“He hurt women,” Edith continued flatly. “Everyone knew it. No one cared.”
Spencer went very still.
“And when I said no?” Edith smiled faintly, though there was no warmth in it. “Suddenly I was selfish. Emotional. Difficult.” Her eyes flicked toward him then. “I ran because staying would’ve killed me eventually,” she said simply.
Spencer held her gaze and quickly realised that she believed her words wholeheartedly. No dramatics, no emotion, just cold, hard facts, like she had accepted it a long time ago.
The swing creaked softly as she shifted. “So,” Edith said, voice sharpening again as if she’d revealed too much, “there’s your answer. You found me. Congratulations. Gold star for Spencer.”
Again… His name from her mouth did something deeply unhelpful to him, he ignored that too, but it took some effort.
“You’re assuming I’ve decided to take you back,” he said carefully.
Edith blinked and frowned, an action he found himself liking. She clearly hadn’t expected that, then suspicion flooded her expression immediately.
“That sounds like a trap.”
“It isn’t.”
“You’re literally a bounty hunter.”
“You have a point.”
Edith narrowed her eyes at him and Spencer exhaled slowly, looking out over the bay briefly before speaking again.
“I took the job because the money was enough for my brother and me to retire,” he admitted. “At the time, it seemed straightforward.”
“And now?”
Spencer looked at her, really looked at her. At the tension she carried constantly and at the exhaustion hidden beneath the sarcasm, and he answered honestly.
“Now I think your family lied to me.”
Edith went quiet and the wind shifted again, softer this time. Above them, hidden within the trees, Fate smiled faintly while Baba Yaga muttered,
“Oh, this is going to get messy.”
21
The twins were careless.It wasn’t obvious in the way inexperienced hunters were careless. No, their mistake was subtler, more emotional. Which was always the more dangerous kind.
From the darkest corner of the Ferret’s Mott, the male with the gold eyes had watched them for hours the previous evening. He had watched the quieter twin, Spencer, grow increasingly distracted.
Watched his attention drift too often toward windows, doors, and thoughts that clearly weren’t in the room anymore. The other brother had noticed too. That much had been obvious.
The dark-haired one, Mark, had the posture of something caged too long. Restless fingers. Irritated silences. The constant twitch of a predator denied water deep enough to sink into. They were an interesting pair. But Spencer was the weakness.
The gold-eyed stranger had realised that the moment the hunter stopped behaving like a man chasing a bounty, and started behaving like a man chasing answers.
And answers were dangerous things, so he had followed him, silently and effortlessly. Through the waking streets of KrakensHole and up toward the cliffside park. He had expected many things. What he hadnotexpected was to find the missing heir sitting on a swing talking to herself.
The male stilled in the shadows beneath the trees, gold eyes narrowing slightly as he observed her. She hadn’t changed much from the little he could remember. Purple hair and her Dragon scent that seemed to grow stronger even as he stood there, but within it was fear woven so deeply into her posture it practically clung to her skin.
“Well,” he murmured softly. “That was easier than expected.”
The Smokeclaw heir had evaded trackers, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and clan spies for years, and yet here she sat, overlooking the bay in borrowed clothes looking one bad day away from a nervous breakdown.
Almost disappointing… almost. Then Spencer approached her.
