“Very Dr. Phil of you,” I murmured, swallowing hard.
She chuckled. “I’m just trying to tell you, it’s okay.”
I reached over to squeeze her hand. “Thanks. I’m trying to tell myself that too. Now that some of the anger is gone, though, it’s actually a bit harder to handle.”
“That’s to be expected,” she replied, leaning down to kiss me softly. “Now, come on. We let you sleep through the morning, you’re not sleeping the whole day away.”
I groaned, sliding off the bed. “Fine.” I took the clothes she’d laid out, heading to the bathroom to change. “I’m not doing anything crazy though.”
“Like jumping off the roof and through a window?” she called out dryly. Whoops.
“Um, yeah. Like that.” It only took a few minutes for me to brush my teeth and meet her at my desk so she could help fix my hair. I really had to learn how to do it as fast as she did—what would have taken me twenty minutes took her two. She formed a few twists and tucks to give me a cute style with the strands that were growing out. “What are we doing about that anyway?”
“Your hair?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
I swallowed a chuckle as she led me from the room, locking the door behind us. “No, the twins’ dad.”
“Oh.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as we headed downstairs, the heavy wood banister cool under my palm. “Borris texted Zelda last night. They headed to Hartford this morning to meet with Ocean Mist. They’ll probably finish there tomorrow and then head home. Raff will want to interrogate him himself, so for now we’ll keep him as he is.”
I paused on the stairs. “I thought that Raff was in Washington.”
Shannon turned, tossing her braid over her shoulder. Even standing a stair below me she was still as tall as I was. “He was. But Ocean Mist and Starlight Woods are neighboring packs. It’s not unusual for him to stop there on the way back here.”
“But didn’t he meet with Ocean Mist while he was in Washington? And why did Borris text rather than call? And why didn’t Raff call Alarick back?” My wolf was growling now, my stomach tightening in an uneasy knot as Shannon studied me.
“I’m not sure. You think something’s wrong, don’t you?” she murmured, watching me closely.
“This has all seemed wrong,” I admitted. “My wolf thinks so too. After last night, though, I’m even more paranoid.” I sighed, squeezing the railing hard. “I don’t know how any of this works,” I mumbled. “None of the others think there’s anything wrong. Even when I mentioned it before. But…”
Her eyes searched mine, and she nodded slowly. “Okay. I believe you. We’re meeting with Luna outside right now. We’ll find an excuse to cut it short. Say you don’t feel well. We can’t immediately cut it off because we have to wait for Luna’s guards to return—Fillian gave them the afternoon to themselves, so we’ll need to call them back in.”
My eyes opened wide as I stared at her. “You believe me?”
“Pixie, for all we know this is another gift from Selene. Or you just have a hell of an intuition. You knew something was wrong with Luna before any of us did. You knew something was wrong with Shaw. I know Zelda is missing Borris and worried that he hasn’t called although she hasn’t said anything—I can feel it on her. If she’s worried too, then I’d think this isn’t exactly normal, even if the guys aren’t that worried yet.”
I followed Shannon out into the sunlight, letting her lead me toward the end of the driveway, past a massive black SUV, and into the woods. We hadn’t been walking long before I heard mock growls and giggles. Ian, Alarick, Chann, and Zev were playing what seemed to be a game of tag with Luna, darting around and around the little girl, reaching out as if to grab her then missing at the last moment as she ran by them squealing with laughter, her blonde hair flying behind her.
“Beta!” she yelled, running at me full tilt before leaping into the air for me to catch her. “They said you were coming, but you slept and slept.”
“Sorry, pup,” I apologized, nuzzling her quickly, my wolf rumbling happily at the contact. “No one told me we were coming to see you.”
“It was meant to be a surprise,” Chann said with a shrug.
“Then I had no reason to get up, did I?” I snarked, sticking my tongue out at him.
Shannon slid up beside Ian, whispering in his ear. Ian’s eyes widened, shooting to me and then to Luna before he slowly nodded. Damn, it was at times like this I wished our connection worked when we were all in human form. It would have been so much easier to explain my worries.
“Hey, Luna,” I addressed the little girl conspiratorially. “I think you’re a lot faster than Zev and Chann here. In fact, I have a bet going with them on it. I told them the moon blessed are always the fastest, especially over long distances.” The grins on the twins’ faces fell as their eyes searched mine, sensing I was trying to distract the pup for a reason. “Do you think you can win this one for me?”
“Yeah!” she cheered. “I’m the fastest of all the pups,” she told me seriously, wriggling down.
“I knew it, kiddo.” She took off like a shot, the twins right behind her as I headed for Ian and Alarick.
“What’s going on?” Alarick asked, looking between Shannon and me.
“Look, I know you think there’s nothing going on with your dad, but something’s not right,” I stated bluntly. “Call it what you want, but I’ve still got the heebie-jeebies. Shannon just told me Borris texted Zelda this morning, saying their heading to Ocean Mist territory, but that doesn’t make sense.”
Alarick shrugged, though he cast a look to Ian. “He makes stops at other territories for more intimate negotiations a lot of the time.”
“But he does it without ever returning a call or text?” I pushed. “And Borris never calls Zelda back even when he knows she’s worried? I was willing to say that made sense when they were locked in meetings in Washington and unable to be near their phones. I didn’t like it, but I was willing to bow to your experience. However, if they were heading toward home, they had no reason not to take time on the trip to return calls and texts,” I pointed out stubbornly.
Ian and Alarick both froze.
“Fuck,” Alarick swore, shoving his hands into his hair. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”
“Because we’re used to him being out of touch,” Ian muttered, tapping away on his cell. “Because we’re still getting code words on time, per protocol, for the safety updates.” I blinked at him. The who for the what now? At my blank look, he indicated his phone. “They have guards with them. There are hidden messages in their texts that tell me if they’re safe. The messages are timed at certain points throughout the day. If they miss a message, it’s an automatic safety alert. If the message comes through without a code, it’s an alert. If a certain code gets sent to me, it’s an alert.”
“So you’ve been getting all clear messages sent to you at regular intervals from Raff, Borris, and his guards,” I murmured, comprehension dawning. “Codes only they would know, at times only they would know.”