“…Hunting?”El whispered, her heart beginning to thrum through her chest as she stared at the small sliver of light provided by the crack of the secret door, and her mind went blank.Something told her that the hunting that they were referring to wasn't exactly the kind of hunting that she wanted to get involved with.
Chapter16
Shawn was still on edge by the time they’d reached the main house, acutely aware of the fact that there were two far more seasoned shifters moving behind him, and while one of them didn't seem to care very much about what he had done, the other, far older and far wiser lion, looked at him with nothing but pure hatred in his eyes, making it clear what Shawn currently found himself in was far from a favorable one, considering the fact that if he had to guess, he would say that Trip would choose Marcus's side over his any day, considering the fact that Trip and Marcus had been together longer, and knew each other better, not to mention, Marcus was far better at talking to people and convincing them when it came down to it.
And once they finally met up with Ryan?Shawn shuddered to think of what his future looked like, knowing that at the end of the day, Ryan would choose his pride over everything else and that, as a result of that, he would likely tear the other man's throat out for what he had done when he was younger.His only hope was to not fuck this up and somehow have some sort of great triumph that would trump all of his previous mistakes.
And even then, he wasn't exactly sure that anyone would believe said triumph, considering the fact that he had made the harebrained mistake of sleeping with Annabel of all people, who, it was clear, was a hunter, to say the least.
And, looking at the flags that hung outside of her house?A hunter who came from one of the largest hunting families in the world.
And the best.
Drew.
He should have known from the second that she said that her last name was Drew.Was there any family more famous than the Drews?They were practically hunting royalty, born and bred to take the world by storm.Even as he was in training, considering taking his vow and becoming a hunter, he had heard whispers of the Drews, of their seven beautiful daughters, and of the dangers they posed.
From the moment that those women had been born, they had been raised to be killers.But more than killers, they had been raised to be wives and mothers, perhaps one of the most dangerous things that one could be in this world.Shawn should have known what Annabel was from his first few interactions with her.He should have been able to read through all the perfection, all of the beauty, and the glint in her eyes.He should have known that she was danger incarnate.
How long had he sat there unaware?How long had he shared a bed with that woman, somehow not knowing that the whole time he was there, she undoubtedly knew who he was-- God, was she trying to lure him back into the hunter way of life at that moment?To make him into a second-rate hunter so that he would join her family?He considered the notion, knowing that hunters often communicated to each other about failed hunter graduates.
For many years of his life, Shawn had had a bounty out on his head, the secrets of the hunter life being something that wasn't exactly supposed to get out.But, after he was done with the military and after he was done with that life, he slowly shed his skin, disregarding the identity that he had given to the hunters—a fake one that he had come up with in the middle of the night for his own safety—and carrying on with his life, acting as none of it had even happened.
So long as he never encountered another hunter who was high up in the system, he wouldn't be in danger.None of them would have a picture of his face if they weren't from one of the upper hunting families.But, unfortunately, Annabel was.
Unfortunately, it was Annabel's house that he was entering at that moment, and Annabel was the woman that he would most definitely have to face.
When Destiny was older, this would be one of the first lessons that he would teach her-- Not how to disarm a security system using a universal code in brute force and then you could slip in through the back door of a highly armed house without being detected, swearing under your breath as the alarm system went off for a single second before finally growing silent.Hopefully, Destiny wouldn't need to learn that.But he would make sure that his daughter knew that her actions had consequences and that no matter what she did, those consequences would follow her for the rest of her life.Or at least, they seem to follow him.
But dwelling never really did Shawn much good.
Shawn held his breath as the three of them finally approached the back servants’ door to the main house, the one that Annabel insisted all the maids and low-ranking employees filed in and out of every day because somewhere in the back of her mind, she pictured herself to be some sort of regency heiress or something of the sort, Shawn supposed.
The door was notably another flaw in her security that Shawn had warned her about again and again, stating that having designated side doors that kept people out of view, such as the one leading into the servants' passages, would more likely than not just give someone an invisible pathway straight into her house.After all, modeling the servants’ accommodations after her favorite historical dramas, Annabel had pretty much given any intruder a maze of different secret doors and walkways that they could pass through in order to sneak into any room in the house.Worse than that, she gave them a maze of secret doors and passageways that she herself didn't know too much about, largely because she thought it was too demeaning to enter them herself.Thus, she had left herself in danger, and yet she refused to acknowledge it when he had pointed out the security faults to her, asking him if he fancied himself to be an architect and then giving him that one look that she occasionally broke out that hinted that she wanted to have sex right then and there.
Just about everything was foreplay to Annabel.Shawn scoffed at the very memory and waved the other two men in, the three of them garnering little to no attention from any of the servants after they had entered—largely because Annabel believed in keeping her staff so strung up on edge that they never had any time to think about anything else.
That worked to their advantage.
If anyone thought anything of the three men who entered the space, they didn’t say it.Largely because asking questions wasn’t exactly something that one could do in the home of Annabel Drew.She was of the belief that if you didn’t know something, then really that was too bad for you—figure it out soon before she replaced you.
Thus, the servants that did look in the men’s direction made little to no effort to stop them from walking on by, likely thinking that they were some newly hired help—probably because, to them, it seemed like Annabel had been recruiting a lot of new servants.The legacy hires, who had been there for a few years, were likely completely and utterly ignorant of the fact that their boss had been hiring people from her own family for the far more cozy positions.They probably complained that they had been passed up for promotions or something of the like, but none of them would have guessed that true nepotism was at play here.
Shawn snorted, passing by one of the older butlers who eyed him with jealousy and yet somehow did not recognize him—or, if they did, just assumed that he still worked there.Again, the place was really poorly managed.Poorly managed enough that Shawn could take the three other men and lead them down one of the tightly made servant’s passageways with a wave of his hands, trying not to dwell on the fact that the tight walls within the hallway, which allowed for little to no dilly-dallying, made him feel ever so slightly claustrophobic.It was easy when his mind was already racing ahead, wondering where they should go next.
Annabel’s office, that much was certain, though now that Annabel had the run of the house, he doubted that she would contain all her activities in one area.After all, she didn’t have to hide anymore.
Still, it was as good of a place as any.
“Follow me,” Shawn said as he led the two men through the walls towards the first of the two staircases they would have to ascend.“We have to go to Annabel’s office first, then Joseph’s.”It was far too likely that she had already begun the process of taking over Joseph’s office as well, ever irritated by the fact that the man had been allocated more space than she was, largely on account of being the breadwinner of the family.
Now all of Annabel’s peculiarities would begin to bite her in the ass.
That was if any of the men could actually get to her office.
Trip, heading up the back of the pack, paused at the bottom of the staircase, his hand gripping the railing as he looked up with a peculiar expression on his face.“El?”He breathed, a hint of a question lingering in the back of his tone as he seemed to ask the other men if they smelled her as well.To be honest, Shawn hadn’t even thought of that.
“That's not possible,” he dismissed with a shake of his head, meeting Trip’s gaze.“The dining room is on the other side of the house,” he said, knowing that there was no way that Annabel would ever care to relocate that, largely because it was in such a central location that one could look out the window and see all of the land that they owned.Annabel had far too much pride to give that up.But still…
