“I need to do a sweep of the cabin,” he said, picking up the blood pouches and tossing them onto the bed one at a time.
“Another one?” I sat up, leaning back on the heels of my hands.
“Just a feeling,” he said and cocked his head to the side.
“Are you talking to your parents or something?” I scooched to the edge of the bed.
“You don’t hear it?” he blinked at me.
“Hear what?”
Preston’s phone rang in the distance. I opened my mouth to tell him that it was just Preston about to argue with his ex again. Only shattering glass gobbled up my words before they ever reached his ears. Pierce tackled me onto the bed, his body shielding mine from shards and slivers of glass that never fell upon us. It wasn’t the bedroom window that shattered. The noise had come from downstairs.
“Let me up!” I pressed against him. “I need to check on them!”
Pierce was up and to the door before I managed to sit up.
“And he thought he couldn’t catch us?”my wolf barked into my thoughts.
Ignoring both of my inner beasts, I sprinted out of the room and followed Pierce’s scent trail down the steps. He was already in the kitchen where Preston stood surrounded by broken window pieces by the time I arrived.
“What---” I didn’t get to finish the question before Pierce turned to me and picked me up. He mumbled something about how I had to start wearing shoes and he’d pay for whatever cute ones I wanted if that was the problem.
“Put me down!” I protested. “I’m not some toddler you can haul around all willy-nilly because we’re mates!”
Anger seared through my insides, but Pierce ignored it. He crossed the kitchen, glass crunching under the boots he never seemed to take off, even when he was asleep. He ran one hand over the kitchen table, checking for glass before sitting me down on it. I expected him to tell me to stay put as if I were a dog or something, but he kissed my forehead before turning back to Preston. I might have broken into a fit of laughter at the lookon my cousin’s face when Pierce lifted him by the hips if the situation wasn’t so eerily similar to what happened at the bar. Preston was still blinking in bemusement when Pierce sat him down next to me on the kitchen table.
“What the hell happened, Preston?!” I demanded, snatching what was left of a sandwich out of his hand.
“Hey! I was eating that!”
“It has glass in it now!” I sighed and laid it down on my other side. “What happened?”
“I was eating when something flew through the window. Glass went everywhere! It was freaking loud and---”
“I want you to both stay away from the windows,” Pierce said and then corrected himself to “all of you,” when Mori and Dad joined us in the kitchen.
“What happened? Mori glanced around.
“Careful!” Pierce and I warned at the same time before he took another step forward.
“Glass,” Dad said, wrapping an arm around Mori and taking a big step back.
“I see that but why?” Mori asked, his eyes half-closed from exhaustion.
“When will it be safe to go back to bed, Pierce?” Dad asked.
“You can take him to the living room. Actually, maybe everyone should go to the living room. I’ll do a sweep of the grounds.”
“What came through the window?” Mori yawned.
It was a good question, but Dad was already waving the three of us into the living room. Pierce slid Dad something before turning back toward the window. I opened my mouth to ask what it was, but Mori nearly tripped over an end table and Preston and I ran over to help him to the sofa. Whatever the dead man had done to him had left its mark. All magic had a cost, but this one seemed to have taken all his energy up.
Chapter Eleven
Pierce
I waited until the living room fell quiet before I rounded the counter again for a better look at the broken window. I’d already alerted Medwin over the flight link that we’d need back up. I’d woken from my very short nap irritated to my bones. Everything inside me said it was time to bare fangs and get to work but I’d put it off as irritation from Crilus ‘sneaking’ out of the bedroom. Only now, I knew I was wrong.
