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I closed in for the bite. “Because this ismyden now.”
My mother had had to growl at my father more than oncethis is MY den, YOU leave. The den belonged to the female. My mother had usually been fairly serene, but there were times she took my father out like a cheap rug in need of a beating.
Searle took stock of the clearing I’d just harried him into. Was that a shred of wary respect on his amber irises? “I suppose it is your den, yes.”
No supposing about it. This suitewasmy den, the instant I’d set foot into it. Of course, if I threw him out for kicks, Marcella would have words for me (since the entirehousewasherden), and one didn’t kick one’s mate out of the den for small transgressions. But Searle needed to be brought up to speedrealfast.
“Never lie to me in my own den,” I said. “Now,whereare my rings?”
They obviously weren’t here, but were they in a safe? Back at SnowFang? Thrown into a landfill? Shiny objects taken by birds in Central Park? Glued to some terrible painting and displayed in a NYC gallery?
Searle’s soft voice didn’t match the glint in his amber-hued eyes. “I don’t know.”
I mushed my lips together and bit down. My fingers grazed the light coverlet. Clothes, panties (my fancy panties too, but not all of them, and no blue ones), shoes, socks. No phone, no laptop. A small shoebox. I pulled the shoebox and lifted the lid. Sterling’s scent wafted out, Garret’s, Cerys, Hamid, and under that, very, very faintly: my mother. Inside were my mother’s notebooks, tied with a ribbon and sealed with hastily melted wax that had spread all over the front cover and down the edges.
Searle grimaced slightly. “He was adamant that those had to go with you, but that they could not be opened by anyone but you. They were your mother’s, apparently, and were delivered to you under an Elder Luna’s seal, for you alone. Luna Marcella chose to honor that, even though that’s not the original seal.”
“I broke the seal. They are just my mother’s old dream journals,” I said softly. “Scraps, trinkets, drawings. She left them with her sister Spring to be given to me when I mated.”
“They are dangerous,” Searle said. “Anyone who reads them could determine who wrote them and your past.”
I brushed the wax. “No one knows I have them. My Aunt Spring kept them hidden from FrostFur all this time, and gave them to me in secret. The only people who know I have them are Sterling and my human bodyguard, Hamid. He was with me in FrostFur.”
Searle tensed. “Is he—”
“No, he doesn’t. I didn’t tell him anything in FrostFur. He just thinks my family is a cult. I don’t know where he is now, but I know he won’t say a thing.”
“And Spring won’t tell FrostFur?”
“No.” Spring had kept the secret for a reason, and shewasn’tgoing to backtrack now.
“Why did your mother put her old dream journals under an Elder Luna’s seal?” Searle asked. “Elder Lunas don’t seal things lightly.”
“I don’t know.” The answer was in a safe deposit box in Fairbanks. Did I risk trusting Searle with this detail? Mom hadn’t seen Searle. She’d only seen Sterling, my wolf of silver.
And I wasnotgoing to spend the next five months twiddling my thumbs. I’d spent the past week twiddling my thumbs in the clinic, feeling alternate rushes of grief and rage and despair, and it was time todosomething besides lick my wounds. There’d be plenty of time to grieve in July if Alan killed Sterling. I’d have the entire damn rest of my life for that.
My first order of business was to convince Marcella to let me go to Fairbanks to fetch the second safe deposit box. Theimportantone. The one Daniel had been afraid of, and had goaded Jerron to pursue.
Searle paced closer.
I held my ground. “I really don’t know. I don’t even know—”
“Know?”
There was a safe deposit box key taped to one of these pages, and an address and box number. I chewed on my lower lip. I needed to get to that box.
Searle was close enough his presence pushed against mine, dominant and commanding.
I sighed, indulging how tired and weary anddoneI was. “There’s nothing in the journals. Dreams and doodles.”
I hadn’t read the journals all the way through, but I’d flipped through them while recovering from my silver injury, and there didn’t appear to be anything anyone would find scandalous.
Searle moved abruptly to the closet. He yanked open the door, then shoved clothes apart. He didn’t have many—after living with Sterling and his closet-dominating collection of suits, it seemed downright spartan—but still enough to provide a dramatic parting of the fabric. I followed and craned my neck to get a look. He was keying in a code to a small safe.
Nope. Time for oursecondconversation. He didn’t lie to me inmyden, and he didn’t take my property.
I grabbed the journals, clutched them against my breasts, and retreated towards the door, placing one hand close enough to grab the door knob and bolt.
