She glanced over at him and smiled. “We’ll work on it together. Take a master class in jokology.”
“Sounds good.”
When she looked back again, he had closed his eyes and parted his lips. And for a split second, she pictured him in a bed somewhere, maybe in their room at C.P.’s, maybe in the clinic, his lids shut, his breathing slow, too slow.
Until it stopped altogether.
As her mind spun out over old familiar terrors, she distracted herself by thinking of the way her life had been before, her days spent counting and monitoring the wolf population on the mountain, dealing with the WSP board—which C.P. Phalen had been head of—filing for grants for money. Dealing with her boss. Working with Candy, the receptionist. There had been stress, of course, but nothing like what Daniel was going through. Things had been so much simpler then, back before her boss, Peter Wynne, had been killed… by their veterinarian. Who had been working with C.P. to test the Vita prototype on the wolf population—and prepared to betray them all.
At least until he had gone to the resort site across the valley to set an IED, so he could pretend to blow himself up and take off for parts unknown.
She and Daniel had come up on him and stopped him.
After which he had gone home and blown his own head off with a shotgun.
Between one blink and the next, Lydia remembered walking in on him.
“It’s going to be fine,” she blurted, unsure exactly what she was talking about.
“What is,” Daniel murmured.
“Everything.”
Fifteen minutes later, just as they bottomed out at the trailhead’s parking area, Daniel announced, “You know, I really am feeling better.”
“Good.” Crossing the vacant gravel square, she hit the brakes and looked both ways at the county road. “But maybe we check in with Gus anyway?”
“It’s after midnight.”
“He told us to call anytime.”
“Let’s wait a little?” He put his hand on her arm. “I swear, if I feel weird at all again, I’ll tell you. No bullshit.”
“Okay.” She forced a smile. “It’s a deal.”
As she hit the gas and got them on the rural route, he said, “What did you talk to her about? Xhex, that is. You guys were gone for a while.”
“Ah, nothing much?” She slowed down as they came into a turn, her eyes searching the shoulders for deer. “I mean, she was kind enough. I liked her. She told me to go to the mountain and I know part of my heart is always going to be there. I’m just not sure why she’s so significant.”
He cursed. “I don’t think it helped as much as I hoped.”
“You never know what comes of anything, though.” She covered his hand with her own. “I mean, I thought I was hiring a handyman and look where it led me.”
For a split second, there was a pause, but then, like he’d resolved to focus on what positives there were, Daniel smiled—and in the glow from the dashboard lights, he looked more as he had before.
“I love you,” she said.
He stretched over the console. “I love you, too.”
They kissed briefly and resettled in their separate seats, and as she refocused on the road ahead, she wrapped the normalcy of the quick contact around her like a shield.
Hold it close. Keep it close.
Beat the demons away with it.
By the time she piloted them through the gates of the Phalen estate, she was a little less worried about Daniel—although it was still a relief to pull up to the mansion’s porte cochere, walk him directly back to their bedroom, and lay him out on their bed. The way his eyes closed so quickly caused a ripple of worry, but it was nothing compared to how she’d felt as she’d come around the back of the SUV to find him slumped and holding his head.
“I’m going to go park the SUV in the garage.”
“Okay,” he murmured as he curled on his side and tucked his arm under his head. “Take your time.”
As he repositioned his cap, she leaned down and tugged it a little more into place. “I won’t be long.”
Lydia left their bedroom and had her phone in her hand even before she closed their door behind herself. But she waited to make the call until she was out in the grand foyer—
A soft chiming sound stopped her, and as it came again, in a precise rhythm to what was being piped into her ear, she pivoted around and looked up the stairs.
“Speak of the doctor,” she said as she lowered her iPhone.
Gus didn’t seem to hear her, but just as she was going to say his name, he paused in his descent and glanced down. “Oh. Hey.”
He seemed to have no clue his phone was ringing, so she held up her own. “I was just calling you.”
“You were?” He took out his cell and frowned at the screen. “Oh, so you are. Sorry.”
What was he doing upstairs, she wondered.
“Everything okay?” he asked as he continued down and stepped off the last step. “How are we doing?”
Lydia breathed in through her nose, and the subtle scent rolling off the man was a shock. If she’d been a human, she wouldn’t have caught it. But as a wolven, even in her biped form, she sure as hell did.
Gus had spent some time in very close proximity to C.P. Phalen.
“Lydia?”
“Oh, ah, sorry. Daniel has a headache. Is there any way you could—”
“Pay him a little visit without it looking like I’m doing anything?” Gus put a friendly arm around her shoulders and started walking in the direction of her bedroom. “There’s nothing I’d like to do more. Good thing I’m on call tonight, huh.”
He was so casual and relaxed… that she wondered if maybe there was a professional reason he’d been up on the second floor and smelled like the perfume C.P. always wore.
Either way, it was none of her business—and God knew she had enough on her plate.
“Yes,” she murmured. “It’s a very good thing.”
TWENTY-THREE
THERE WERE TOO many reasons to count, really.
Why Blade shouldn’t be here, that was.
This was what he told himself as he stood draped in darkness outside of a home that was a modern castle. The sprawling structure was stone and quite horizontal, only two, or perhaps in places three, stories high. Interestingly, there was no seeing into the interior. Between the security lights that glowed and some kind of covering on the windows, it was clear that both privacy and fortification efforts had been taken quite seriously.
An SUV was parked under an extensive overhang by the front entrance, and the passenger’s side door had been left open—as one would do if one were helping an infirmed into the house. Further, the vehicle was at a cockeyed angle, as if ensuring a proper angle had been the last thing on the operator’s mind.
So the wolven was going to come back, either to shut the heavy panel or to move the SUV somewhere else.
He imagined the wolven helping Daniel Joseph up the modest number of steps to the grand portal—would she have to wait for the door to be opened by a security detail, or would they have greeted her upon arrival? And once inside, where did she go?
Exhaling, Blade looked up to the sky and then he glanced around the estate. There was a detached garage set to the right, and he was willing to bet there was an underground tunnel connecting the chick to the hen beneath the parking square. Behind the mansion, a field. Behind the field, a forest.