My dragon mostly paid attention to treasure, not to whether a boulder had been moved an inch. I crouched to get a better look and shifted my eyes.
Sure enough, there were markings on the ground from it being pushed out. “It almost looks like?—”
Before I could finish saying that it looked like a makeshift door, Zarek pushed past us, his expression fierce. Without a word, he braced his hands against the boulder and shoved it aside with a casual strength that made Liz’s eyes widen.
The boulder scraped across the stone floor, revealing a hole barely big enough to squeeze through. Cool air wafted from the darkness beyond.
“Zarek, wait,” I started, but he was already dropping to his knees, peering into the opening.
“Someone’s been here,” he growled, his eyes flashing. Before I could stop him, he dropped to all fours and squeezed through the hole, disappearing into the darkness.
“Zarek!” I shouted after him.
Liz stepped closer to me, her hand finding mine. “I didn’t mean to upset him.”
“It’s not your fault.” I squeezed her fingers and stared at the hole, debating whether to follow him or stay with her.
My mind raced through possibilities. Could this be connected to whoever left those pistachio shells?
We waited in tense silence until Zarek reappeared, his expression thunderous as he squeezed back through the opening. Dust covered his shoulders and chest.
“There’s an exit,” he growled. “Through a narrow crevice on the other side. Too tight for me to fit through. Couldn’t pick up any scent either.” His skin rippled with scales as he stormed past us, heading for the exit.
I watched him go, my chest tight with worry. I’d rarely seen Zarek this rattled, and that concerned me more than the breach itself. Something was seriously wrong with my quad mate.
Chapter 26
Liz
Istood in the Wings End office, still trying to make sense of what we’d discovered in the cavern. Lucan had confirmed that there was no way they would have missed another entrance.
The timing of the break-in next door seemed too coincidental, and my mind kept circling around both situations.
Lucan’s hand rested at the small of my back, a warm, steady presence as Kade shuffled through some papers on his desk and Reese perched on the edge of the desk.
“What was on the security footage from last night?” I asked, breaking the silence. “Maybe there’s a connection between what happened here and the secret tunnel.”
Kade looked up, his eyes sharp. “I went through it all last night with the sheriff and again this morning. There’s nothing.”
“Could I see it?” I persisted. “Maybe human eyes will help.”
Kade hesitated, then gave a curt nod and turned to his computer. “Sure.”
He clicked through a few folders and pulled up the security footage. The screen showed a night-vision view of the RV area, everything cast in shades of greenish gray.
We all watched in silence as the replay fast-forwarded. The neighboring trailer sat dark and motionless, just as Kade had said. Nothing moved except for the slight sway of tree branches in the breeze.
Reese suddenly reached for the mouse. “Wait, go back.” She froze the video, rewound it about thirty seconds, then slowed the playback to half speed. She leaned in close to the screen and adjusted something in the settings that brightened the image slightly.
“There.” She pointed at something near the tree line to the left of the RVs. “Did you see that?”
I squinted at the screen. At first, I didn’t notice anything unusual, but then I caught a strange ripple in the air, like heat rising from hot pavement on a summer day. It moved toward the RV before disappearing.
Reese pointed between the screen and the direction of the woods, her mouth hanging open as she struggled for words. “I... when I first came to Wings End, I saw something similar once near the trees. I dismissed it as my eyesight acting up and thought I needed to up my estrogen dosage or something.”
I studied the screen more carefully, watching as Reese replayed the strange distortion several more times. “Could something like this be another dragon?”
The sudden tension in the room was palpable. Kade and Lucan exchanged a look that spoke volumes before both said, “No,” a little too quickly.
