Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(28)
Cold ran down his spine. His griffin had a point. Out of all the places it could have gone, the lightning-creature had struck at Edith’s tower. It had broken its own patterns, attacking even though he himself had been nearby. That couldn’t be coincidence.
And there had been the hare. And the hawk that Callum had spotted. The one that had followed them all the way from Edith’s tower to Thunder Mountain…
“From the way you’re staring into space,” Buck said dryly, “I take it you’re having one of those weird wrestling matches with yourself again.”
Rory pulled himself away from his inner conversation, returning to the outside world. “Chief, these lightning-started fires…has anyone spotted animals acting oddly around them?”
Buck’s habitual frown deepened. He shuffled through his folder. “Any critters that hang around a wildfire tend to end up crispy. But I did notice this one, a few years back.”
BITTEN OR BURNED? screamed the headline. Rory skimmed the article, his sense of unease growing. While it was previously thought that the couple had tragically perished in the wildfire, investigators now say that they were actually killed by an unknown wild animal. They believe that a panicked wolf or coyote must have been fleeing from the blaze, and sought refuge in the house…
Rory pushed the paper away again, feeling sick. “Chief, Edith has to stay.”
“Which one of us was sitting on the Superintendent side of this desk, again?” Buck looked around his own office, affecting surprise. “Oh look. It’s me.”
Rory had only ever pulled the alpha voice on Buck once, and that had been to save the Superintendent’s life. Buck had thanked him, sincerely, and then equally sincerely promised to muzzle him if he ever did it again. He was absolutely certain the chief had not been joking.
Which left him with no option but to tell the truth.
“Chief.” Rory squared his shoulders. “There’s something I need to explain about shifters.”
Chapter 11
“Edith?” Blaise poked her head around the door, frowning as she took in the pristine state of the small bedroom. “If there’s something you don’t like about this bunk, we can swap.”
“No, no.” Edith tried to force a smile onto her face. “The room’s fine.”
In truth, the mattress was too hard and the pine-tar smell was too strong and the view out the tiny window was all wrong…but none of those was the real problem. She hugged her backpack tighter, running the familiar straps through her fingers.
Blaise sat down next to her on the narrow bed. “Then why aren’t you unpacking your stuff?”
She looked down, avoiding the other woman’s kind gaze. “I really need to talk to Rory. Do you think he’ll be back soon?”
“Hard to say. I think he had a lot he needed to discuss with Buck.” Blaise nudged her with an elbow. “But I promise, they aren’t talking about kicking you out into the night.”
“They should be.” Edith stood up abruptly. “I have to go talk to them. I should never have come here in the first place.”
Fenrir, who was occupying most of the floor space in the tiny room, made a deep, rumbling growl. He flopped across her feet. The effect was similar to putting a parking boot on a car.
“See, even Fenrir doesn’t want you to go,” Blaise said, as Edith struggled vainly to extricate her toes from under the dog. She patted the blanket. “Now tell me why you’re having second thoughts. It’s not that jerk Seth, is it?”
“Not directly.” Edith sat down again, since it was clear it would take a backhoe to shift Fenrir. “But he wasn’t wrong. I don’t really belong here.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him. It’s pitiful, really. Just because we’re A-squad while his own is called C, he has to take every opportunity to get into a dick-waving contest with Rory. As though a stupid letter means we’re better than him.” Blaise grinned. “Though we are, of course. And what’s this nonsense about not belonging with us? I though Rory made it perfectly clear how much he—how much we all want you to be here. You seemed to believe him last night.”
Edith bit her lip. “Have you ever been carried away in the heat of a moment, and done something that you would never have done if you’d been thinking clearly, and then realized too late that you’ve destroyed your life?”
“Ouch.” Blaise blew out her breath. “That’s a bit close to home. Yes.”
Edith traced patterns across the top of her backpack. “Rory’s been so kind to me. All of you have. But there’s something I haven’t told you. And when I do, you’re all going to hate me.”
“There is literally nothing you could say to Rory that would make him hate you.” Blaise shook her head ruefully. “If you told him that you ate roasted kittens for breakfast every morning, he would be scouring the internet for recipes within five minutes.”
“But what if, if I was keeping a secret. Not, not anything bad or illegal,” she added hastily. “Just something that made me different. Something that I really should have told him straight away, but…didn’t.”
Blaise leaned back on her hands, staring at the ceiling. She didn’t speak for a long, long moment.