Familiar with the layout of the emergency clinic, unfortunately, I didn’t have to ask for directions to find Liam. I got there without missing a turn and almost bumped into Rían as he exited the room, closing the door behind him. “How is he?”
“He’s still weak, but he’ll be released later today.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m grateful you noticed the problem as soon as you did, or he might have gotten a concussion from the fall offhis stool.” He smiled. “Or not, considering his head is harder than the tilesandthe concrete pad under them.”
That smile was a dead giveaway. “You haven’t heard.”
“No.” His expression sobered. “What is it?”
“I found Sloane.” My chin dropped to my chest. “She’s unconscious.” I exhaled. “It was like Becca all over again.”
“When I saw you standing out here, I thought…” Muscles clenched in his jaw, his lips thinning. “I’m sorry I didn’t look for you sooner. I should have asked about her when I first saw you.”
“I haven’t been here long.” He must have misread my appearance outside Liam’s room to mean I hadn’t found Sloane. That if I had, I would have been haunting her instead. “They’re working on her now, and my dragon has opinions about it.” I took his hand. “I left to make the staff more comfortable.”
“Do you feel like updating me?” He glanced down the hall behind me. “I had to turn off my phone during one of the tests. I was stepping out to turn it back on and check to see if I had missed any news.”
Glad for the distraction, I broke down everything that happened from the moment I left him to when he found me in the hall as if drawn by some instinct I was there.
“Will you close Brentwood again? The poisonings shouldn’t draw human attention, but those bombs…”
“We’re doing our best to stifle news coverage on human media stations, but you’re right. News will get out as soon as a human films one to share on their socials.” He ground his teeth. “These attacks feel like they’re designed to prove I can’t keep Brentwood, or my clan, safe.”
“No one feels like that.” I slid my arms around his waist. “Everyone supports you, one hundred percent.”
“No leader has a one hundred percent approval rating.” He hugged me back. “But I hope everyone will extend me the grace to handle the situation. It will take time, but we can’tafford to be careless with our accusations. Not with so many of our neighbors loyal to the Sartoris or in limbo as they decide whether to support Mercer.”
“Have you contacted any of the other alphas? I know the plan was to wait until Carmichael had been detained to speak with Mercer, but circumstances have changed.”
“Until we can interrogate Sartori himself and determine his role in all this, we’re better off keeping our troubles to ourselves. A show of weakness on the heels of a prominent alpha being dethroned might put ideas into the heads of his former allies or anyone else eager to expand their territory.”
“Then we need to move ahead with our plan to locate him.”
“Pete is out, so we’ll need to replace him.” An idea struck me, and I made my sales pitch. “I met Dane today. I was impressed with him. I wouldn’t mind bringing him into the fold if we need a replacement for Pete. With him and Seamus watching my back, I feel certain I can handle recon without issue.”
“Dane is a good man. He’s been helping at the border where the wards were, ensuring humans’ safety. That’s why you haven’t met yet. I’m not surprised he found a way to bump into you his first day in town. He’s been curious about you.”
“I would have been curious about him too, if I had known he existed.” I slid my gaze to the door behind him. “Now I’ve got something to hold over Liam’s head the next time he bothers me.”
“He’s going to sleep over tonight. I wanted to give you a heads-up, so you wouldn’t be caught off-guard, but if the rest of the team is still up for pursuing Sartori, then it shouldn’t make a difference.” He pursed his lips. “Goldie will be his nurse, so it might be smarter to schedule your last meeting with the others at Fayne’s house. That way neither of them will be the wiser.”
“Until I hear from Burdock, I can’t say either way. I don’t want to leave Sloane, but this escalation has to stop. Our nextpoison victim might be the one who dies.” I furrowed my brow. “I was talking to Burdock earlier, and it got me thinking. The symptoms of dragonsbane poisoning are easily identifiable. Do you think it’s possible the person behind this is using it as a sort of test to identify dragons in the Walsh clan?”
There were so few dragons, no clan of this size could be comprised solely of them. With dragons hunted for so many reasons and by so many factions, our enemies—and any other greed-stricken fools—might believe they had found a treasure trove and plunder Brentwood.
“As a means of gauging our threat level or the potential payout,” he murmured, gaze distant. “You might be onto something.”
Too bad the list of interested parties, if that was the case, was longer than my arm.
“Obviously, I don’t want anyone to die, but it’s odd that no one has yet. I can’t shake that thought out of my head. I keep circling back to it, but that’s all I can figure. I don’t have anything to back it up, it’s just a theory.”
“I’ll run it past Fayne, and Liam when he’s better. We can reach out to the dragons in the clan and let them know not to eat or drink anything they don’t bring from home and to never leave their belongings unattended.” He mulled it over. “I’ll issue a clan-wide announcement too as a general guideline, in case those are being monitored by other plants like Mindy for updates. That will conceal the dragons’ behavior even more, and it’s good sense for everyone to be careful going forward.”
“Ana.”
I whipped my head toward the voice and spotted one of the nurses I recognized from Sloane’s room.
“On my way.” I released his fingers after a quick squeeze. “I’ll text you an update once I have it.”
“I’ll be here if you need me.” His expression tightened. “Give her my best.”
