“All of them?” Kat asked. Her eyes darting to me gave her concern away. Merc’s pause did the same.
“I’m afraid so. Even those of dubious moral character.”
“Guess we’ll be paying Mack another visit,” Brunton said with a deadly smile.
“And we’ll get to round Kingston up,” Dean added with an oddly similar expression.
Nobody dared mention my father.
“We will meet back here at daybreak,” Merc said. “Anyone leaving the mansion does so with no fewer than four in each party. We cannot afford to have anyone else taken by the fey, and there is safety in numbers. My enforcers will combine with your wolves to balance things.”
Knox, still angry, nodded. “We’ll get the strongest divided up.”
“Don’t forget me,” Kat said, stepping forward. “I wouldn’t mind paying Mack another visit…”
At that moment, a sleepy-eyed grizzly bear wandered into the room and stopped the second he took in the rigid postures of everyone there. Realization dawned in his warm brown eyes, and he bulldozed his way through the group to stop at my feet and thrust his muzzle into my face.
“What? We weren’t going to do anything without you, I promise!” He eyed me tightly for another second or two before backing down. “If you want to go, I suggest you put your skin suit on right now.”
“And then cover it with some clothing,” Jagger added as he tried to shake the image of a naked man-Grizz from his mind.
“Aw, don’t be jealous, Jags. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to offer a girl, too,” Kat said.
Jagger’s fair skin flushed at her comment, and the tension in the room broke, if only slightly.
“Now is not the time for jokes,” Merc said, cutting off the humor at the knees. “We have work to do.” He walked out of the room to make good on his word and round up his enforcers. Jase and Dean followed behind.
Knox gave me a quick hug before leaving the same way with Jagger, Foust, and Brunton on his heels. The latter gave Kat a pointed look as he passed, and she held his gaze until he finally broke it. A satisfied smile tugged at her lips.
“Let’s go find you some clothes, big guy,” she said, ushering Grizz out of the kitchen, much to his chagrin, leaving me behind. I stood next to the refrigerator, once again wondering what in the hell I was going to do. Only this time, that question had a clear answer.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and messaged my father.
Chapter Two
I found my uncle-turned-father—Drake, now Reinhardt—looming near the edge of the woods, as he so often did. The uncertainty in his eyes from the previous night remained, as did his cuts and bruises. Grizz, who’d followed me outside as though he’d known where I was headed, edged in front of me, his fur rubbing against my bare arm. I instinctively ran my fingers through it, as I always did to ground myself. I needed to be calm if I were to have any chance of hearing my father’s side.
If I wanted to salvage any shred of the relationship between us.
Sensing my hesitation, the bear turned and looked at me, so many questions brewing behind those warm brown eyes. I knew in that moment that he’d rip the warlock to pieces for me if I asked him to—or try to, at least—but he didn’t want that outcome. There was a deeper knowledge of the situation in his stare, and I couldn’t help but be jealous. Why did he know something about it that I didn’t—and how?
The squawk of a raven overhead echoed around us, providing answer enough.
“What did that bird tell you?” I asked Grizz. He snorted and managed a gesture that looked oddly like a shrug. “What? You can’t tell me? Is it like guardian code or something?” The bear did not appear amused. “I really wish you could talk.”
With no promise of answers from Grizz in my future, I started off toward the warlock who could provide them instead.
“I didn’t think you’d call,” Reinhardt said softly. “Not that I’d have blamed you…”
“I don’t have the luxury of being angry right now,” I replied, my tone a touch too harsh. “The world is about to go to shit around us, and we need you to help stop that from happening.” His expression hardened, the mask of the man I’d first met in the basement of that abandoned building sliding into place in the blink of an eye. I let out a breath. “I want to not hate you right now, Dra—I mean Reinhardt. Fuck, that’s going to be a hard habit to break.”
“I’m sorry, Piper—”
“I know you’re sorry. I get that much. It’s everything else I don’t.”
“Will you walk with me? Allow me a chance to try to explain my mistakes—the many I’ve made?”
“We don’t really have time for that right now.” Grizz shot me a look that said otherwise. “But I guess we could make some?” The bear snorted, and the three of us (or four, if you counted the raven overhead) headed into the woods. The crunch of dead foliage beneath our feet sent a chill down my spine. I pictured a different kind of carnage underfoot—the kind made of the blood and bone of both our enemies and allies, their pale, lifeless eyes staring up at me as though I’d failed them.
And if that vision actually did come to pass, I would have.
“When you first came to me—tracked me to my place of refuge—I was not in a good spot mentally,” Reinhardt began, pulling from my spiraling thoughts. “I was still mourning the death of my brother, the destruction of our coven—and the loss of the child I’d never known.” I turned to him, prepared to cut his logic into a thousand pieces with my words, but he stopped me with a placating gesture. “I know what you’re about to say, and yes, you’re right. I should have scooped you up in my arms that day and thanked the gods that you’d survived—that you’d returned. But something in the back of my mind whispered dark thoughts to me. Warnings. It all seemed too convenient that you could find me so easily—”
“I wouldn’t say it was easy—”
“—and that the one thing that could have pulled me from the growing darkness had just strolled into my hideout, bringing with her everything that I had lost.”
I pulled him to a halt, his words echoing in my mind. “What does that even mean, Dra—Reinhardt?”
He looked at the bird circling above us and exhaled hard. “How did you come to find me that night, Piper? How did you and Kat track me down? I know it wasn’t her werewolf skills, because she had nothing to work from and my glamour was too strong for her to override…”
I followed his gaze to the raven. “A little birdie told me—or showed me, as it were.”
Reinhardt looked down at me, and my eyes shifted to him. “I know.”
“Then why did you ask the damn question?”
“Because I need you to see the importance of the answer when I tell you what I’m about to tell you.” I stared at him expectantly and held my breath. “I’d never seen that bird before that day.”
“Um…say what, now?”
“He was not my guardian.”
“You’ve lost me.”