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Later that night, Adam stood outside in the dark with Malachi and his partner, a human male named Lucian.
Mal held up a tablet and said, “I set this up for you. It’s synced to your phone and Dani’s, too. We’ve got perimeter alarms at a quarter mile into the woods surrounding the house. If someone triggers the silent alarm, a digital camera will take a ten-second video and e-mail it to you. There are more cameras one hundred feet into the woods, and some actually on the fence. If someone triggers the fence cameras, floodlights will illuminate them as well and an alert will be sent to our company, as well as me and Lucian.”
“Obviously,” Lucian said, “you’ll want to be paying attention to any of the alarms. If you see something suspicious, it’s better to err on the side of caution and call someone to check it out. Mal said that you weren’t sure if the people who engineered your mate’s kidnapping were all dead or not?”
Adam’s gut tightened. “I know there were a lot of bodies. Whether they represented the entire organization or whatever bullshit my father was involved in, I’m not sure.” He looked toward the house. Inside, Dani was making pot roast for dinner, because she knew it was his favorite meal. He didn’t want her to be afraid that someone would come for her again.
Lucian cleared his throat, and Adam turned his attention back to him. “I checked into the reports of what happened at the park, and according to what the police on the scene said, it doesn’t seem likely that anyone would be able to connect you, Dani, or the Wilde Creek Pack to anything that happened there. The herd torched everything, from the buildings to the grounds. There wasn’t any evidence left behind except the bodies.”
“That’s probably not a complete relief,” Mal said.
“It’s better than nothing.”
“Vigilance is the key,” Lucian said. “If you need anything at all, call me or Mal and we’ll do whatever we can to make sure you have no trouble keeping your mate safe.”
Adam shook Lucian’s hand. It was the first time he’d ever met Malachi’s friend and partner in their company, L&M Security. The male was clearly human, but there was somethingotherabout him, too. Mal had said he was in the military, but Adam suspected there was more to the large, tattooed male than either of them let on. Not that he actually cared, because the only person in the world that mattered to him was standing over the kitchen stove making gravy.
“Thanks for everything,” Adam said as he shook Malachi’s hand.
“You’re welcome.” Malachi handed the tablet to Adam and the two left, leaving Adam in the backyard alone. He looked at the tablet. The screen showed that everything was quiet in the woods around them. He tilted his head up to the sky, where the bright moon felt like it was centered completely over the yard, highlighting the place where Dani had fallen while Adam had been helpless to protect her.
Arms wrapped around him, and Dani let out a soft sob as she moved in front of him and buried her face in his chest. He held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
“It’ll be okay now, sweetheart,” he said.
“I don’t want to be afraid of the backyard.”
“I know. I don’t want that for you, either.” He gripped the tablet in one hand and held her close with the other. “Tell you what. Let’s shift.”
She looked up at him and rubbed at her wet cheeks. “Now?”
“Yeah. Look up there, baby. The moon is so bright, and it’s just for us.”
She blinked a few times, her brows furrowing slightly, and then she smiled. “Okay. I can face anything with you by my side.”
They walked over to the porch, and he brushed the snow off the small table and laid the tablet on it. He turned to face Dani and saw her staring at the security fence and chewing her bottom lip. “We can do this,” he said.
“You’re not nervous?”
“I am a little, but if I stayed afraid of fire I wouldn’t be able to hang out with the pack on the full moon when they have bonfires in the summer. I wouldn’t be able to go in there tonight and stoke the fire so I can warm you up properly after we shift.”
Her gaze softened and then she smirked. “You always tempt me with sex.”
He wiggled his brows. “It works.”
She rolled her shoulders back and let out a deep breath. “Okay. I’m not going to be afraid to shift. This is our yard and our home.”
“You got that right.”
They stripped quickly and shifted. Adam saw Dani hesitate only once as she shook herself out from her shift, her gaze darting along the length of the wall as her nostrils flared and steam billowed from them. Then she took a few steps into the yard and looked at him.
He chuffed at her in encouragement.
She lowered her head, dug one of her antlers into the snow and chucked a pile of it at him. He barked a laugh and raced toward her, and she bleated and hopped away. He could have caught her, but he just wanted to chase her. He’d catch her later, when they were naked and in the warmth of the house. She darted from one corner of the yard to the other, her tail twitching and her hooves kicking up snow. He pursued her lazily and then sat in the center of the yard and listened to the night around them. He could hear everything, his wolf intent on Dani’s safety above all else.
He had no doubt that they were safe now. He wasn’t sure how he knew; he just felt a peace that he couldn’t explain. Maybe it was knowing that their property was wired to the gills with technology that would make it impossible for anyone to sneak up on them, or maybe it was knowing that the people who had taken her were dead and there was nothing to tie either of them to the deaths at the park.
Whatever it was, Adam would take it. Keeping Dani safe and making a haven for them for the future was all that mattered. Someday their kids would be with them, shifting in the yard in one form or another, and he never wanted them to doubt that Wilde Creek was a safe place to live.
