Page 43 of Triumph of the Wolf
In the mud at Chad’s feet, the magic detector started beeping. It shifted of its own accord, and its antennae pointed at me. No, at mypurse.
“What do you have in there?” Chad asked.
“Nothing that belongs to you.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Are you sure it’s not the wolf case that I legitimately bought and stored in our apartment and that youhave presumed to keep? Even though it’s not yours?”
I didn’t want to admit that the exact scenario he’d described had happened and that he was right. The case wasn’t mine. But itwantedto be here, or so it had shared with me in a vision. Of course, that might have been a delusion… a hallucination.
“It’s probably beeping at this.” To avoid answering his accusation, I pulled the wolf-head medallion out from under my shirt. “It’s a family heirloom that belonged—belongs—to my mother.”
She wasn’t gone yet, and I refused to talk about her in past tense.
As if to validate the statement, the magic detector beeped happily, and its antennae wavered between pointing at the medallion and at my purse.
Chad’s gaze locked on the medallion. “What can it do?”
Good question.
“When I’ve touched it, it’s glowed brightly.”
The male version had not only healed Duncan but removed a powerful curse, but I didn’t mention that.
“It must do more thanthat,” Chad said. “Leave it to you to not bother studying it.”
I bristled. “It’s my mother’s, not mine. I didn’t know it existed until recently.”
A far-off yell sounded, barely reaching my ears. Right after, glass shattered, the sharp sound carrying more clearly. Duncan had to be responsible, doing as I’d asked and scaring the developers.
“My magic detector thinks it’s powerful.” Chad, his hearing not as keen as that of a werewolf, might not have caught the commotion in the distance. He picked up the device and looked at whatever reading it displayed on the screen. “And it thinks you have something else.”
Eyeing my purse again, Chad took a step toward me.
My skin prickled, adrenaline and magic flowing through my veins, my instincts promising the wolf was available if I needed to defend myself.
“Don’t come any closer.” As I held up a warning hand to stop Chad, I took a deep breath to tamp down the magic. I had to keep my cool. I didn’t want to change and risk losing it and hurting him—or worse. Especially not with Cameron nearby.
I glanced over my shoulder, worried my son might have heard us and come closer. I didn’t see him, but if I changed and fought with Chad, Cameron was close enough to hear that.
Chad stopped, but he also glared in indignation. “You stole that case from me. And you divorced me. You don’t have any right to tell me what to do.”
“Youcheatedon me. Many times over the years. And you stole the kids’ college fund. Youdeservedto be divorced.”
Chad’s fingers clenched around the magic detector. “That has nothing to do with you stealing that case from me.”
“The case you hid from me. Like everything else about your conniving life.”
Heat flushed my face—my entire body. If I wasn’t careful, I would lose the battle to keep the wolf—and my temper—fromtaking over. But more than twenty years of history with him—painful history—made it hard. And the fact that he was up here, working with the people who wanted to drive my family off their land? I longed to punch him all over again.
“Like you never hid any secrets.” Chad looked past my shoulder and opened his mouth, as if he was on the verge of calling out to someone.
Cameron? Did he think our son would help him against me?
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid to deal with me on your own,” I hurried to say, not wanting Cameron brought into this, not wanting him to witness any of it.
“I’minjured. Your feral boyfriend threw me over a car.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you. You’d better leave Seattle before something worse than a sprained wrist happens to you.”
