Beyond the Shadows Page 4

  Though I found some comfort in his conviction, there wasn’t enough to pacify my concern. I walked back to Grizz, my worries plain on my face, and he opened his arms. He folded me into them, pulling me against him. It still felt strange to be close to him in man form, but there was never anything sexual about it. He was the same old Grizz, furry or otherwise. He just wanted to keep me safe.

  And as I looked out into the darkness where Drake had disappeared, I wondered if he would have his work cut out for him.

  Chapter Five

  When I came back into the mansion, I headed straight for my room. I collapsed onto the bed and pulled the blankets around me, not even bothering to undress. It was so late that it wouldn’t be long before the sun was up, demanding I rise as well. All I wanted was a few hours to escape the reality of my life.

  Apparently Grizz wanted the same.

  Still in his human form, he flopped onto the bed next to me, launching me off the mattress for a second before I bounced back onto it. I let loose a tiny shriek, caught off guard by the motion. It wasn’t surprising that I had been on the wrong end of that teeter-totter. What was surprising was the massive arm that flung across my chest and pulled me into a rock-hard body.

  I lay there for a second, wondering if my assessment of our relationship had been wrong, but then I looked back at his face. His eyes were closed from exhaustion. A light snore escaped his mouth. Nope, he was still just Grizz. I tried to think about the bear behind the man and how we’d always snuggled up. It must be so hard for him to navigate his new life in NYC and his new form. Even though my body wanted to jump out of the bed and demand he sleep on the floor, I couldn’t. He was my buddy—my Grizz. The bear that had saved me. Even if he looked like a rugged lumberjack with an attitude problem, he was still the same grizzly inside.

  With that in mind, I took a deep breath and tried to relax under the weight of his arm.

  It wasn’t long before sleep pulled me in, but it wasn’t peaceful at all. I was restless, unable to fall into her depths and stay there until the morning light dragged me out of her hold. Flashes of a dark enemy tormented my brain; whispers from an assassin who eluded me. Then, cutting through those images, Merc appeared, his form distant and faded but there nonetheless. I tried to pull him to the front of my mind, but it wouldn’t cooperate, my sleep not deep enough to allow him in. His words intermingled with those of the fey king’s killer, sounding like a poorly overlaid music track. My brain fought to separate the two, but it was useless.

  Then Merc disappeared entirely, and I shot awake in bed. Grizz, still beside me, leapt off the bed and growled, his gaze shooting around the room for a danger that didn’t exist. It took a minute before his shoulders relaxed and he looked down at me, confusion in his stare.

  “Sorry Grizz. My fault! All my fault. There’s nothing wrong, I just…” I cut myself off, not sure I wanted to go into an in-depth explanation of my tormented sleep. But it soon became clear that the man-bear wasn’t going to let my abrupt wake-up slide, so I told him. Once I finished, he looked at me with concern and suspicion in his eyes. “It’s fine, buddy. I just—I’m having a hard time with everything. And I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept well since we had to save Jagger, and now all this shit with Benji and the assassin…” My chest tightened and I mindlessly rubbed at it until I realized Grizz’s eyes were fixed on the hand making circles along my sternum. I dropped my hand to my lap, but the damage was done. The silent interrogation began the second he quirked his eyebrow. “My chest hurts, that’s all.” His arms folded across his chest, the gesture looking a lot like a certain alpha werewolf we knew—not that I planned to point that out. “Fine! I told Drake about it tonight, and he thinks I drained my magic to heal the amulet and need to recharge or whatever. He’s looking into it, so don’t freak out, okay?” I took his utter lack of reaction to what I’d said as a no. “What do you want me to do, Grizz? We have to trust him. You do trust him, don’t you?” Grizz nodded once, a barely noticeable movement of his head. But given their history, it was huge that he did in fact trust the warlock. The two of them hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot. My guess was that Grizz’s opinion had changed the minute Drake gifted him with a way off the property. That man suit of his had come in really handy. He had no intention of biting the hand that had provided him with it.

  “Okay then,” I said, climbing out of the bed. “That settles it. For now, we leave it to Drake to sort out the mystery behind my chest pain. Agreed?” Grizz gave me a dubious expression, but nodded. “Good. And no telling the others,” I said, realizing just how stupid that sounded. Nobody else seemed to understand Grizz like I did, except for maybe Kat. I made a point to make sure he knew how fast I’d pull his man-suit privileges if he let her in on things, and he made a show of letting me know how much he appreciated me leveraging him into silence.

  Whoever’d taught him how to flip me the bird was going to get a mouthful.

  I made my way into the bathroom to get cleaned up for the day. It was then that I realized I’d gone to bed with blood on my hands and clothes. I made a mental note to strip the bed and burn the sheets. I wanted to get rid of any memory of that evening.

  Thirty minutes later, I emerged to find a fluffier, snugglier Grizz sitting next to my bed. I gave his head a scratch as I walked by, grabbing some clothes off my dresser. I pulled up the jeans and threw on the tank before heading toward the door, pulling the off-the-shoulder sweatshirt on over it. It seemed colder in the mansion than usual.

  Or maybe it was just me.

  It was early yet, and I wondered if the wolves would be up and at ‘em or still passed out in their various shared rooms. It had been a long night for everyone, but especially them. They’d lost one of their own, and that was a hit to them as a whole. I’d never seen how they honored their dead in Alaska. We’d never had the time. But I knew that Benji deserved to be put to rest, and I hoped that we’d have the opportunity that day to do it. The pack needed to. I could feel it in the stillness of the house.

  I popped down the butler’s stairs to the empty kitchen and grabbed some pastry off the counter. Grizz hovered by the box, nudging it with his nose before climbing up onto the counter and burying his head in it.

  “I can come back for you later,” I said with a laugh. “You look pretty into what you’re doing there.” He didn’t even bother to come up for air at my snide remark. Instead, he kept on devouring Jagger’s favorite snack. He was going to be so pissed when he saw that Grizz had eaten all of them. Especially since he was making such a mess of doing so.

  I walked out of the kitchen, shaking my head as I took a big bite of the sugary, flaky goodness. With my mouth stuffed full, it made sense that I’d walk right into Merc. The amusement in his eyes was plain. Damn him and his inability to sleep when he should.

  “You’re up,” I said, my words garbled by the food in my mouth. Little puffs of powdered sugar blew out as I spoke. I had the good form to look embarrassed, but he just smiled at me, no doubt finding my antics endearing.

  “I can wait for you to finish that if you’d like.” He leaned against the wall for good measure, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Actually, I’m not even that hungry.” I walked back into the kitchen and tossed the danish across the room at the bear. It hit him in the head, and I took off before he could come after me. “So,” I started, trying to be casual as I raced down the hall away from the angry grizzly in the kitchen. “What are you doing skulking around the house? Shouldn’t you be sleeping or something?”

  “I have business to attend to,” he said, pushing off the wall to stand before me. The way he loomed over me made me wonder if that business had to do with me—more specifically, what was inside my pants.

  “Oh… okay.”

  “I tried to come to you last night.”

  “So that did actually happen,” I muttered under my breath. Of course he heard me just fine. He looked at me with intense curiosity.

  “You saw me?”
he asked, surprised. “You never replied.”

  “Sorry,” I said absentmindedly. “It was weird… I was having a dream about the faceless killer—the fey king’s pet—and I could hear him saying things to me, even though I don’t think it was actually him. You appeared at some point, but it was different. You weren’t clear at all, and your voice just seemed to overlay his and muddle everything up. I know you were saying something to me, but I don’t know what.”

  “And then you woke up,” he added. A statement, not a question.

  “Yep. Shot up in bed and scared the shit out of Grizz. Poor thing looked like he was ready to tear the bedroom apart looking for whatever threat had come.”

  “The bear is loyal and brave, if nothing else. I’ll give him that.”

  “He’s downright crazy is what he is, but I love him anyway. He gets under your skin in the best possible way. There’s no shaking him once that happens.”

  Merc looked unconvinced. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  My expression soured at his reply. “Listen, I get that asking you and Knox to get along is a stretch, but the bear? You can’t get on board with the damn bear?”

  “I find him to be a tad condescending.”

  My mouth dropped open, complete and utter disbelief written all over my face as I stared back at the acting vampire king like he had three heads.

  “I literally cannot believe you of all people just said that.” Another shrug. “You know what? Never mind.”

  “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

  “And you can be a massive pain in my ass when you want to be.”

  “I can be many things to your ass,” he replied, moving closer to me. I shied away from his approach, not in the mood for those kinds of shenanigans that morning. My head was still a mess about everything that had happened the night before. Joking I could do. Hallway hookups I could not.

  “Merc…”

  “I understand,” he said, pulling away. “It’s not a good time.”

  Although he’d said the right thing, his words belied his disappointment. It was plain in his tone and his body language.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” Awkward silence. “I should go now.”

  “Merc,” I said, catching his arm as he turned to leave. “Do you know anything about what killed Benji? Anything you didn’t want to say in front of the others?”

  He pinned dark eyes on me and answered.

  “No. I don’t.”

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  “I wondered if that was why you were trying to reach me last night. I thought I heard an apology of sorts, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “And that is why you thought I’d apologized?”

  When he said it like that, it seemed less probable.

  “No?” The upturn in my voice made him smile, if only slightly.

  “I have a matter that needs to be attended to at the moment, Piper, but we can discuss this later—perhaps tonight.”

  “Okay,” I replied as he turned to walk toward the foyer. “What do you have to do?” He stopped in his tracks, not turning to face me. Not a good sign.

  “I have a loose end that needs to be dealt with.”

  Loose end… dealt with…

  “Merc,” I said slowly, stepping closer to him. “Is this about the vampire king?”

  His shoulders stiffened. “I will explain things tonight when I come to you.”

  He disappeared without another word, leaving me with a million brewing questions that would remain unanswered.

  Chapter Six

  Time seemed to drag all day, my mind preoccupied with Merc’s mysterious words and the looming threat of the fey king’s minion. It had been decided that we would resume our search for him that evening, the enforcers working alongside Knox’s pack to track down and eliminate the enemy—assuming he wasn’t in Faerie. With everything else going on, the last thing any of us needed was some unhinged creature of the fey with a hard-on for picking off Knox’s boys running loose. That didn’t help anyone’s cause, and they all knew it.

  For the time being, we would form a united front.

  Merc never reappeared, but Jase and Dean handled things in his stead, which made me feel better. Their relationship with Knox and the pack was far superior to Merc’s, for obvious reasons. It was easier for everyone involved if they dealt with the pack. Once everything was decided, we split up until the agreed-upon time when we would go after the bastard that had killed Benji.

  I wanted to be alone for a minute, but Grizz made that nearly impossible. Thankfully Kat managed to distract him with a bag of chips she was eating in the media room, so I escaped to the kitchen, sitting on the counter in the corner with a cup of coffee and an easing pain in my chest.

  I looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and found Knox standing on the far side of the kitchen, his sad smile saying everything he couldn’t. Benji’s death had hit him hard. Knox was a fixer—a protector. To have failed at that task on the most basic level was a tragedy I wasn’t sure he’d forgive himself for, not that he would ever admit that. Knox didn’t do guilt well; he, like Kat, let it morph into something else entirely. In his case, it was revenge. The need for it had been clear in our meeting earlier. But who could blame him for that?

  I wanted vengeance for Benji too.

  “Hey,” I said softly, pushing my curtain of long black hair out of my face. “I made coffee.”

  “I need coffee,” he replied, his sad smile warming a touch. I moved to climb down from the counter and get him a mug, but he waved me off in favor of doing it himself. “You look tired. Did you not sleep well?” he asked, looking at the slightly burnt coffee in his porcelain mug.

  “Did any of us?”

  “Touché.”

  Silence fell upon us and I spun my mug in the palm of my hand, not quite knowing how to fill the space between us.

  “Knox… I’m sorry about Benji.”

  “I know you are, Piper. You love the guys like family. And they love you.”

  “Are you, you know…doing okay?”

  He pinned narrowed eyes on me. “I will be once we kill the fucker that murdered Benji.”

  He took a long sip of coffee while his other hand white-knuckled the counter. I could have sworn I heard the marble crack under his grip.

  “About that,” I started, taking a big sip of my coffee. I wished I’d spiked it because I needed some liquid courage to suggest something I’d neglected to mention at the meeting; something that was undoubtedly going to spike his blood pressure. With Knox, it was best to just throw things like that out at him and rip off the metaphorical Band-Aid. “I was thinking… I know we already have plans to track this guy down tonight with some of the wolves, but maybe it would be better for me to go out alone, or with Jase and Dean, to search for this guy. They can ghost, so they can get me out of there in a hurry if need be, and they’re not pack. They won’t be targets.”

  “You can’t know that for sure. We have no idea what this guy’s endgame is.”

  “True, but given what you and the boys recognized about him, it makes the most sense that the fey king is after you guys.”

  “Or maybe he’s caught wind of you and wants to get a closer look.” He took another sip and swallowed before continuing. “Did Drake sort out the wards?” I nodded. “Good. That should keep him from catching us unaware on the property.”

  “But beyond that, there is no guarantee. I really think that letting the brothers and me go ahead without a small army would give us a better chance of catching him.” He stared at me, unspeaking. “We do need to catch him, Knox. We need to know more about him.”

  “And how will we contain him? We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “I will take care of that. If he’s fey, we could use iron, right? And if for some reason that doesn’t work, I’m sure I can use my magic to encase him somehow. I did bury Kingston at the core of the Earth,” I said, smiling
over the rim of my mug. “I’ve got mad skills, you know?”

  “That you do.” There was a sense of awe in his voice when he spoke that made me blush. It only increased when he walked over to me, leaning against my knees as my legs dangled from the counter. I felt my heart race as he pressed closer, gently forcing my knees apart. As it slammed into my ribcage, I tried to clear my mind, which was clouding over by the second.

  “Knox,” I said, my voice thinner and breathier than normal. “Why aren’t you freaking out right now? I feel like we skipped the part where you tell me how terrible my idea is and how I’m going to get hurt carrying it out. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  He took a deep breath before leaning his forehead against mine. When he finally pulled away, there was a strange sadness in his expression that I couldn’t make sense of. Anger? Yes. Frustration? Been there. But not sadness; not about me doing something he would typically have perceived as reckless.

  “Piper,” he said, “I am freaking out. I’ll always freak out where your safety is concerned. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Then what has? Because I have to tell you, I was expecting a full-blown Knox-style meltdown at my suggestion.” I reached out to take his hands in mine. I needed to feel connected to him in that moment—to hopefully feel what was going on with him.

  “You’ve changed, Piper.” His reply wasn’t an accusation, but there was a hint of anger at that truth. “You’ve truly come into your powers—just like I knew you would one day. But that puts me in an unusual spot. I’m trying really hard to adapt, but not protecting you goes against every fiber of my being. I’m an alpha. We watch out for what’s ours—or try to.” The pain in his voice as he said those words made my racing heart still for a moment. “It’s more than just an instinct, Piper. It’s our purpose in life. But now that you have all that power…”

  “You don’t feel like I need you.”