Page 34 of Seduced
Suddenly, Aiden pulls back, breaking the kiss. He fixes me with a fierce stare.
“Wearemore.”
I can only stand there, dumbfounded, turned on beyond belief. “Okay.”
There’s so much we still need to say to each other, but this will have to do for now.
* * *
“Have you seen Skye?” I ask Jack an hour later as he pounds down the stairs and enters the main room of the Lodge. “She’s not answering her phone.”
It’s dinnertime, and I haven’t seen her since lunch. She’s not with Aiden either, because his office door is ajar, and he’s arguing with a boat company about the delivery of a new fishing boat to replace the one that Devlin Ward took with him when he left the village.
“Maybe she’s still at the clinic,” Jack says. “I’ll give Leanne a call.”
After a long day, I want nothing more than to curl up with Skye and watch a movie—and fool around. I’m still worked up over what happened earlier, and I need release. I’ll tell her all about the conversation, too. She needs to know.
Jack disconnects the phone call, frowning. “Leanne says Skye left almost an hour ago.”
“I’ll try her cell again.” I dial her number, but it rings and rings, without answer.
Jack peers through the curtains on the side of the Lodge that look out toward Skye’s old cabin. “Do you think she went to fetch something?”
“She’s brought all her stuff here.” I point at Skye’s dog who’s currently curled up in front of the fireplace. “Even all of Princess Penny’s things are here. And besides, she wouldn’t go there on her own, not after the break-in.”
We haven’t actually talked about it, but I suspect it was Ward who broke into Skye’s cabin and smashed her things. It must have been. He’d likely thought he’d find incriminating evidence against her, but in the end, he decided to straight-up accuse her of being a witch.
I exchange a worried look with Jack. What if it wasn’t Ward? What if the witches she and Jack had heard about in Anchorage have already made their way to Amber Bay?
“I’ll go search for—” I say.
At the same time, Jack growls, “We have to go after her.”
“Shit, yeah.” I grab my jacket from the hook by the door and shove my feet into boots. “Let’s go.”
If Skye had last been seen at the clinic, that’s where we need to start. We can try to follow her scent trail, even though that’ll be difficult—she’s been all over the village, taking Princess Penny on strolls and helping people. Her scent, faint after a recent shower, is everywhere, and we might need help from others to track her down.
“You don’t think her sister would hurt her, do you?” I ask Jack. “I mean, they’re family.”
He’s the expert on families, since mine is basically nonexistent.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “It’s messed up, man. She was seriously freaked out when she heard about those witches sniffing around our hangar. You’d think they’re murderers or something.” He sends me a long, pained glance. “She really thought I was going to leave her there to deal with this shit on her own.”
I blow out a long plume of breath that fogs up in the air in front of me. If we were human, we’d have trouble seeing anything at all. If Skye got lost without a flashlight, she could be walking around in circles, scared. And it’s near freezing tonight. We’ll have frost in the morning for sure.
“I wish I could get my hands on her family,” I growl. “They fucked up so badly. But I can’t believe Skye still thinks we’d let her go without a fight.”
“There’s got to be something we can do to get through to her,” Jack muses, scanning the path in front of us.
“What, like propose?” I ask, only half serious.
He inclines his head to the side. “Mm. That might be difficult with the three of us sharing her. I was thinking more in terms of renovating the Lodge to give her a space of her own.”
A twig snaps somewhere to our left, and I stop, listening for sounds of movement. There’s nothing, so we continue on. “What, you mean like her own bedroom? She’s staying with us, isn’t she?”
Jack sighs. “Yeah, and we need to change that, too. That bed is barely big enough for three people. If Aiden makes a commitment, we’ll be packed like sardines.” He peers into the darkness, and his nostrils twitch as he sniffs the air. “But I was thinking more in terms of an office. If she stays here, she’ll probably start taking on work she can do remotely, so she’ll need a space where she can set up all her computer stuff.”
I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t even thought of that. I’d just assumed things would work out somehow. But trust Jack to think of it. The least I can do is go along with his plans and offer assistance.
