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I narrowed my eyes. “Ah. Well, I am quite certain the Solar Sovereign is real, but I will humor you. You can return to tracking down Sabine and her current location.”
Hearing the vampire’s throat bob over the phone, I allowed myself a small smile.
“Ah, you know, you really should invest your resources in the biggest fish, yes?” Piers began. “We should really—”
My phone beeped suddenly, cutting him off. I was about to ask him to repeat himself when it beeped again. I frowned, pulling the cell away from my ear. Cody King’s name flashed across the screen. It was so rare I got calls, and getting two at once was practically an anomaly.
“I have to go,” I informed the twins, hitting the button to drop their call and pick up the next one. “Hello?”
“Fenris! Uh, sir! Hi!” Cody greeted me, enthusiastic as ever. I sighed, rubbing my temple with my free hand. I was already regretting whatever possessed me to share my number with the young shifter.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep the bite out of my voice. I was sure my effort wasn’t a great success.
Cody cleared his throat. “So I went home to my pack in California, right? And everything’s cool at first, my parents are happy to see me, blah blah. But then I’m catching up with a few of my friends, and they mention this older shifter, Fred Powis. He’s pretty up there, though it’s not like he’s an elder or anything, and he likes to hang out at the bingo hall with all the—”
“Get to the point, Cody.”
“Ha! Right, sorry.” The young shifter chuckled, trying to mask his nerves. “Anyway, my buddies said he started acting kind of weird. And then he started asking aboutme, and that’s even weirder because I’ve only ever talked to him when my Grammie used to play bingo with him, you know? But I don’t think too much of it until my next-door neighbor comes over and starts telling my parents about this big weirdfishthat’s shown up in the bay all of a sudden and no one will believe her, but she’s got a photo.”
“Your neighbor is human?”
“Uh-huh. Nice lady, probably in her forties. Has a bunch of cats that hate us.”
“And what was in the photo?” I prompted Cody, assuming it wasn’t a fish. Though with him, that wasn’t a sure thing.
“A siren,” he said, almost breathless. “Just the tail, but growing up on the ocean, our parents made sure we knew what they were, you know? Sirens aren’t afraid to snack on a shifter pup if they can get away with it!”
I stiffened in my seat. “You’re sure of this?”
“Oh, yeah. My parents saw it, too. Mom’s already gone to confer with our pack alpha. I knew you’d want to know right away because, well, our neighbor’s a human, and…”
I bit off a groan. I already had ninety-nine problems to deal with, and a siren was just another one. “And?” I prompted.
“Well, I asked around, and Fred Powis isn’t the only guy starting to act weird out of nowhere. Two shifters disappeared last month. No one really knows what happened to them, but all this…it, ah, reminds me of what Sabine did. Except, you know, it’s just a siren…”
My scowl deepened. “No, it’s worth looking into,” I said, glad that Cody hadn’t just written it off. It was odd for a siren to suddenly get so bold. Cody’s parents had been right in warning their children that a siren might lure a shifter pup for an easy meal, except the siren wouldn’t linger. They’d never survive a furious pack out for blood. That this one was clearly staying in the area spoke to something else.
I wonder if the siren is working with the Solar Sovereign. If it’s luring shifters without killing them, perhaps the Sovereign is extracting their loyalty. Itisodd the pack wasn’t able to identify what happened to them.
Even if they hadn’t shared mate bonds, the pack should’ve still sensed some loss or disruption with the shifters’ deaths. It was all too strange. “I need you to come back to Florida,” I told Cody. “You will meet me at the meeting of the Order of the Stars. I’ll have Walter send you the details.”
“Seriously?!” I held my phone away from my ear as Cody whooped. “Hell yeah, I’m a…Star? I’m a member of the Order of the Stars?!”
I smiled wryly to myself. That wasn’t what I meant, but Ididappreciate his assistance, so…I would let him enjoy that high for a day or two.
“Goodbye, Cody.”
“Bye, Fenris! See you soon!”
I tucked my phone back in my pocket after hanging up, managing to get a few blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep before we landed again.
When I finally made it back to Isla Lobo, it felt like two weeks had passed, not a handful of days. I was still quite tired, but the first thing I wanted to do was see how Celeste was faring.
She wasn’t hard to find, tucked into an overstuffed armchair in my library, leafing through a book. Her wolf must have sensed me before I walked in as she was suddenly on her feet, book set aside while she strode across the room. “You’re back!” she exclaimed, almost breathless with relief as she threw her arms around my shoulders.
I blinked, a little taken aback by the joy with which I was being greeted before I leaned closer, wrapping my arms around her and pressing her against my torso. “I am,” I said, my nose in her hair. I inhaled deeply, letting the calming scents of orange blossom and the ocean wash over me.
After she’d gotten her fill, Celeste pulled back and looked me over. “Are you alright? How was your visit with Lyka?”
