I glanced at the door to Elwood’s building. It was right there, only a handful of steps away. “Um, okay.”
“How are you doing?” he asked as we walked slowly, so very slowly, toward Elwood’s little garden at the back of his property.
The sun had set now, so we were bathed in moonlight and the faint glow of a security light over Elwood’s door. The headyperfume of roses and lavender sweetened the air. A delicate plant with shimmering silver leaves and delicate white flowers, reminding me that beautiful things existed in the world. The soft burbling sound of a bird in a nearby nest filled the quiet as I searched for the right words. I considered brushing off Gideon’s question, but I decided to be honest instead.
“I think I’m still processing everything. It was a bit of a shock to find another body.” I swallowed as the image of all that blood resurfaced in my mind’s eye. I hoped that image didn’t follow me into my dreams tonight. “But it was worse for all of you. You knew Jim and Winston.”
“Ravenstone will be hurting for a long while after this. Death is never easy, but…” His words trailed off.
“Murder is worse.” I finished for him.
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Someone in our community has done this. Someone I know. It’s difficult to wrap my head around that.”
These people were all strangers to me until recently, so I hadn’t really thought about it like that. But he was right. Someone in his and Elwood’s circle had committed two brutal murders and betrayed everyone else’s trust at the same time.
Like Elwood, Gideon was a bit of a leader to these people. I could see how he might feel a sense of obligation or duty and how that might lead to unwarranted guilt over what’d happened. He was a wolf shifter, so this was a terrible analogy, but I wondered if he felt he’d invited a wolf into his henhouse.
We’d arrived at the back door while we were talking, but I didn’t reach for the doorknob. I turned to Gideon.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t imagine how difficult that is for you. Do you want to talk about it? You know this isn’t your fault, right?”
“Thanks, but I think I’m still processing, too.” Gideon averted his eyes. “Logically, I know this isn’t my fault. Az hasbeen telling me the same thing. But I can’t help thinking that if I could shift, I could’ve prevented this. I could’ve scented something at Winston’s crime scene that would have at least saved Jim.”
“I might be new to magic and everything, but even I know that isn’t true. The only one to blame for this is the murderer.”
“Or murderers. There could be two different killers.”
I grimaced. “I guess that’s true.”
“Elwood has wards around his business and his apartment,” Gideon said. “You should be safe inside.”
I considered that. “Does that mean the murderer hasn’t been inside the building? Can we rule out everyone who’d attended the meeting?”
He shook his head. “The wards would only kick in if the person intended harm.”
“So, if they weren’t thinking about murder the night of the meeting, they wouldn’t have triggered the wards.” I wondered how that worked. Did the ward yeet the person from the premises as soon as they had a murderous thought? It was something to talk to Elwood about.
Gideon sniffed the air. “I don’t think Elwood has returned yet. He’s probably still talking with Mellgren.”
“Is this your way of asking me to invite you inside?”
Gideon smiled, and instantly some of the tension that’d settled over us with all that talk of murder dissipated. “It might be too soon for that, unless you think otherwise…”
“No. You’re right.” I sighed. “Besides, it’s a little awkward to ask you upstairs to my grandfather’s place. Even if he isn’t here at the moment.”
If I stayed in Ravenstone, which I’d pretty much decided I would, I’d need to find a place of my own. Just so I could invite sexy shifters in for a nightcap without it being weird.
“Declan?”
“Yeah?”
“I want to kiss you,” Gideon said. He stepped closer. His hand came up to cup the side of my neck. My pulse quickened, and he could probably feel it thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings under his palm.
My gaze dropped to his mouth, and I licked my lips. “You’ve kissed me before without asking.”
“I’m asking now.”
I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and pulled him close.
