by Chant, Zoe
He forced his attention back to the meeting. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know if Victor will just go after a random woman he doesn’t know,” Katie said. “I think he’s probably looking specifically for the people connected to him. I think it’s going to have to be me or Lila—or maybe Cam, he went after her once before—”
Flynn pounced on that. “She’s not connected to him.”
“I got in his face,” Cam said unhappily, her arms wrapped around her waist. Lachlan came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I antagonized him, and he wanted to make sure that I paid for that. He doesn’t like being disrespected. If you can get a shifter woman to disrespect him, then probably you could use her as bait, but—”
“But if she could get close enough to disrespect him, we wouldn’t need to draw him out in the first place,” Flynn finished. “Damn it.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lila.
Her voice was quiet but firm. Still, it took a few moments for everyone to realize that she’d spoken.
“No,” Flynn said, without having to think about it at all.
She lifted her chin and looked at him. “Flynn, this is the way to get him to show up. You have to catch him doing something illegal, right? That’s how the plan is supposed to work?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“So I should be the bait,” she said. “Because I’m the person he most wants to teach a lesson right now. If he sees me alone and unprotected, he’ll go after me, no question. We’ve already seen him try.”
“What if he hurts you? Or worse?” Katie asked, before Flynn could say the same thing—in stronger terms.
“He wants me back because of my kids,” Lila said. “He’s not going to do anything permanent to me without them around.”
Flynn’s fists clenched.
“What if it’s only his henchmen who see you?” Cam asked. “That’s what happened before, right, at the house?”
“They would’ve brought me to him,” Lila said, and Flynn hated the bitterness in her voice. “There’s no way he wouldn’t have wanted to see me personally. So as long as someone can follow along stealthily, it should be fine.”
“Not a problem,” Malachi said. “Dragon wings are inconveniently noisy, but Flynn flies with barely a whisper.”
Lila smiled warmly at him. “I remember.”
Flynn couldn’t bring himself to smile back, not with the tension knotting up his spine. “I don’t want you in danger at all,” he said tightly. “That’s what this whole plan is supposed to prevent.”
She came over to him, pulling him down into a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could.
She pulled back after a long moment and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to be in danger anymore, either,” she said seriously. “And honestly, if I can do something to help that happen, rather than just sitting back and being a helpless victim, that’s even better. I want to do this.”
“You’ve never been helpless,” he told her. “What if he hurts you?”
“You’ll be there,” she said.
And somehow, the unshakable confidence in her voice soothed his knotted muscles.
You’ll be there.
It was so different from how she’d sounded this morning, sad and worried.
Because now they had a plan—and more than that, they had a plan that they were going to enact together.
Across the room, Reid raised a hand. “Did I miss something?” he asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Have we had some happy news?”
Lila started to laugh, and turned to take Flynn’s hand.
“The happiest possible news,” she said, and it felt like the whole room smiled.
***
After everyone cleared out, it was just Flynn and Lila sitting on the couch in the front room—the couch where it had all started, really, Flynn thought wryly. This was the couch that Sophia had been balanced on when she launched a bucket full of Nerf bullets at his head, which was the moment Flynn had stopped seeing Lila and her family as a tactical issue and started seeing them as people.
“What are you thinking about?” Lila asked softly.
He smiled at her. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve got a little wrinkle...here.” She put her fingertip in the middle of his forehead.
He could feel the muscles relaxing under her touch. “Just thinking about how clueless I was just a couple of days ago. I had no idea how much my life was about to change.”
She smiled. “Me, neither. A couple of weeks ago, I was still living in that apartment in the city and I had no idea how I was ever going to leave. And now...” She spread her arms, indicating the house and the forest spreading out around it.
“Do you like this house?” Flynn asked, remembering what he’d been thinking about earlier. “I mean, do you want to keep living here?”
Lila nodded shyly. “I was wondering about—I mean, I know the house is your mother’s, not yours. So neither of us can really—invite the other to live with us—”
Flynn smiled at her, pulling out his phone and texting his mom. Come over for breakfast tomorrow? We have some news.
Less than ten seconds later, his phone vibrated with a reply. Heard from Lachlan. Cannot believe you told the whole town before telling your own mother. I’ll be expecting pancakes.
Flynn showed the phone to Lila, who started to laugh. “Your mother is—well, wonderful. Intimidating, a little bit. Do you think that means she approves?”
“Oh, she approves,” Flynn said. “You should’ve heard her tearing me a new one, back when I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to—to let you use the house.” His voice dropped involuntarily, with remembered shame.
Lila nudged him. “You’re forgiven for that, remember?”
“It’s going to take a while for that one to sink in, probably,” he said ruefully. “Anyway, I objected to Lachlan’s idea to invite you to stay, and my mom lit into me like I haven’t heard her do since I was a teenager. She wanted nothing more than for you to stay, and after she met you, she made a point of telling me how lovely and polite and sweet you were, and how adorable your kids were. So that I would know how wrong I was to suspect you.” He shook his head, chuckling a little at himself. “She’s never going to let me hear the end of being so wrong about my own mate.”
Lila smiled, leaning against him. “I’m picturing her telling the story at our wedding.” Then she froze.
Flynn leaned down to look her in the eyes. “Are you proposing?”
Lila closed her eyes, scrunching up her face. “Sorry. I—sorry! I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying.”
“Lila,” Flynn said seriously, “the only thing stopping me from taking advantage of this moment is that I haven’t had time to buy you a ring yet.”
She blinked her eyes open. “Really?”
“Of course I want to marry you,” he said. “You’re my mate. I want to show the world that we belong to each other forever.” Then something occurred to him. “Unless you’d rather not, if—since you’ve been married before—”
“No!” Lila said. “No, I want to be married to you. I absolutely, with all of my heart, want to be married to you.” She bit her lip. “I was thinking about this earlier. Michael was the right husband for me, when I was young. He made me laugh, he brought joy into my life in a way that I hadn’t quite understood before. We joked around all the time. I was so serious before I met him, you wouldn’t even have recognized me.”
That was an odd thing to picture. Flynn thought of Lila as being astonishingly lighthearted, considering all of the troubles she’d endured. He remembered her making jokes in the bedroom, running around with Sophia and laughing her head off, coming back with little quips when he’d still been determined to be their serious bodyguard and nothing more—
He guessed he had to thank Michael for something.
“I’m glad I was married to him, and not just because I got the two best kids in the world ou
t of it,” Lila was saying. “But right now, for who I am today, I want to be married to you.”
“Well, now I really regret not having a ring,” Flynn said, and she laughed a little, and leaned up and kissed him.
He kissed her back, fierce and happy. God, he loved her.
And he was going to be the best mate, the best husband, and the best father she could ever have hoped for.
Chapter 13: Lila
The next morning, Flynn’s mother came by for breakfast.
Despite Flynn’s words last night, Lila was nervous. Diana was a graceful, gracious woman, who had welcomed Lila sincerely into the town and offered her house—her house—for Lila to live in. Despite that, Lila wasn’t totally sure whether Diana really liked her or not. She was just that kind of woman—of course she’d offer to help someone in need.
New daughter-in-law was a very different category of person than charity case, and Lila had no idea whether Diana was going to really appreciate the switch or not.
So Lila was a little on edge that morning. She tried not to let it affect how she was with the kids—snapping at Sophia for less-than-perfect behavior wasn’t actually going to make Diana like her any more, after all.
It helped that Flynn was there. It helped so, so much that Flynn was there. He got Grant up and changed his diaper while Lila supervised Sophia’s morning routine—she’d recently insisted on dressing herself, which sometimes resulted in green leggings with an orange shirt, or tutus three days in a row, but Lila was fine with that as long as all the clothes were clean and oriented approximately the correct way. And that last part still did require an adult to turn things right-side-out.
When Sophia was neatly if eye-wateringly attired in jeans with pink sparkly stars on them and a red shirt with a T-Rex, they went downstairs to find Flynn making pancake batter, Grant sitting at his feet with a toy.
Lila shook her head. “You’re a saint.”
“I’m a hungry man who wants pancakes and eggs,” Flynn corrected, giving her a kiss. “Besides, my mom’s on her way over, and she never jokes about pancakes. Best to have them ready when she gets here.”
He winked, and Lila laughed.
“Flynn, play with me!” Sophia demanded.
“I can’t right now, princess dinosaur, I’m making breakfast,” Flynn said. “You want pancakes?”
“Pancakes!” Sophia cheered.
“Hey, kiddo, I wanted to ask you something,” Lila said, figuring now was as good a moment as any, with Flynn making them all breakfast. “How would you feel if Flynn came to live with us?”
Sophia frowned. “Isn’t he already living with us?”
Above them, Flynn started to laugh. “She’s got a point.”
“I meant forever,” Lila said, stifling her own laugh. “If he stayed for always, and slept here every night.”
Sophia’s face lit up. “And he can play princess ninja with me!”
“All the time, honey,” Flynn said, stirring the bowl. “Except when I’m at work. Or sleeping.”
“All the time,” Sophia said in reverent tones.
“So this sounds like a good plan to you?” Lila asked.
“This is the best plan,” Sophia said fervently. “Yay! Flynn’s going to stay forever!”
She addressed this last to Grant, who looked up and grinned his gap-toothed baby grin, almost like he understood what they were saying.
“He’s going to play with us,” Sophia told her brother. “And pick us up. And make us pancakes! And play tag. And play blocks. And read books.”
Lila glanced up to see how Flynn was taking that long list of tasks, and found him looking a little misty-eyed. She smiled to herself.
Then the doorbell rang, and all her anxiety came back.
“Okay, Diana’s here,” she told Sophia. “We’re going to be on our best behavior, right?”
Sophia was still involved in telling Grant all of the many, many things that Flynn was going to do for them, and didn’t answer. Lila let it go and went to get the door, her heart pounding.
“Lila,” Diana said as the door opened. “Oh, come here.” She enfolded Lila in a big hug.
Lila found herself blinking back tears as she was pressed against the maternal shoulder, and suddenly missing her own mom a lot.
She hadn’t called her mother since she’d left the city, because she was afraid that if her mom knew what was happening, she’d insist on coming to help—and then she might be in Victor’s sights as well. Lila refused to put her mother in danger.
But that meant that she’d been missing her, wishing she could talk to her, for weeks now.
And while Flynn’s mother wasn’t the same, of course...it was nice to have a mother here, instead of just having to be the mother all the time.
Diana pulled back and held her by the shoulders, looking her in the face. “I am so happy,” she said. “So happy that my son has finally found a mate, and someone like you! I was always so sure he’d end up with someone rowdy and dangerous, someone who’d take him away from home and have him running around the world getting into who knew what trouble.”
Lila managed a smile. “Well, that’s not me, I can tell you that. Sophia might turn out like that someday, but she’s only five right now, so her area for running around in is pretty limited.”
“Oh, and your kids.” Diana smiled, and Lila could see her resemblance to her son all over, now, the dark eyes and the way her whole face, normally composed, just melted into the smile. “I was sure Aidan would be my only grandchild. Even when Lachlan met Camellia—Cam doesn’t want any babies. But now—two more grandkids!”
Lila laughed. “All right, well, come and say hi to them as their new grandma, then.”
“Try and stop me.” Diana followed Lila into the kitchen, where Flynn was just flipping the first batch of pancakes.
Sophia immediately ran over to the newcomer, always aware when another source of potential attention entered a room, and launched into a long and complicated story about the dinosaur on her shirt. Diana sat down at the kitchen table and leaned forward to listen, the picture of interest.
Flynn leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “Still worried about what my mom’s going to think of you?”
“I guess not,” Lila said, feeling a little dazed.
She looked around at the domestic scene. Flynn had moved Grant to his high chair before turning the stove on, she noted with gratitude, and he was banging his toy against his tray in apparent joy. Sophia was still chattering away. Breakfast was about to be served.
Please, Lila thought to herself, please let this last. Please don’t let Victor take it away. Please let us have this forever.
***
That night, they put the plan into action.
Flynn had wanted to wait until they’d scouted the forest a bit more, but Lila had pointed out that they’d been scouting the forest every day for a month now, and what more were they going to learn?
“I just want to be sure you’re going to be safe,” he’d said, sounding agonized.
Lila had put her arms around him and said, “I know I’ll be safe, because you’ll be here with me. And,” she’d admitted ruefully, “I kind of want to get this all over with as quickly as possible.”
Flynn had sighed and acquiesced, so now it was happening.
Lila walked cautiously out into the forest, pretending to be irritated. She and Flynn had staged a fight in the yard.
“I can’t believe you won’t even let me go on a stupid walk!” she’d shouted at him. “You just want to keep me a prisoner in that house, don’t you?”
“You’d better not walk away, you hear me?” he’d barked back. It was funny—he’d sounded loud and intimidating, but Lila hadn’t even been startled, let alone scared. Maybe it was the tenderness she could see in his eyes. Or—feel in his heart, through their bond. She knew that any vehemence in his voice was just fueled by his fierce love.
“You can’t stop me,” she’d retorted.
“I
could, but I won’t.” With those seemingly final words, he’d slammed back into the house, and Lila had stalked off into the forest.
Flynn would wait a few minutes and then shift and follow her, invisible and silent in the nighttime woods, while Lila kept walking, her feet crunching autumn leaves and snapping twigs, making a ton of noise.
To Grandmother’s house I go, she thought as she looked around the dark forest. All she was missing was a bright red cape.
She’d been telling Flynn the truth—she trusted him to keep her safe. But that didn’t stop the woods from being a scary place to walk through at night.
Especially if you knew for sure that the wild animals really were waiting to jump out at you.
Lila tried to keep her breathing from speeding up. She was shivering a little in the cold air, wondering how long she’d have to walk before—something happened.
Then, it was like a wave of love fell over her, a sense of calm and safety.
She had to forcibly stop herself from looking up. Because she knew exactly what had happened: Flynn had arrived, flying above the trees, keeping pace with her.
She’d asked him, before they’d left, “Are you sure you’ll be able to follow where I’m walking from above the trees?”
He’d kissed her and said, “I could follow you if you were walking through a cave underneath fifty feet of rock. I’ll be right with you the entire time. I promise.”
She’d believed him, and now that he was here with her, she could understand what he’d meant. There was no way anyone would’ve been able to convince her Flynn wasn’t there. She knew he was.
Lila walked on with renewed confidence, the leaves crackling under her feet, the night air cold but no longer forbidding and scary.
Come at me, lions, she thought, smiling at herself.
It took a little while. She wondered if it had taken them that long to realize she was out here, or if they’d been checking the woods around her for lurking dragons.
No dragons, she thought. Just one griffin. And that’s all I need.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” said a voice from the darkness.
Lila jumped, which she didn’t need to fake, and let out a shriek, which she did. But it sounded convincing, she thought.