Chapter Eighteen

“Dad?”

Chloe’s tentative question pulled Greyson’s thoughts away from the red-haired, bewitching nanny who’d driven away in her beat-up Chevy that morning, earlier than she’d originally indicated. Rowan hadn’t even paused to eat breakfast with them, though he’d made plenty. And despite the fact that the girls—whom he could tell had become quite attached to their nanny—begged her to. She hadn’t said where she was going, or with whom, and he hadn’t asked.

He should’ve. He’d damn well wanted to. That nagging sense something else was going on with her hadn’t gone away. If anything, the girls’ words that night had warning bells jangling inside his head. How the hell could she think he’d kill her? No mistaking the terror in her eyes. What had he done to warrant that kind of fear? His job, maybe, but that wasn’t enough.

Her behavior since, had raised his concerns even more. She’d been…reserved. Not in a way he could put his finger on, no action to point to. Just a gut knowledge.

“Yes, Chloe?” he answered, slightly distracted.

“Do you think you could work with us on magic in the afternoons? Instead of Aunt Persephone?”

Greyson’s attention moved fully to his daughters now. “My job doesn’t give me consistent time at home. I know I’ve been around a lot lately, but things won’t stay that way.”

At their slumped shoulders, he put down his fork. “Why? Don’t you like Persephone?”

“Oh, we love her,” Lachlyn spoke up. “Just not her lessons.”

Amusement tugged at his lips. “Why not?”

“She treats us like we’re babies, Dad.” Atleigh’s put-upon sigh said more than the words.

“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. After all, Persephone teaches many of the children in the area.”

Three eager expressions shut down and closed off, as they flopped back against their seats at the breakfast table.

“I told you Rowan was wrong,” Lachlyn hissed at her sisters.

Greyson, about to resume his breakfast, paused, fork halfway to his mouth. “What does Rowan have to do with this?”

Chloe wrinkled her nose. “She told us to talk to you about our lessons with Aunt Persephone.”

She did that? Why?

“Were you complaining to her about your aunt?”

“No!” Atleigh sent him an offended glower. “Rowan noticed how bored we were with our lessons and said to talk to you.”

Slowly, Greyson leaned back in his chair. Had he missed something directly under his nose? Were the girls bored, and could they handle more? He’d assumed Persephone had things well in hand and honestly hadn’t paid much attention. Too many other issues overwhelmed him when it came to raising his daughters alone, and he’d been happy to pass that part off to someone else.

Meanwhile, a warmth he didn’t want to examine too closely bloomed in the region of his heart. Rowan had enough faith in him to send the girls his way with this issue.

Of course she did, you dumb ass. She can’t handle it on her own.

However, rather than address it with him, she had encouraged the girls to do so, helping build their trust in him. He’d have to thank her later, after he found out why she thought, even for a second, that he could kill her. Kiss her, yes. Step way over the line she’d drawn and do a hell of a lot more than that, yes. But harm her?

Gods, she must be a demon sent to torment him.

“I’ll watch more closely tomorrow. Okay? And if she needs to increase the level, then I’ll talk to her.”

At least the girls perked up, resuming shoveling forkfuls of eggs into their mouths almost as fast as they could swallow.

“Oh, hey, Dad?” Lachlyn asked around a bite.

Again, he put his now cold bite of eggs down. “Yes?”

“I think Rowan likes you.”

He was thankful he hadn’t taken that bite, or he would’ve choked. He couldn’t deny the burst of interest those words provoked. Now he was acting like a boy half his age with a first crush. But if she…

“I like her, too,” he said casually.

And earned an eye roll from Atleigh for his trouble. “No, Dad. Like-likes you.”

He shook his head. Dealing with his own thoughts in regard to his nanny was one thing. Encouraging the girls was another. “Rowan’s just nice to everyone.”

“She doesn’t look at you like she’s just being nice.”

He paused with the fork raised yet again as something like hope—only it couldn’t be that, could it?—surged through him. Now he was tempted to ask his juvenile daughters for more. This really had to stop.

“I doubt that—”

“Only when you’re not looking,” Chloe said.

“Don’t tell her that,” he said with a stern look. “She’d be horribly embarrassed. True or not.”

Only, a growing part of him wanted it to be true. Wanted her to look at him the way a woman looked at a man she wanted. But more than that, a man she trusted.

And, after that night, he knew they weren’t there yet.

…

Rowan gazed over the vista laid out before her like a perfect painting. She’d pulled off at one of the many scenic overlooks along Trail Ridge Road, which traversed the Continental Divide. Technically, the road wasn’t open to drivers yet—closed for the season—but as a witch who could teleport, Rowan wasn’t too concerned.

Now, standing above the tree line, the windswept alpine tundra almost rolled away from her, though she knew full well that a bit farther on a life-ending drop awaited. Above her the slopes spiked away again to jagged peaks. She gazed to the west, to the heart of the Rockies, the crags and peaks rising across the horizon in an unending display of how puny humans were against such natural grandeur.

The animals she’d stopped and talked to along the way had directed her here. She shivered now, as the high winds penetrated her thin jacket. She’d been waiting here for forty minutes without a single animal appearing. Still, creatures worked on a different timetable than humans. So she continued to wait. She needed to know…

A falcon’s cry pierced the air. However, a quick search of the sky revealed no bird near her. Again, the screech rent the morning silence, carried to her on the currents of the wind. Then, in a rush, the bird soared up from below, over the edge of the mountain and straight toward her. A whispered spell protected her delicate skin from her sharp talons, and Rowan held out her arm for the gyrfalcon to perch upon.

Wings flared wide to slow her approach, she gave several sharp flaps as she landed, then folded them neatly back. Beautiful with her white speckled belly and darker speckled wings, she cocked her head and regarded her with piercing yellow eyes.

“Rowan McAuliffe.”

Her voice punched through Rowan’s mind, surprisingly smooth.

“Yes. Can you tell me what danger follows me?” Please don’t let it be Grey. Please. Please. Please.

The Syndicate wouldn’t be much better.

The falcon bowed her head. “Wolf shifters.”

Relief hit her first, like her lungs could suddenly expand. Not Grey. The danger wasn’t him or the Syndicate. Half a beat later, the falcon’s words sunk in, and dread burst inside her chest before sinking to the pit of her stomach.

She’d expected to hear the Covens had discovered her location under their very noses and were coming for her. But wolf shifters could mean only one thing. Kaios’s helpers hadn’t all been killed, and now they were coming for her.

“Who?”

“Kaios’s lover.”

Kaios had a lover? Hexes, hells, and parsnip. That woman. The one who’d taken pleasure in taunting her when Kaios hadn’t been around.

That made a few things clearer, especially how he’d gathered a following of shifters. His lover must be one.

A she-wolf now bent on vengeance hunted her? Fan-freakin-tastic.

“How long before she finds me?”

“A few days. Maybe three at most. She hasn’t caught your scent yet. But she’s close.”

“Is she alone?”

“No.”

“How many?”

“Unclear. Around ten.”

Boiling cauldrons and pickled pig’s feet. Too many to handle alone.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

“Call upon those you need when the time is right.” With a leap that barely moved her arm, so light was the bird of prey, the gyrfalcon took to the skies, diving back over the cliff from which she’d come.

Now what did she mean by that last comment?

Long after the bird departed, she stared, unseeing, after it. What should she do?

Her first instinct screamed run. With wolf shifters on the warpath, her presence put Grey and the girls in danger. Given the power even a shifter could wield over her, the wolves could force her to hurt them.

She shouldn’t stay. However, stay or not, her scent led the wolves directly to Grey’s house, which meant they remained in peril even if she escaped.

Leaving them, leaving Grey—her heart ached at the prospect, like a thousand pinpricks all at once, leaving her bleeding inside. How had he become important to her in such a short time? No sense lay in the emotions with which she associated him.

She’d call Delilah, call upon the protection the woman, whatever she was, could provide Grey and the girls, not to mention she could bring in Tala and Marrok and their newly combined clan.

Her little family needed protection now.

After that, before the wolf shifters could pounce, Rowan would disappear.