Page 61 of Secrets and Ruin

“Yeah, but I had to try,” Dirk said, leaning back on Landon. “I’m sorry I never told you more about this place. Niko never wanted it floating around, you know, living in a magic forest that most people really want to believe is normal.”

“We all have secrets, but you know all of mine. Everything I am, I share with you. I only hope one day, we can be in a place where you feel you can do the same with me. I don’t need to know everything. I just want you to know you can trust me with anything,” he whispered.

My ears couldn’t help but pick up what Landon said.

“I do. That’s why I wanted Jacky to tell you the last big thing I knew I had to hide,” Dirk whispered back.

I looked around the clearing. Leaving them, I walked the perimeter twice before either of them broke the silence.

“What is that?” Dirk asked, his volume well over Landon’s hushed one.

“I think it’s…” Landon’s awe couldn’t be missed.

I looked around, wondering if they saw anything I didn’t, but as I opened my mouth to ask them what they were talking about, they were staring at each other, wide-eyed, and they seemed to be in their own world.

“Is that what the mate bond feels like?” Dirk asked.

Landon’s sudden grin was all I needed to know. Turning away when he yanked Dirk into him, I took one more lap around the clearing before clearing my voice, but they had already broken it up.

“We should get into our positions,” I said gently.

“Yeah,” Dirk said, his cheeks a little redder from a blush than from his injuries.

“Jacky, are you sure you want to be in the house?” Landon asked, eyeing me and the shack.

“Someone needs to be,” I reminded him. “If it’s empty, he’ll know it’s wrong. He knows I would never go back and leave either of you, but I would send you two back and stay by myself. You’re both better with all that than me.” I waved at the firearms.

In reality, I had one last thing I wanted to try. Rainer was a monster, and I couldn’t figure out what had gone so sour between him and Niko. I had a feeling there was nothing I could really do about it, but I knew fae magic and identity was a finicky, complicated thing that took on a magic of its own. He had pretended to be someone else for a long time, who acted very differently now. I wanted to poke around until I gave my boys the signal to open fire.

I watched them go into the trees together, knowing Landon would split off once Dirk was in position to take up his own. They couldn’t sit together. It was risky, especially for Dirk. Apart, they could cover every side of the house, removing Rainer’s chance to use it for cover. I just needed to keep Rainer focused on me before he decided to go to find them.

Going into the shack, I closed the door. There was an old nursery rhyme I couldn’t stop thinking about. It wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood, but rather, the Three Little Pigs. Two didn’t make houses good enough to stop the big bad wolf from blowing their houses down and eating them. One made his house of brick, and it was able to withstand.

This home was made of stone with a wooden roof. It wouldn’t hold out against the wolf hunting us.

I couldn’t sleep even though the thought was very tempting. I leaned on the back wall, keeping on my feet, trying to fight the urge to curl into a ball. I checked my phone without thinking, reminding myself that it was still dead and there wasn’t much I could do about that.

I heard the softest break of branches. It could have been an animal, but I knew it wasn’t. The night air filled with something primal, making my guard come back up as I knew another predator had entered the clearing. There was a reason I had walked the perimeter. It wasn’t enough to mark something I would consider my territory, and doing it as a human was normally just foolish. It was just enough, though. The land gave me a whisper of something coming.

A werewolf but also not. There was some fae about him now, something I had never noticed before in Fenris. Rainer was truly something different, and I had no idea how he’d hidden it for so long. I only had a few theories but didn’t know if anyone would ever find the truth about what this werewolf had done to himself.

Pushing off the wall, I went to the door when he was only a few feet from it. I could hear him sniffing the air. I yanked it open to see Rainer there, his eyes landing on me quickly.

“Jacky Leon,” he greeted, smiling cruelly.

“Rainer Brandt,” I said in return.

“So, you know. Did the boy tell you?”

“No, I found the contract in your desk.” I pushed the door open wider, far enough that it caught on an uneven section of earth and didn’t swing closed again.

His eyes went wide for a moment.

“No, you couldn’t have…I brought it.” He reached for his pocket, snarling when it was empty.

“You know I’m not lying. You can smell that.”

“I remember.” He shook his head, focusing on me once again. “Where are the other two?”

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