Page 39 of Bryce

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He loved me. He loved me. It very nearly didn’t matter that I’d just narrowly avoided being impaled. He loved me.

I patted Bryce’s shoulder, the two of us creeping side-by-side through the woods. We were nearly at the compound. The castle, more like. What a place for them to choose, though I supposed it suited them.

And we’d spent centuries living in caves thanks to them. Well-appointed ones, but caves, nonetheless.

Bryce’s lion was magnificent, though. No matter how dire the situation, there was no ignoring his beauty. His thick, full mane, his tawny fur. The sleekness of his muscles, their smooth movement beneath his skin. The power in him, the majesty. He was truly the king as he surveyed the woods. He deserved to live in that castle.

And he was mine. He had been all along.

His head snapped up. He sniffed the air.

I waited, trusting his judgment. He lowered his head and continued.

I followed. There was almost a relief in allowing him to handle decisions. I hardly had to think at all. I only had to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.

I held him back when we neared the east side of the mansion, its lower windows half-concealed by manicured shrubbery. “I can climb inside and open a rear door for you,” I offered. “Rather than you having to climb in with no clothes on.”

He shifted back, fixing me with a scowl. “As if I would walk through the place as my lion. I need to be able to communicate with you and gather intel if possible.”

“Here, then.” I slid the pack from my shoulders. “Good thing I brought a change of clothing for you in case you needed to shift.”

He tried, and failed, not to chuckle. “Remind me to thank you later.”

“I’ll do that.” While he dressed, I stood on tiptoe to look inside the dark building. Only the vaguest outlines of furniture were visible without even the help of moonlight, the sky heavily overcast.

“Did you bring flashlights?” he asked, joining me.

“In the pack.” He pulled them out, then led the way to the wall. It was no work at all to slide one of the windows open. Few locks could match the strength of a shifter, and there was something satisfying about the sound of splintering wood.

We’d have to take greater care than ever, of course, in case an alarm had been raised. I reminded him of this as he helped me up through the window. “Ten minutes,” he decided, hoisting himself through. “We have ten minutes to find what we can find.”

That was certainly not much time, though the presence of anything important on the upper floors seemed unlikely, they were probably living quarters.

We’d entered the library. I shone my flashlight across row after row of books while Bryce checked a desk along the far wall, breaking yet another lock to do so. “Documents.”

“Bring them,” I decided. It couldn’t hurt. “Anything to help us learn more about them.”

We ran from the library, down a long hall. The wood-paneled walls heavy furniture spoke of the past, of how long the structure and its décor had remained the same. How long they’d been here, watching the mountain. Waiting for their chance to strike.

We found an office two doors down from the library and cleaned out what we could from the desk before moving on. I was in the act of stuffing a handful of papers into my pack when we reached the marble-floored entry hall.

“They enjoy their grandeur,” he noted, running a hand over one of the two golden cherubs who sat atop the mahogany newel posts.

Both of the little angels held a crystal globe which I imagined would sparkle and shine once the lights were flipped on.

There was no time for that. “What do you think? Should we continue on this floor or move downstairs?”

“We could split up,” he suggested. “Cover more ground.”

I loathed the idea but had no choice but to agree. We’d already spent more than five minutes. “I’ll stay up here. Please, hurry.”

He darted away into the darkness, only the beam of his flashlight revealing his progress. I ran for the hall opposite the one we’d just left, not certain what I was looking for but knowing the more we collected, the better the chances of finding something important.

After scouring two more offices and taking any documents I could get my hands on—there were no laptops, no computers of any kind—I went back to the stairs.

“Bryce?” My voice echoed off the walls, floor, ceiling.

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