Page 18 of Shadows of the Soul

Chapter Seven

Hearts and the horizontal tango.

“One hour,” I warned as we pulled up outside of my Summer Grove house. “Then I’ll be leaving without you.”

“Noted,” Hudson answered as I slammed the car door closed.

“And I’m driving.”

He scoffed, shook his head, and peeled out of my driveway with an unconscious wolf shifter in the trunk. My front door swung open revealing Dangerous Dave. I trotted up the stairs and into the house. He scented the air and quirked a brow at me.

“Nothing happened,” I snapped. I’m sure Hudson’s smell was all over me. Damn cat was scent marking me.

“Cora,” a familiar voice called from somewhere deep in the house. I reversed my steps on the stairs and popped my head around the corner as Aunt Liz stepped out from the kitchen while drying her hands on a floral dishtowel. “Kitchen, now.”

She glanced at Dave. I darted my gaze between them, before I mirrored his expression from moments ago. Dave smirked and waltzed out of the house. The door snicked closed.

“Coward,” I muttered as I made my way to the kitchen. Aunt Liz pulled off a power suit and an apron like no other. I slid on to a chair. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

She tossed me a glance over her shoulder. “My sister has been kidnapped, and the culprit is demanding my niece in exchange. I know you, Cora, you’ll have some half-baked plan which involves you turning yourself over to these evil people.”

I opened my mouth to deny it. She tsked. “Dave already informed me. You think it’s a solid plan. But it isn’t. You’ve no idea who, how many, or what you are facing.”

“We can’t leave her there,” I stated.

Aunt Liz huffed. “Really, Cora, you should know better. Dayna can handle herself.” She turned, slid an omelet onto a plate and put it in front of me. My stomach rumbled. How long had it been since the pancakes? “Don’t you think it’s odd?” she continued.

“That she’s being held in her house? Definitely.”

“What does that tell us?”

“That she wants me there. If Dayna wanted them out, she would have them out. That house of hers wouldn’t allow anything in unless she permitted it.”

Aunt Liz nodded. “Agreed. So for whatever reason, she wants you to meet these kidnappers—while they’re alive.”

I spooned the last of the omelet into my mouth before digging around in my pockets. I placed the three items on the table. “Nulling potion, detection spell, and telepathy charm.”

“That should work,” she said, examining the items. “What’s the telepathy charm for?”

“Hudson is accompanying me, and it will be handy to have silent communication. I’ve no idea what we are walking into, and while he’s the biggest, baddest shifter, he’s not aware of our ways or what dangers we might be facing. He’s used to dealing with problems with brute strength.”

“You’ll have to both wear it before you leave.”

I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t told His Suspiciousness about my plan to link our minds yet. He already acted as if I was the mastermind behind a secret plot to sedate shifters.

Aunt Liz frowned and leaned back in her chair. She hit me with the Roberts’ hard assed stare. “You haven’t told him.”

“Yet.”

She took a deep breath, like I was testing her patience. Lucky her, she didn’t have Hudson on her ass every second. That would test the patience of a saint. I grimaced. Her eyes softened, and she leaned over the table, taking my hands. “At some point, Cora, you will need to take a chance on a man to trust your heart to.”

I blinked back the sudden tears. “How do you decide who is safe?”

She tilted her head. “You can’t. It will feel like jumping off a cliff and not knowing what awaits you at the bottom. It could be sharp, jagged rocks that will smash your body to pieces.”

“Exactly.”

“Then again, he could catch you and take you flying high above the clouds.”

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