They moved cautiously into the shed—there was plenty of room in here, and though the man’s eyes burned with resentment as he looked up at them, it was clear that he was in no fit state to prevent them from entering. Vee and Ren lingered close to the doorway, clearly not eager to get too close to the man, though they murmured answers in the affirmative to Mira’s questions. Conrad exhaled, tired of being patient, and caught Mira’s eye.
“Right. Sorry. Heather said she found him breaking in through the study window late last night—that’s right at the far end of the house from her bedroom. She’s had burglars before, and they’re usually pretty easy to scare off—she’s got this antique rifle she keeps under her bed. Anyway, this guy wasn’t scared of it. Drew his own gun on her, then told her to show him where she kept Richard’s things. That was my dad,” she added, her voice going a little quiet for a moment. Then she rallied. “Anyway, long story short, she smashed his face in with the butt of the rifle, took his gun and phone, and here we are.”
“She took him prisoner?” Conrad said, glancing down at the powerfully built man. “On her own?”
“That’s how you can tell he isn’t from around here,” Mira said, pride glowing in her voice. “Nobody from this neighborhood would be dumb enough to mess with Aunt Heather.”
“But why did he?” Conrad wanted to know. “What do your father’s belongings have to do with kidnapping shifters?”
Heather cleared her throat, murmuring something and pointing to the corner of the shed. Mira, Conrad, and the wolves followed her gaze. The murmurs of recognition told him that he was looking at something meaningful. A couple of large rectangular containers, bright red, and a couple of palm-sized boxes that rattled when Heather picked one up.
“This was what the guy had in his van,” Mira told Conrad. He was aware that the man hadn’t taken his eyes off Mira since she’d started speaking, and that direct, unbroken stare was beginning to make Conrad feel an uncharacteristic urge to give him a matching bruise on the other side of his face. “Supplies for lighting fires.”
“He was going to burn Heather’s house down?” Conrad said, shocked by the suggestion. Among his people at least, fire was considered one of the most ignoble of weapons. Even in the most dire phases of historical wars against the wolves who lived largely in wooden homes among the trees, no dragon had ever resorted to using fire to harm or weaken the enemy. “But why?”
“That’s what we have to figure out,” Mira said, her expression worried. “Because if they sent one guy all the way out here, they can send more.
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Conrad told her firmly, taking both her hands in his. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Mira. You and your family will be safe again soon. I promise.”
Chapter 19 - Mira
It didn’t feel real, this strange scene in Heather’s shed. Every time she looked at the captive, she felt his eyes burning into her with silent resentment. She looked away, uncomfortable with the intensity of his stare. He’d glanced at Conrad and the wolves when they’d come in, but for some reason, it was Mira who got the full brunt of his attention now. It was almost like he recognized her. Maybe he did, she thought with another lurch of discomfort. If he and his organization had been hunting her, maybe he knew her face.
“Has he said anything about what he wants?” she asked Heather, knowing the answer before her aunt even shook her head.
“Hasn’t said a word since I bound his hands.” Heather narrowed her eyes at the man, the tone of her voice shifting. “Have you, now? Won’t even tell me his name.”
The man spat on the floor of the shed, giving Heather a lingering look as he did so. But when he turned his attention back to Mira, he rasped something. It wasn’t a word she recognized, but something about the vowels made her look to Conrad—whose head had snapped around like a whip at the sound of the man’s voice. The expression on his face was a mixture of shock and anger, and when Mira looked back at the captive, he was smirking.
“What did he say?” she asked Conrad. But he shook his head, lips pressed together tightly.
“An insult I won’t repeat,” he told her, his jaw tight. Then his blue eyes were back on the captive, real anger burning in them. “How does a human learn a word like that?”
But the captive only smirked, nothing on his face suggesting he understood the question at all. Mira felt even more uneasy than she had when they’d discovered the van. It was bad enough that he seemed to recognize her without adding familiarity with a language from another world to the mix.
But the captive didn’t seem willing to say anything else—so after an uneasy silence, Heather locked the shed again and the little group traipsed back inside. Heather, true to form, whistled as she bustled about in the kitchen, preparing the five of them a hearty lunch. That was Heather for you. Not many women in their sixties could get up in the middle of the night to subdue and capture an armed invader then whistle over a fragrant pot of potato and leek soup the following morning… but Aunt Heather wasn’t many women. Living here with her had been a much-needed bright spot in the darkness that had threatened to engulf Mira’s childhood completely.
And Mira was going to do whatever it took to get revenge on the men who’d tried to hurt her aunt.
Heather was particularly curious about the wolves, who seemed to feel a little out of their depth here. Mira didn’t blame them. The grandmotherly woman in the kitchen and the bruised prisoner locked in the back shed were certainly difficult to reconcile with one another. But Heather would win them over eventually. She’d won over a surly teenaged Mira, after all… and once you’d faced that challenge, you could face just about anything. She hadn’t mentioned they were wolves when she’d introduced them, which felt like the right move, for now at least. Aunt Heather had enough to deal with right now without the revelation that there were magical shapeshifters living among them…
They talked more over lunch about the man and his fellows, compiling all their information about the ongoing attacks. Mira did her best to translate for Conrad whenever she could, but it was hard to balance participating in the conversation with conveying it to the man at her side, and eventually she settled for quick summaries of the major points. Point one—based on the van, the outfit, and some addresses that Heather had found on the man’s phone, it was a safe bet that they were dealing with the same organization. Point two—well, that was about it. All the rest was conjecture.
“Have you heard of these guys burning down houses at all?” Mira asked the wolves. Vee was clearly racking her brains, but she shook her head helplessly.
“Literally every story I’ve heard has been kidnapping only. People are hanging out, an unmarked van like that one turns up, a bunch of soldier-looking guys all pour out and grab everyone, end of story. Sometimes they come to people’s houses, sometimes not, and sometimes there’s a bit of damage from the fighting… but never any fires. Right, Ren?”
“Right,” the young man agreed. Mira hid a smile as she saw her aunt stealthily adding another bread roll to his side plate. Nobody as skinny as Ren was would be permitted under Heather’s roof without being constantly plied with food. The young wolf grabbed the bread roll and tore into it with his teeth, and Mira saw Heather nod with evident satisfaction. These two were going to be fast friends, she suspected.
“You’re sure he wanted Dad’s stuff?” Mira asked Heather. Her aunt nodded, coming back from the kitchen with another stick of butter.
“He called him by his full name.”
“But—why?” Mira felt utterly lost. She’d been hoping this trip to her aunt’s might give them more information about her mystery attackers… but this information was less helpful than no information at all. “Why would they go from hunting—people,” she said, stopping herself at the last minute from using the word ‘shifter’, “—to … what, destroying the belongings of a man who’s been dead for twenty years?”
Heather nodded agreement, a shadow of a too-familiar sorrow lingering on her lined face. “You said they came for you last night, didn’t you?”
She nodded, glancing sidelong at Conrad, who gave her a faint smile of encouragement despite the fact that he clearly had no idea where the conversation had ended up. She felt a sudden rush of affection for him and wished she could lean across and kiss him on the cheek, but that wasn’t a conversation she felt like having with her aunt right now. Heather wasn’t exactly the kind of aunt you could just bring a boyfriend home to… not if he wasn’t ready to be given the third degree. She knew from the way Heather was studying Conrad that an interrogation would be on its way anyway, but she wanted to hold that off for as long as humanly possible.