My hound growled. She knew that Ryder wouldn’t let me spend the night with Connor now. Ryder had staked his claim over me. I belonged to him. Ryder’s beast would allow no other man near me, especially not overnight.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t risk Ryder’s safety just for the chance to ride him.
I’d made sacrifice after sacrifice for my pack and my family. The number of times that I’d risked my life to keep others safe made me greedy. I wanted something in return. Fate decided to screw me over one last time.
My affection threatened to put me at risk. Even though I’d come to find the one thing that I’d craved my whole life, I couldn’t show him the love that I felt. My hound tried to tell me that everything would be all right if I let my guard down this one time, but I couldn’t do it.
My phone vibrated, pulling me out of my lust-addled internal conflict. I moved in my seat so I could pull it out of my pocket. Catriona’s number glowed on the screen, which left me perplexed.
Ryder didn’t pull away as I answered the phone. He gave me a squeeze of reassurance after a darting glance in my direction.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, breathless for reasons that had nothing to do with nervousness.
Catriona grunted. “Remember that record book? The one with the missing pages?”
“Did you find them?” I asked excitedly leaning forward in my seat.
“I did. You’re going to want to see this. Are the two of you still out on your adventure?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it an adventure,” I said. “We left Jefferson County. We should be back home in…an hour?”
Catriona groaned on the other end.
“I can’t twitch my nose and magically appear back home,” I said with more sass than I should have had for a pack elder. “You could just take a picture with your phone and send it over to me. Technology is an amazing thing, you know.”
Whatever. Catriona had been prickly with me for most of my life. A little bit of sass wouldn’t hurt her.
“That’s fine. I’ll meet you at Ryder’s apartment.”
I bit back a frustrated groan. “Just take a picture!”
Catriona was silent for a long moment. “I’m afraid that there’s magic on these pages that technology won’t catch. It’s better if you hold the papers yourself.”
Well, that didn’t help. I sighed, told Catriona that we’d be there soon enough, then hung up.
When I’d gone to her for help, she’d been resistant. Hell, Catriona had looked me in the eye and blamed me for everything that had happened since my first shift. Since then, she’d made an effort to help, but I was still frustrated with her attitude. I’d been even more frustrated with her records, at the time.
Catriona was the pack’s current historian. She kept the records of the past and transcribed new events for the future generations to reference. The idea was so that mistakes wouldn’t be made twice—it also helped prevent inbreeding when a pack was small and intermingled too often back in the day, but we don’t talk about that anymore.
When I’d tried to learn more about myself from the past records, I’d found the beginnings of a passage about a previous Barghest, but most of the account had been removed. Apparently, Catriona had found it. Her ominous message filled my stomach with butterflies again. These butterflies weren’t as fun as the ones from earlier.
At least it helped distract me from my lust-addled stupor. An hour passed by with bated breath. Catriona’s truck sat on the side of the road, behind my little sedan. I peered at it and felt another heavy stone fall into the pit of my stomach. Dread greeted me like an old lover.
My head snapped up. I ran to the door and threw it open. Behind me, Ryder called out for me to wait. Confusion twisted his voice, but I didn’t have time to stop and explain.
The smell hit me first: death and Alvin. The stink of rot made my gut churn around the stone again. I knew I was too late.
Guilt rammed into my gut. It shoved me back. I staggered out of the doorway and into Ryder’s chest. He caught me and held me upright while my mind spun. His hands were firm and gentle. I wished I could have savored them, but there wasn’t time.
“She’s dead,” I whispered.
Ryder pushed me behind himself. He slowly entered the room. I watched him scan his surroundings carefully, taking in every inch of the space.
“I…I don’t think you’re getting your deposit back.” I couldn’t believe the words that left my mouth.
Someone was dead. I could smell it in the air. Yet, here I was cracking stupid jokes in a sad attempt to relieve some of the weight sitting on my chest. It was disgusting, and I hated myself for it.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Ryder said slowly. “This could be another dead animal.”