Page 5 of Shadow of Fury

Raven stayed where she was and Wren tried not to grit her teeth as she went to her desk to retrieve her things. With her suspicious little sister hovering she couldn’t go back into the Alpha’s office and double check she’d left things in pristine order. She definitely couldn’t finish snooping around so she kicked off the high heels that the Alpha insisted she wear when working for him, slipped on her flip flops from her bag, stashed the heels in their place and then motioned for Raven to go ahead of her so she could lock the door behind them.

Once she fell into step beside Raven, Wren realized just how late it had gotten. The sun had set and only an orange glow on the horizon remained. It wasn’t completely dark yet but she should have been home by now and couldn’t help but wonder if Raven had come searching for her when she didn’t show at her usual time or if her sister had really just been passing by.

Raven might be the youngest of the family but she was no more immune to the anxiety of someone not being where they were supposed to be than Wren was after what had happened to Lark.

As if to prove Wren right, her sister shot her a sideways glance and broached the subject again, “Are you really not going to tell me what you were doing back there?”

“I did tell you.” Wren maintained her lie.

“I’m not a little kid anymore and I worry about you working in the Alpha’s office.” Raven held up a hand when Wren opened her mouth to speak. “And don’t tell me there’s no reason to worry. We both know why you took that job and it’s not some sense of duty to the pack. You think you’re going to find something incriminating about the Kemp family in there, don’t you?”

Thoroughly called out, she sighed, as she shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Wren…”

“Don’t start, Ray. Please. It’s a job and in this town, those are getting hard to come by. Sure, I’m hoping I can find something that will prove the Kemps lied about what happened to Lark but in the meantime, that job is keeping food on the table and the electricity on at Mom and Dad’s house.”

“Okay. Fine.” Raven held her hands up after Wren finished her tirade, “I won’t pester you about it if you’ll promise me two things.”

“Two?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“First, you promise you’re being careful, like beyond careful, because if you get caught sticking your nose in the Alpha’s business, I don’t want to think about what might happen to you.” Raven frowned, “I can’t lose you, Wren.”

Her heart clenched, “I promise I’m being careful.”

“You say that but if I’d been the Alpha coming back to the office tonight, you’d have been caught red handed.”

“He wasn’t coming back tonight.”

“You can’t know that.”

Wren didn’t want to delve into the news that the Alpha was sick because it would only earn her more questions so she swirled her finger in the air to indicate Raven should move on, “And number two?”

Raven was still frowning but she kept her eyes on the street in front of them, “Promise me that if you do find something suspicious, you’ll bring it to me before you do anything else with it.”

Wren scoffed, “Why would I do that?”

“Because you don’t think rationally when it comes to the Kemp family and Lark’s death.”

“Oh, and you do?”

“I was just a kid when Lark died. She was my big sister too and I loved her but I wasn’t close the way you two were being only a year apart. You were always more like twins.”

“Eleven months.”

“What?”

“We were born eleven months apart, so we were Irish twins.”

“Okay. That’s not my point.” Raven sighed, “You were sixteen when we lost Lark. I was only twelve. I wasn’t close to her the way you were so yes; I think I’m more rational when it comes to her death than you are. So please, promise me that you’ll come to me if you think you find something on the Kemps so I can look at it logically and decide what to do with it.”

Wren rubbed her forehead because she could feel a headache coming on, “You think I’m going to go off half-cocked and something terrible is going to happen to me too.”

“I worry. That’s all.”

---