Page 12 of The Eagle and the Shrew

Nari seemed nice enough—when she wasn’t being bossy, that was. He wondered why she’d decided to drop her ruse so quickly yet still offer to help him. Why had she flown to this safe house in the woods instead of flying them back to FUCN’A when the mission had gone sideways?

The bigger question: should he tell her what Grimm’s email had said? The man had given Anson his newest lab location. Now Anson had options. He could go there on his own and continue to play Grimm’s game while hoping that he’d let Ariel free. Alternately, he could tell Nari, and she could tell FUC, and they could attempt a raid. But if FUC failed, Ariel would surely pay the price.

Then there was the third option. Anson could tell Nari, but ask her not to report it to her team at FUC. With an extra set of eyes—eagle ones, at that—maybe, together, they’d be able to find and rescue Ariel.

He adjusted in his seat slightly, which afforded him a view into the kitchen. Nari moved around gracefully as her hum turned into a song. As if sensing his eyes inspecting her, Nari turned, narrowing her gaze at him.

“What?” Cocking her head to the side, it was her turn to inspect him with those eagle eyes. They seemed to penetrate him. In a way, it was hot. Anson liked a woman who could take charge.

“Just admiring your singing voice.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but Anson thought she hid the hint of a smile.

He wanted to see more of that smile. In fact, the longer he was around Nari, the more he wanted to know about her.

“Nari is an interesting name,” he said, tapping his fingers on the armrest, wondering what the agent would think about sharing personal information. She’d certainly seemed to have lightened up around him, especially since the accident.

She tilted her head sideways, narrowing her brown eyes at him. “Why are you curious about my name?”

“Well, I figure you know a lot about me. I’m sure FUC pulled up every tidbit they could find. You probably even know who my first-grade teacher was. Yet, I know nothing about you.”

She eyed him with surprise before softly saying, “Nari means ‘lily’ in Korean.”

“That’s a pretty name,” he said, despite wanting to keep the thought to himself. He couldn’t help it. For some reason, being around Nari seemed to loosen his tongue.

Nari snorted. “Tell that to my grandmother. She nearly died when I wasn’t given a traditional name, like my cousin, Seo-ah.” A shy smile crossed her face. “I think Anson is an interesting name.”

“I think it’s English. I never cared enough to look up its meaning.”

She smiled at him then, and he basked in the sight. Silence settled in the cabin, with only the crackling of the fire whispering as they shared a moment together. After the frenzy of the day, it was nice to feel like all was right, even just for sixty seconds.

Nari snapped out of it first, shaking her head as the smile disappeared. She was back to business. “How are you feeling?” she asked in her usual brusque tone.

“A little better, for sure,” he replied. “Though I’m struggling to stay awake. My body desperately wants me sleeping so it can begin knitting me back together.”

“Want me to help you get to a bedroom in the back?”

The thought of having to stand up, let alone walk down the hallway, was unappealing. “I think I’ll just stay here on the couch,” he decided.

“I’ll get you an extra blanket and pillows in case you need them.” Her eyes softened before she turned and hurried off to a closet. It surprised him to find she had such a nurturing side. He glanced down at the blanket nest near the wood-burning stove. She’d made it for him to keep his shrew warm and cozy when they’d first arrived.

Nari returned with an armful of pillows and a cozy comforter. Her satisfied smile put Anson at ease. She seemed sure he wouldn’t reject any of the items she found. He inspected the pillows she handed him one at a time. They didn’t seem to have come into contact with anything gross that could contaminate them. “They’re acceptable.”

He set them up, careful not to tweak anything in his body. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if he pulled a muscle. Or broke anything worse than it already was.

“Did you trust Grimm?” The question came out of nowhere, stopping Anson in the middle of fluffing his pillows. He looked over to Nari and thought she looked surprised that the words had left her mouth.

“I did, yeah,” he answered softly, though the memory of his naivety hurt. “He’d been her doctor—Ariel’s. He went by Dr. Sampson when we met him. We’d trusted him to help her. We trusted that he knew what he was talking about and that he was being honest with us about what was going on with Ariel. So, when he told us that there was no more that modern medicine could do, we were heartbroken. And when he followed that up with news that he was willing to help Ariel outside of the hospital, it was the only hope we had.”

Nari nodded, listening carefully to every word he said. He knew that part of her was an agent, and her job was to retrieve any intelligence on Grimm that she could. But he also saw a layer of sympathy in her eyes. The same one that had been there when she’d cleaned his wounds. It was that look that kept him talking.

“At first, I’d take Ariel to visit Grimm at his private clinic. It seemed legit. Like he had private funding to run the experiments. Ariel would donate blood samples, and he’d give her a shot or a serum and tell her to come back in a few days or a week so they could monitor any changes. But then Ariel seemed to deteriorate. I didn’t know if it was the natural progression of the disease, but something told me the treatments had something to do with it. I knew she wasn’t getting simple shots anymore, but she wouldn’t talk about them. She was becoming weaker. Developing bruises all over. She’d cry out if she bumped into anything. I…”

“You were worried about your sister,” Nari supplied. “Did you tell her not to go back to Grimm?”

“Yes, I did,” Anson said, his voice full of regret. “I said we needed to take her back to the hospital, but she refused. She went off the next day, and I knew where she’d go. But when I got to Grimm’s clinic, it was being packed up.”

“He was moving?”

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