Chapter 4 - RAYLYNN

I don't turn around immediately. 

I don't need to.

Across the desk, Felicity is nearly as white as the A4 paper she was writing in.

"Alpha Blackwood." She rises from her chair. Her voice has completely rearranged itself — the smooth cruelty gone, replaced with practised warmth. "I was just—"

"I heard what you were just doing," he says, stepping fully into the room.

I turn to face him then, because not turning would be more obvious than turning, and bow without meeting his eyes.

"Raylynn," he says. "Would you wait outside, please?"

"Of course." I focus on picking my bag as steadily as possible before walking out but Felicity finds her footing again.

"She only got this interview because of your daughter," she says, to my back, with the particular spite of someone swinging on the way down. "Everyone in this pack knows it. The girl has no pack, no wolf, and no business being here. You'd do well to consider what it looks like, Alpha — the war-wolf's daughter getting special treatment because she's made herself useful to your family."

I stop walking. Just how much hair do you think I'll be able to pull out from her scalp?

"Raylynn." Zephyr's voice is even. "Outside.”

♣♣♣

I know he said outside like outside the office but my feet carry me all the way to outside the building and then I just continue walking, not wanting to go home yet.

I've always known that people think I exist in Ivy's orbit because it benefits me, because proximity to power is the closest thing a wolfless war-wolf's daughter can get to safety in a town like this.

I have spent years being quiet and careful and useful and kind, hoping that eventually the version of me that people see will stop being filtered through my last name and my mother's prison sentence and my father's legacy.

I hitch my bag strap higher on my shoulder. “I just want to leave—”

A prickle on my neck becomes increasingly concerning so I cut left at the next junction, detouring toward the main shopping strip, and use the excuse of a slow-walking couple in front of me to drop my pace and listen.

The footsteps of at least two people behind me are all I need to walk into the nearby mall. 

I turn into a clothing store on my left, move through it quickly, and stop near the back beside a display rack with a clear sightline to the mirrored wall panels that run the length of the store's rear section.

I pretend to look at a jacket.

In the mirror, I find them.

Two large men are at the store entrance with the unconvincing posture of people who are pretending to look at something while actually watching someone else.

It takes me a moment but I recognise them as members of the Wolf Ridge pack. They were at the inter-pack tournament last month — I remember because they were disqualified in the third round for interference, which caused a whole thing, and Ivy made me sit through in the rain because she wanted to watch the fallout.

Wolf Ridge is Amara Voss's pack.

My stomach drops very quietly.

I put the jacket back on the rack while pulling out my phone and dial Ivy.

She picks up on the second ring. "How did it go? Was it terrible? Was she terrible? I need details—"

"Ivy." I keep my voice low and even. "Where are you right now?"

A pause. "Home. I just got back from the pharmacy. Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." I angle slightly away from the mirror, keeping my eyes on the reflection. Both men are still there. "I just need you to stay put, okay? Don't go anywhere."

"Raylynn, you're scaring me—"

"I'm fine. I just need you to stay home and call your dad."

"Call my— what is happening right now—"

"Tell him Wolf Ridge men are following me. Can you do that?"

Silence. Then, very quietly: "Yes."

"Good. I'll call you ba—umph!”

The kid I bumped into starts crying and his mother comes running.

“I'm so sorry. He keeps running—”

“It's okay ma'am,” I raise my head up and catch the eye of one of the men.

Shit!

Racing out, I jump into the first taxi I see.

"Drive," I say. "Please. Just — drive. I'll tell you where."

I press back into the seat and watch the mall entrance through the rear window. A couple seconds later, they come through the doors, scanning the road until they see me.

"Can you go faster?" I ask.

"Speed limit's forty on this stretch—"

"I know, I just—" I watch them move toward a dark car parked on the kerb. "Please."

He picks up the pace slightly. We move through two sets of green lights, turn onto the high street, and for approximately forty seconds I think we are fine.

Then the dark car comes around the corner behind us.

"There is a vehicle following us," I say, as calmly as I can manage.

The driver looks in his rearview. His eyebrows go up.

"Miss—"

"I know." I am already reaching for my bag. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about this."

The light ahead turns red and the cab slows. The dark car is two vehicles behind us, closing the gap, and both men are visible through the windscreen and they are not trying to be subtle anymore.

"I need to get out," I say.

"The light's red—"

"I know." I push a handful of notes over the seat. "I'm so sorry."

The pavement is busy — market day, people with bags and pushchairs and zero interest in the girl stepping out of a cab at a red light — and I run into the crowd immediately.

Behind me I hear a car door, then another.

I speed through the shortcuts back to Blackwood Group's main office, my heart hammering as hard as the men's footsteps on the road.

Just as I reach the revolving door, I spin to check. Both men have stopped at the bottom of the building’s steps.

I turn around, and walk straight into a wall. Except the wall is warm.

And it has hands that close around my arms instantly steadying me, and it smells like clean leather and rain and I already know — before I look up, before I see anything — exactly whose chest I have just run into.

I look up.

Zephyr is looking down at me, his eyes going from my face to the scene behind me and back again, and whatever he sees in my expression makes his jaw go tight.

His hands are still on my arms.

"Raylynn," he says, very quietly. "What happened?"