Page 53 of Been There Dragon That
Rylee
“Ireally like this. I still feel weird picking out furniture for Wrath’s house.” Rylee finished the order for a few things the ladies had insisted upon—a couch, a breakfast table, and a few rugs—and then put the laptop on the coffee table and flopped back against the puffy cushions.
“I already told you, he’ll be happier if you’ve picked stuff,” Penny shot back from the kitchen. “I checked with Dawn and Ava. They’re going to rent a truck and bring it up with them from Anchorage on their way back home.”
“That’s really nice of them, but there’s no rush.” Rylee stared out the big picture windows at the picturesque winter wonderland and the icy river in the distance.
“Yes rush, that man of yours only has a bed.” Penny gave a dirty laugh. “A bed is essential for sure, but chairs are also good. They were coming home early anyway because of Leif.”
Right. The man the thieves killed. At least that’s what she’d assumed from Wrath’s phone call.
A flash of movement in the trees caught her attention.
Something huge.
Rylee got up from the couch and walked to the window, peering into the shadows between the trees where she’d seen thething. A thing that looked like a wolf.
“Hey, I think there’s an animal outside.” Rylee watched the trees, and a moment later, she saw it again, except she couldn’t believe it was real. The wolf was the size of a small horse. “Umm, hey, guys. There’s a giant wolf outside.” Her stomach tightened and knotted, anxiety raking through her mind like nails over a chalkboard. Panic was all she felt.
“We get them from time to time. They hunt on the river,” Naomi said, her voice nonchalant and ridiculously calm.
Rylee whirled and stared at the little Latin woman where she stood in the kitchen with Penny. Naomi shrugged her shoulders and made the I-don’t-know-what-you’re-implying face.What the actual fuck?Wolves did not grow this big. This was not a thing.It was certainly not an it’s-no-big-deal thing.
“No, agiantwolf. Like a wolf the size of a moose.”
Penny gave Naomi a suspicious glance, and Naomi shook her head, like she was telling the other woman not to say anything. Like they knew exactly what the giant wolf was and weren’t the least bit concerned by a predator outside their door with the ability to swallow one of them in a couple of bites.
Rylee stared at them, and nobody said anything for what felt like multiple elongated stretched-out minutes.
The front door opened with athwack,and Kann came inside with an armful of wood for the woodstove, and two more men stomped in behind him. Men Rylee hadn’t met yet. But they were all huge and built exactly like Kann, and Wrath, and Col.
There was certainly something in the water in Mystery, Alaska.
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” Rylee moved her accusatory glare to Kann. Despite being a giant of a man, he seemed gentle and kind and reasonable. Maybe he would cave where these women would not.
Kann snuck a quick peek at his wife and then flashed Rylee a solemn frown that said he knew the hand she’d been dealt, and he wasn’t helping her out.
“Popped in to grab the handhelds. Turn on the radio, love.” He walked into the kitchen and gave Penny a big kiss. He grabbed three handheld walkies out of a cabinet by the door, and then he and the other two big blond men left as quickly as they’d come in.
“What about the wolf? Aren’t you going to tell them there’s a huge predator out there.” Rylee started for the door.
“Rylee,” Penny called out. “They’ll be alright. I promise. We know that wolf. He’s … errr … he’s friendly.”
Naomi hissed something unintelligible under her breath.
Penny sniped back something equally unintelligible.
“Just tell me something!” Rylee said, her tone rising.
Naomi took a deep breath and then turned to face Rylee. Her expression was somber and serious and filled with apprehension. “Okay, look. There’s a lot going on right now, and we can’t explain everything without breaking trust with our husbands that we’re not willing to do. They’re aware of the wolf. He’s not a threat tous.We’re consolidating our family here and in the bunker up the river about a half mile away so you’ll probably see more people come and go.”
“You have a bunker? Like a bomb shelter?” Rylee’s stomach climbed all the way up her throat and threatened to choke off her air. Why would they need a bomb shelter?
“What’s going on?”
She didn’t want to be in the dark. And she felt like she only knew a fraction of what was actually going on with these people. There was a serious threat. Wrath had been upset on the phone. Now there were giant wolves and bomb shelters.
“Technically, I call it a bat cave, but it’s hidden and secure and has bedrooms and bathrooms and food storage for months. We can’t all be up here in Naomi and Col’s house. There’s too many of us, but I have lots of cameras all over. We will see everything before it gets here.” Penny went to her bag and pulled out a laptop. She opened it and set it up on the kitchen counter. The screen was filled with little squares of video feed. She hadn’t been kidding about having cameras. There were at least twenty boxes streaming on the screen.
