by Chant, Zoe
What if he doesn’t?
What if he walked away?
That was a problem for later, she told herself. Right now she had something else to do. Romantic woes needed to be shelved in favor of the very real and present danger the whole town was facing.
So she shoved down the little screaming voice that wanted to tell Flynn, You’re mine, please say you’re mine, please say you’ll stay here forever with us, and started shepherding Sophia into the car.
Sophia chattered all the way to Lachlan’s about the sleepover, and when they pulled into the driveway, she was undoing her seatbelt and fighting with the door handle right away.
“Sophia, stay in the car until Flynn comes to get you,” Lila said in a warning voice. Flynn smiled a little, looking back over his shoulder.
“One second, Sophia,” he said. Then he looked at Lila. “If you need help, you call me. Anything. No matter what. Okay?”
Lila nodded, not trusting her voice.
“I’ll make sure the kids are okay. No matter what.”
She nodded again. Flynn hesitated, glancing back to the backseat, and then leaned in and kissed her quickly on the mouth.
“Ew!” Sophia said delightedly.
“Come on, let’s go, princess!” Flynn said quickly, getting out of the car and opening Sophia’s door, letting her hop out while protesting that she was a queen, not a princess.
“Bye, honey,” Lila said, clearing her throat. “Have fun!”
Flynn came around the other side to get Grant out of his car seat. “Text me,” he told her. “I want to know how things are going.”
“I will,” Lila said, heartfelt.
Then they were gone, and she was pulling out of the driveway, heading for the diner.
When she pulled into the parking lot, a few minutes early, she saw the silver Lexus already in a spot. Elizabeth had gotten here early, too.
Slowly, she got out of the car. No lion jumped out of the trees and ate her immediately, so she closed the door and started for the diner.
There was a tall figure standing in the shadows by the door, and she jumped. But then it stepped out into the light, and she recognized Malachi, the town sheriff.
“I’m staying out here,” he told her quietly. “If anyone other than the lawyer shows up, I’ll see them first, and I’m ready for them. Lachlan, Santos, Ronan, and Reid are all inside. There’s no need for you to worry, all right?”
Lila nodded, breathing slowly, the fear fading away.
She didn’t need to worry. She didn’t just have Flynn on her side. She had all of Oak Ridge here with her.
With renewed confidence, Lila pushed open the door to the diner and stepped inside.
She saw Elizabeth immediately—she was sitting in one of the booths, examining a menu, and she stuck out like a sore thumb in the casual diner. She was wearing a silver-gray suit with a crisp white shirt underneath, a delicate silver necklace around her neck. Her blonde hair was twisted into an elegant chignon. Her makeup was perfect.
Lila was immediately reminded of the fact that she was wearing jeans and a hoodie, no makeup at all, hair caught up into a messy ponytail.
That doesn’t matter, she reminded herself. Besides, she was a single mom of two kids. Elizabeth wasn’t in a relationship, as far as Lila knew, and she was definitely childless. She’d always seemed married to her job.
Lila took a deep breath and went over to the booth, sliding into the opposite side. “Hi.”
Elizabeth set the menu down. “Hi.”
“Can I get you anything?”
Lila looked up, and managed to keep a straight face at the sight of Reid, the mayor’s son and the local doctor, standing in front of them with a pad.
Reid was also a dragon, and one of the people Flynn had mentioned as calling on for patrolling the house if necessary. Lila guessed that this was to make her feel more secure.
Well, it was working. She set her menu down and said, “Could I just get a cup of coffee?” It would be weird not to order anything, right?
“I’m just having water,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Reid said cheerfully, and took their menus. “I’ll have that right out for you.”
He disappeared, and Lila turned to look at Elizabeth.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me why you’re here.”
Elizabeth leaned forward. “I refuse to work for a murderer.” No hesitation; her voice was soft but fierce. “I won’t. When I found out—when I found out what Victor did to Michael, I decided that I wasn’t going to stand for it. I want to put him in prison.”
“What about—will that work? Will he really go to jail? And even if he does, will the pack actually stop?” Lila asked dubiously.
Elizabeth looked away. “It won’t stop everyone, no. Someone else will have to take over, and it’ll depend on what that person wants to do with the pack.”
“Someone else like...you?” Could this all be a bid for power?
But Elizabeth shook her head immediately. “No. I’m not taking over that nest of snakes.”
She sounded sincere. Lila wished that she were better at detecting lying in anybody over the age of five.
“I can think of a couple of good candidates for replacing Victor,” Elizabeth said. “A woman, hopefully. Someone who’ll understand that the cycle of violence doesn’t need to keep going forever.”
She sipped her ice water. She looked about as cold as it did; was she telling the truth? And if she was, could she really make it happen?
Lila thought of something that Cam and Lachlan were really worried about. Well, probably everyone was. “Victor said that he had some kind of—alliance. With another group of shifters? Do you know anything about that?”
Elizabeth set her water down. She looked grim. “I do. That’s going to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks, if we can’t convince them it’s not worth it any longer.”
“Who?”
“Dragons,” said Elizabeth.
Lila felt a chill in her heart.
“The upper members of the pack met with one of them a couple of weeks ago. I saw his shifted form when he came in—it was huge. Dark red. His name was Elijah, and he told Victor he’d be more than happy to attack Oak Ridge. He wanted to charge right in, actually, but Victor convinced him that they should wait and scout out the territory a bit more.”
Lila could feel the fear trickling out from her heart into every part of her body. Her fingertips. Her toes.
Hostile dragons? Could the town survive that?
What would an open war between dragon shifters even look like? Lila desperately did not want to find out.
But where else could she go? Maybe she really should take the kids and go to her mother’s house. But her mom didn’t have enough space for them all, let alone enough money to support them while Lila looked for a job. A job that would take her despite having no work history in the last six years, and pay her enough to support her family alone.
“So do you have a plan for convincing them to just—go away?” Lila asked.
Elizabeth lifted her chin. “I’m going to try. If pack leadership changes, any alliance would have to be renegotiated anyway, and they might decide that we’re more trouble than we’re worth.”
“What about Oak Ridge? What if they decide that it’s worth it, Victor or no?”
Elizabeth looked away. “I don’t know.”
Lila rubbed her eyes, frustrated. “So what do you know? What can you do? I want to help you, but only if there’s something to do.”
“I can put together a damn good case to prosecute Victor for murder and the rest of his family for tax evasion,” Elizabeth said, meeting Lila’s eyes. “I can get them out of power. Which might not fix everything, but it’ll do a damn good job of improving the situation.”
Lila breathed out. That was true. That had to be true. “So what do you want from me? Why are we talking?”
“You have Michael’s computer, right?”
“Oh.” Lila blinked. “Yes, I do.” She’d shared Michael’s laptop, and she still used it for the household finances and occasionally for watching a movie on the Internet when she had time, which was rarely.
“Michael did all of Victor’s accounting. The records were kept on a computer in Victor’s home, but Michael was thinking about leaving. Could his personal computer have had information about Victor’s finances? As collateral, perhaps?”
“I’d be surprised if he’d thought that far ahead,” Lila said slowly, “but he definitely never cleaned up the desktop or anything. I remember looking at his email after he—died—and the inbox was practically overflowing. And he brought work home all the time, even though he always said he wasn’t supposed to.”
Elizabeth leaned forward, showing a flash of emotion. “Good. Good, that’s good. Would you give it to me? Let me look through it, at least?”
“You can look through it.” Lila hoped to God that this was the right thing to do. “Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you. I refuse to work for a murderer.”
Maybe Lila was a little better at detecting lies than she’d thought, because that was the one thing that didn’t ring true to her. Elizabeth had been Victor’s lawyer for years now. Surely she’d known what kind of person he was before this.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to make this decision by herself. This would affect the whole town of Oak Ridge, right?
She was just about to look around and see if she could catch Reid’s eye when Elizabeth’s phone buzzed. She picked it up and cursed. “Victor wants to see me. Back in town. I’m going to have to make up an excuse and speed like crazy to get back there in time.”
“I’m going to have to talk this over with the dragons here before I make any decisions,” Lila said quickly. “I’ll get back to you once they’ve talked about it.”
Elizabeth immediately looked wary. “The dragons? How do I know they won’t—”
“Won’t what?” Lila asked. “Try to kidnap you? Hurt you? So far, the only person who’s kidnapped and hurt anyone is Victor. The people here aren’t like that. They’ll want to do the right thing.”
Elizabeth hesitated. Then her phone buzzed again.
“Okay,” she said. “All right. Text me when you’re ready to meet again. I have to go.”
She slid out of the booth, leaving a twenty on the table before Lila could protest that she’d only had a few sips of water. Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked away, and then she was out the door and gone.
Lila stared at the empty booth for a long minute.
She felt a little unsteady. God, she wasn’t meant for this sort of thing—intrigue and espionage and secret meetings and fantasy wars. She was meant for bedtime stories and diaper changes and playing ninja princess with Sophia.
Too bad Sophia wasn’t grown up, she thought with a sudden flash of amusement. She’d love all the intrigue and espionage and secret meetings. Where had she even gotten that from? It wasn’t from Lila or Michael, that seemed apparent.
Then Reid appeared, with a sympathetic smile. “You doing all right?”
Lila nodded. “I’m fine. I—what now?”
“Strategy meeting,” Reid said. “Lachlan’s place, since Flynn’s already there. I heard everything she said, but we definitely want your input as well, since you know her. Are you up for it?”
Lila nodded, straightening up a bit. “Yes. Yes, I’m up for it.” She was trembling a little with the release of adrenaline, but she wasn’t going to let the town down.
It was funny, how she’d started thinking about Oak Ridge as a place to protect. A place she was invested in.
Home, she thought, and then shook that thought away. Because she still might have to leave, if things got really dangerous. Even if living with her mother would be difficult, it was better than her kids being kidnapped by Victor.
Unless Victor knew where her mother lived. Michael had known, and he might have mentioned it, and it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to find her, if Victor was really trying.
No, maybe better to stay in the town full of powerful shifters who wanted to protect her and her family, rather than leaving and possibly putting her mom in danger as well.
She slid out of the booth and followed Reid out of the diner. Lachlan appeared from the kitchen as they left, and outside, they were joined by a silent Malachi. “The others are meeting us there,” he told them.
They separated to drive over. In the car, quiet and alone, Lila thought about Flynn. The way she hadn’t had to worry about her kids at all while meeting with Elizabeth, because Flynn had been with them. And Flynn would not only protect them, he’d take care of them.
God, she wanted him.
She resolved to talk to him, clearly and explicitly, about what she wanted. As soon as possible, so he knew what the deal was. And if he didn’t want her—well, she wanted to know that sooner rather than later.
She pulled up to Lachlan’s house and got out, slamming the door decisively and heading up the walk.
Cam met her at the door. Lila let out her breath and embraced her friend, pulling her close. Cam hugged back without hesitation—Lachlan had been good for her, Lila thought; there’d been a time where Cam would have gone stiff and awkward, patting Lila’s shoulder and extracting herself as quickly as possible.
Now, though, she hugged tightly, and kept hold of Lila’s shoulders when she pulled back. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Lila nodded, blinking back tears. “I’m okay,” she said. “Flynn’s been—he’s been keeping us safe.”
Cam gave her a long look, and Lila wondered if her tone of voice or her expression was giving away...something. But the men were coming up the walk behind her, so there wasn’t time for a conversation. Cam let her go and said, “Flynn’s just inside with the kids.”
She turned to give Lachlan a kiss hello, her smile blooming bright. Lila felt a little ache in her chest—she didn’t like to think of herself as an envious person, but the sight of them together—knowing they had that perfect, magical mate-bond connecting them—
She just wanted something like that. Not even perfect and magical. Just a connection that would last.
Heart heavy with too many emotions, she turned and went inside. And sure enough, in the living room, Flynn was sitting with Grant asleep on his chest while Aidan and Sophia played some kind of science game.
“Mommy!” Sophia said when she saw Lila. “We’re experimenting!”
“Wow, honey, that’s great,” Lila said. “Almost time for bed, now, okay?”
Sophia scrunched up her face. “Noooooo.”
The upcoming argument was forestalled when Lachlan, Malachi, and Reid came into the living room behind them, followed by another enormous man that Lila vaguely recognized as Santos, another local dragon shifter, and finally Katie, Victor’s ex, and her mate Ronan. Katie had her son Noah in her arms, asleep.
The presence of so many strange adults made it a lot easier to get Sophia to agree to head upstairs with Aidan and get into her pajamas. Lila had the odd experience of asking six grown men to wait on their war strategizing while she put her kids to bed.
“I’ll come up with you,” Flynn said, standing up carefully. “So this guy doesn’t have to be handed off more than once.”
“Thanks,” Lila said, grateful, and then of course Lachlan came too, to put Aidan to bed as well.
As they trooped upstairs, Lila thought that this was the correct order of things. Kids first, then war councils.
She smiled to herself at the thought, and Flynn murmured, “What is it?”
“Just thinking that this town has their priorities in order,” she murmured back.
Flynn looked at the baby sleeping on his shoulder and smiled. “Sure does,” he said. “You know, other than Aidan, there haven’t been a lot of kids born around here in the last few years. Too many younger townsfolk going away for college or jobs and not coming back. When Katie came to town with Noah, that was
the first baby in a while. And now Sophia and Grant—we really—we really hope you stick around.”
Lila felt a warmth in her chest, right where the ache had been just a few minutes ago. “I want to,” she said quietly.
“Good,” Flynn said. “Good. That’ll be good for—for the town.”
What about for you?
But it wasn’t the right moment to have that conversation, not while they were chivvying Sophia and Aidan into the bathroom to brush their teeth.
Soon.
They got Sophia and Aidan ensconced in Aidan’s room, where they would probably talk for the next hour, but that was fine. Grant got put down in Aidan’s old crib, set up in Lachlan and Cam’s room.
Flynn laid him gently in the crib without jostling him once, and there wasn’t a peep from the baby as he settled into bed. Lila touched Flynn’s arm and gave him a thumbs-up. He grinned at her, looking boyish and pleased with himself.
Oh, Lila mouthed to herself as he turned away. That smile had been absolutely lethal.
She tried to put her feelings away as they went back downstairs. Now was a time for rational thought, not swooning emotion.
In the living room, they all settled in. “Your mother coming?” Flynn asked Reid.
He shook his head. “She’s out on patrol, has been for a few hours. I’ll keep her in the loop.”
Reid’s mother was the mayor, Lila remembered, and a formidable woman indeed. It was comforting to know that while all the men were gathered in here, she was out keeping an eye on the town’s perimeter.
“All right,” Lachlan said, settling on the couch next to Cam. “Lila, you want to tell us about what Elizabeth said?”
Lila nodded, and quickly explained Elizabeth’s proposal for using Michael’s laptop to gather evidence to put Victor away. At the end of the summary, she said, “As far as I can tell, she’s being sincere. I don’t want to stake anybody’s lives on that, though.”
“She didn’t show any signs of lying,” Reid spoke up. “I was keeping a close eye on her. But she’s a lawyer, she’d have to have a good poker face.”
“And I don’t know what could be on Michael’s laptop that she’d be using for anything else,” Lila added. “There’s certainly nothing on there that could harm any of us.” Other than Lila’s own personal pitiful finances, which if Elizabeth’s car was any indicator, she did not need.
