Alastor stepped back, his shadow curling around my foot. Cold but familiar. Safe.
Needing something,anything,to ground me, I reached for Kieren’s hand. When he stepped closer, I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
His fists clenched the back of my shirt. I let go abruptly, remembering the blood on my hands.
The thunder of boots hit the porch. I turned.
George.
He stormed in, his hands immediately going to my shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
He didn’t wait for an answer before taking my hands and inspecting them. With a pulse of magic, the blood vanished from my skin. I nearly sagged.
I shook my head, unsure if I was actually okay or justnot dead.
He pulled me against his wide chest, holding me tight. Hishand brushed my hair before he patted the back of Kieren’s neck.
One of the lirio gripped the man by the collar of his tattered shirt, and as he dragged him outside, Alastor’s shadows disappeared like smoke.
“The kids—” My gaze flickered to the door, broken on the floor. “They’ll be home soon.”
“We’ll question him outside,” Alastor said. The blood was gone from his hands, but his voice still pulsed with quiet rage. “I also summoned Pietro. Guards are on their way.”
I nodded, wrapping my arms around my stomach as a tremor rippled through me. “Get whatever you can out of him. I need to know if we’re safe.”
“You are now,” George said. “I’ll stay with you unless you want to go to my place.”
Unable to speak, I blinked up at him, his face going out of focus with the tears that built behind my eyes.
“If you wish to stay, I’ll guard the forest,” a female lirio told me. “Others will too, Miss Teddy. You’re not alone.” She glanced at Kieren. “Though I’d say you held your own.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “There’s . . . a man. In the hall.” I swallowed, pointing. “I killed him.” A full-body shiver wracked me.
I killed a man.
He deserved it. He would’ve killed Kieren or me. Still, someone’s life was cut short because of me.
“I’m sorry to ask,” I said. “Can someone take him out? Before the kids see. I-I can’t.”
The female lirio, whose name I hadn’t thought to ask, disappeared down the hallway and returned with the body slung over her shoulder.
Alastor stepped beside me, gripping my arms. His touch was cold but steadying. My limbs finally began to still.
“I’ll stay too,” he said quietly. “No one will harm you or your family. Not while I breathe.”
Harm was all that seemed to follow me and those I cared about.
Why here? Why now? Why me?
What did they want? Who sent them?
Would this ever stop?
This was the second time humans, my people, had tried to kill me. This time I had no dragon. No Elias. No backup. Just Kieren, and it was my responsibility to protect him.
My stomach twisted, remembering him running toward that man, unarmed and unafraid. To protect me.
