A spasm wracked my hand, my fingers going numb as white noise raged in my head.
My parents. I could see them. Hear them. Watch them.
Had Rían not caught the tape, it would have hit the tile floor. Maybe shattered. All those precious memories lost forever.
“Breathe.” Rían set it with the rest then gathered me against his chest. “It’s okay, Ana.”
Fisting his shirt, I burrowed against him, my heart too loud in my ears.
“I’ll put these in your bedroom, Rían.” Sloane collected everything again. “That’ll keep them safe while Ana gets used to the idea.” She paused beside me, bumping her elbow into mine. “Sound good, bestie?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, grateful to have time alone to wrap my head around this incredible gift.
No sooner than Sloane exited down the hall, did Liam stride into the kitchen wearing a grim expression.
“The drone we sent into Sartori territory was shot down fifteen minutes ago.” He let me digest that with zero apologies given for not informing me it was happening in the first place. “The challenge for alpha is going down today.” Muscle tremors feathered along his jaw. “They’ve called in a third party to witness and record the results.”
Meaning pack loyalties were split down the middle and neither side trusted the other to honor the win.
The urgency of his announcement hinted that he expected me to beg to go watch for myself, but I surprised us both when I managed, in a calm voice, to say, “Let me know who wins.”
And then I walked away, before they caught the scent of my tears and mistook the reason for them.
two
A knockon the door convinced me Rían had followed me to my room to check on me, but it was Fayne who stood waiting in the hallway wearing a tracksuit and sneakers with her hair pulled up in a ponytail.
“If you’re recruiting for a running club, I only run if something is chasing me.”
“I’m going to teach you how to summon your fire.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Unless recruitment still isn’t your thing. Then I’ll go help myself to one of those tartlets everyone’s raving about in the kitchen.”
“No.”I leapt at the excuse to get out of the house—out of my head—with both feet. “I’m in.”
With a quick change of clothes, I was about to follow Fayne into the hall when she ducked in the room and used my window as an exit instead because of course she did. Liam and Goldie had to have learned their bad habits from somewhere, and I was starting to think I had located the source.
“Hold on.” I threw on the brakes. “Where are we going? I need to let Sloane know.”
Though she was a Walsh, and therefore no longer my Sartori-issued bodyguard, she still worried about a reprisal fromCarmichael. He ought to have his hands full with the challenge I absolutely wasn’t dwelling on, but she would come unglued if she couldn’t find me when I had been home only moments earlier.
Um. Nothome. Rían’s home. Yeah. That was what I meant.
“I left a note,” Fayne assured me. “I even left it somewhere they’ll find it.”
From the smile curling her lips, I could tell this amused her, and it convinced me she often left notes filled with pertinent information where theywouldn’tbe found in order to give her plausible deniability.
Which was why I left the window open as a clue.
“Mmm-hmm.” I cut her a look. “Any reason why you didn’t tell Rían to his face?”
“You don’t need any distractions, and my grandson is a rather large one.”
“He is awfully giraffelike.”
An unladylike snort blasted out her nose, and she broke into a light jog. “I hope you tell him that.”
“I do.” I scanned my left and right, but I couldn’t pinpoint a reason for this burst of activity. “Repeatedly.”
“Good.” She checked on me over her shoulder. “He doesn’t laugh as often as he should.”
