I retrieved the sleek, black cell phone from my jacket pocket. Its surface was cool and unfamiliar against the heat of my palm. It was much more advanced than the one I'd had before my long sleep, but I figured it out fairly easily. Aurelia's attention to detail was a blessing I had not anticipated needing so soon. I scrolled through the contacts and found the one I needed.
"Gavin," I said when the line connected after the first ring, grateful for small mercies in moments like this.
"Chief here," came the gruff yet oddly reassuring voice, tinged with the alertness that marked his kind. The wolf shifter's senses were always primed for the hunt, or in this case, the cleanup.
"Gavin, it's Ashton Beck. There's been an incident at the Montgomery Inn." I kept my voice quiet and spoke quickly. "I need you to handle it discreetly."
"You got it. Glad to hear from you, Ashton. Has it been ten years already?" Papers rustled in the background, suggesting he was already rising to the occasion. "What's the situation?"
"Dead body in the kitchen," I said succinctly. "It's messy. There's one more thing..."
"Spit it out," he said, patience laced with urgency.
"Erin, the owner, she's human."
My gaze flickered to the basement door, concern gnawing at me.
"Understood," Gavin said with an intensity that matched my request. "We'll handle this."
"Thank you." I ended the call with a sense of finality that did little to ease the tension inside me. I slid the phone back into my jacket and raked a hand through my hair, ignoring the need to protect, claim, and shelter Erin from the storm that was undoubtedly headed our way.
Gavin Mitchell, a wolf shifter and the chief of the local police, was on his way. He would want answers as to why there were not one but two dead bodies in his town. The one laying in front of my mate and the one I’d left a bloody pulp at the shack in the forest.
Family, love, loss, redemption—these words spun a web around my heart, each one a thread in the tapestry of duty and desire that bound me to this moment, to this woman unknowingly caught in the crosshairs of a world much larger than she could have ever imagined.
She didn’t know it yet, but she held the power to end the curse that held me and my brethren in its talons.
Chapter 6
Erin
I edgedpast the lifeless body sprawled on the floor, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribcage. Ashton's voice echoed in my mind, impossibly twined with the guttural roar of the dragon that haunted my memories. It had to be the drugs, remnants of sedatives in my bloodstream, that conjured connections where there were none. I told myself this over and over, each step away from the dead man, a whispered mantra to keep the panic at bay.
And I wasn't as freaked about the dead man as I was at the idea of dragons being real.
They aren't real.
Should I be afraid of a dragon who saved my life?
He's not a dragon.
The stairs felt narrower than before, the shadows clinging like cobwebs as I made my way to Laurie's room. She sat cross-legged on her bed, lost in the music flowing out of the headphones on her head. I waved frantically to catch her attention, my motions wild and desperate. Finally, she glanced up, her eyes widening at the sight of me.
Laurie yanked the headphones down around her neck, her expression morphing into concern. "What's wrong?"
Words spilled out of me, an avalanche of fear and a condensed version of a past too perilous to dwell on for long. "Someone's dead, upstairs. It's all connected to the life I left behind. The danger, it followed me here."
She didn't question me, didn't doubt. She just stood up and took my hand. "Come on, let's go deal with this."
Together, we went up the stairs, our grip on each other tight enough to chase away the chill seeping into my bones.
The kitchen was grim and silent. A gasp shattered the quiet, a small sound of shock from Laurie as the reality of my words materialized before her eyes. We clung to each other as we skirted around the edges of death, making our way to the living room.
"Who is he?" Laurie's voice barely rose above a whisper.
"A terrible man," I said, though the lies of my old life lay heavy on my tongue. "He wanted to hurt me. That much is clear."
The wail of sirens sliced through the tension that cocooned the inn, announcing the arrival of the authorities with a promise of order. Blue and red lights filled the familiar room, an eerie dance of color that did nothing to soothe the raw edge of my nerves. Officers swarmed in, their movements precise, their faces set in grim lines as they assessed the scene before them.
