

“Wove a spell? But you’re a shifter.” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Shifters can’t cast spells.”

“Casting is for witches, darling,” she demurred, “and I’m not that.”

“What do you want?” Sloane clenched her fist over her own charm. “Why not shift before now?”

“I came to give you a message, but the wards on the town would have prevented me from shifting, and I couldn’t risk it where your guardians might see anyway. That would be as good as a declaration of war. No. It was safer to come in on four legs than two.”

“What are you talking about?” She had already lost me. “What wards?”

The Sartoris worked closely with witches, Dad was a big believer in using any advantage, but wards?

“Oh, Ana.” A slight pinch of her features betrayed her distress. “Of course you didn’t know.”

Cheeks prickling from being called out on my ignorance, I couldn’t find my voice to request the message.

“And that dog…” Sloane cocked her head. “You could have been anything and chose that ?”

“Hey.” I popped her arm out of habit. “No dog shaming.”

“Forget about the damn dog and listen to me.” Fayne’s eyes flashed icy blue. “Your father is not?—”

Warmth splattered across my face as Fayne slumped forward, almost landing in my lap.

Sloane got there first, not reaching for Fayne, but knocking me down and covering my body with hers.

“Someone shot her.” I pushed on Sloane’s shoulder, desperate to reach Fayne. “Forget about me?—”

“They could have been aiming for you.” She pinned me harder. “She was across from you .”

Within seconds, growls filled the air as wolves reached us, their fur bristling with menace.

Not a minute later, a half-dozen sentinels on two legs burst into the opening, Mercer and Bowie among them.

Aiming straight for Fayne, Bowie knelt beside her, checked her pulse, and spoke into his radio. “DOA.”

Dead on arrival.

“Anie.” He left her to examine me, but Sloane didn’t budge. “Are you okay?”

A rumbling threat poured from her throat as he got close enough to touch, her protective instincts too keyed up to allow him nearer, so he kept his hands to himself.

“The blood’s not mine.” I shoved at Sloane until she let me sit upright. “Who fired that shot?”

“They could have killed Ana,” Sloane rumbled at him. “The bullet could have gone straight through.”

A sour taste rose up the back of my throat, a reminder I had never witnessed this side of pack life.

“We need to get you inside.” Mercer cuffed my upper arm in an uncompromising grip. “It’s not safe out in the open.” He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know how that woman made it onto the property, but you’re lucky one of the sentinels noticed the flash of light before she attacked you.”

“How do you know she meant me harm? She was just sitting there, talking to me.”

Sloane caught my eye and shook her head once.

Far off in the distance, a mighty roar thundered across the skies, and the earth trembled underfoot.

“What was that?” I stumbled along as he half dragged me. “It sounded like…”

Vengeance.

Like no shifter I had ever heard or seen or could name.

As soon as we cleared the woods, Dad met me on the path, scooping me into his arms in a bridal carry.

“We have to get you to the panic room.” His breath didn’t so much as hitch as he carried me at a run the whole way to the house. “The others are waiting for you before they seal themselves in.”

By the others , he meant those who couldn’t fight. He might as well have pulled out a chair for me at the kids’ table at Thanksgiving. He was going to cram me in that space with some BS speech about how I had to protect those weaker than me, but that line quit working on me after age ten.

“What’s going on?” I twisted in his arms, but I couldn’t see a thing. “What was that roar?”

A sentinel I didn’t recognize held the front door open, and Dad rushed us through. A second one waited by the stairs leading down into the basement, and Dad shoved past him to fit us both in the tight space.

“Protect the others.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Keep them calm until Mercer texts you the all-clear.”

“Sloane is coming too.” I reached over his shoulder to take her hand. “She can help me.”

Behind me, Sloane rolled her eyes, but she didn’t complain as I dragged her with me.

They expected weakness from me, so why not exploit their bias for my benefit?

The safe room was a long white rectangle built into the slab of the house and doubled as a storm shelter during tornado season.

With built-in benches, we could fit fifty people in this one, but there were others scattered across the property.

There was enough food and water for everyone, at maximum capacity, to survive for a week.

Thankfully, we had never put it to the test.

“I love you, Peanut.” Dad kissed my forehead. “Stay safe.”

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Everything will be okay.” He cupped my cheek in his large palm. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah.” I withdrew from his touch and turned away. “Happy hunting.”

The door shut with a hiss behind us, and I found myself facing more than a dozen kids, a few babies, and the elders unfortunate enough to be stuck entertaining them while the action happened without us.

The vast majority of them didn’t twitch at the blood flecking my face and clothes.

They were too used to that aspect of their shifter natures to be bothered, but I hadn’t built up a callus over my heart like them.

Back flush against the smooth wall, I slid until I was sitting and rested my forehead on my knees.

Try as I might, I kept replaying the moment when Fayne…

“Your father is not ? —”

Not what? What had she been about to tell me? Who had she been to the Walshes?

And what had unleashed the roar that left my bones vibrating?

I didn’t know, but as soon as I got out of there, I was going to find out.