Page 111 of The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate
The old man looks at Lucas for a few seconds. Then, he picks up his spoon.
We leave the tavern and stand outside, exhausted. In one day, we’ve covered more ground than we could have hoped for. Violet rejoins the group, and I fill her in on what we learned.
“Hennessy is going to see if that man remembers the plate numbers. We might be able to get somewhere with those,” my mate says, tucking my arm in his elbow. “And I’ll have Monroe look into Meera’s background. For now, let’s rest, and we can leave in the morning. This happened twenty years ago. There’s not going to be any evidence left.”
“You guys book us some rooms at the inn,” Violet says suddenly. “I need to buy something. Sienna?”
“Sure.” I shrug.
Lucas seems reluctant to let me wander off. “I’ll go with you.”
“We’ll be fine,” Violet says. “You go get the rooms.”
I watch them leave with Lillian, and for a few seconds, I breathe in the night air. So much has happened in the span of one day. We came to find a witch and ended up discovering the very bloodline that cursed Lucas’s ancestor.
“Okay, where do you want to go?” I ask Violet.
The high street has emptied. Lamps burn in the upstairs windows above the shops. Violet steers me past the apothecary, past the cobbler’s, past the smithy with its banked fire glowing red through the open door, and stops in front of a small shop with a rose-colored display in the window.
Silk. Lace. A ribbon trailing from a pale, satin shoulder.
I look up at the painted sign. I look at Violet.
“No.”
She laughs. “Yes.”
“Violet, no.”
“Sienna.”
“This is hardly the moment.” I gesture vaguely at the dark street, at the village, at everything. “We’re on an investigation. This is the most inappropriate possible moment for lingerie shopping.”
Violet shrugs, untroubled.
“Something is going to be happening all the time, Sienna. There is never going to be a convenient afternoon for it.” She tilts her head at the window. “You’re going to take advantage of this perfectly good shop in front of us, a mate who has been sleeping with his back turned to you for over a week, and the spine I personally know you have.”
I stare at her. The wind cuts through the high street, and I tug my coat closer.
The shop window has gone gold in the lamplight. Behind the rose silk, there’s a darker piece on a hanger, deep wine-red, the cut of it visible from the street.
My wolf, who has been so quiet for so long, lifts her head.
Violet’s hand is still at my elbow. The glint in her eye tells me I am not getting out of this.
“You are a menace,” I mutter.
“I’m one of your best friends.” She squeezes my arm. “Come on.”
I let her draw me toward the door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sienna
The estate rises ahead of us at noon, pale stone against a deep blue sky, and I cannot decide whether I am relieved to be back or just exhausted.
Lucas’s hand sits at the small of my back as we come up the drive. His backpack is heavier than when we left, weighted with the lineage book. Darius is at his other shoulder. Violet has fallen back to walk with her mother, the two of them speaking low. Lillian has not said much since the cottage.
