Page 21 of The Steel Beast’s Heart

My fingers trace the edge of his right horn—the broken one. The break sits two inches from the base, a jagged edge where it ends rough instead of curving smooth like the left.

He tenses under my hand.

I pull back. "Sorry."

His fingers close around mine and guide them to the broken edge. "It's okay."

I trace the break. He closes his eyes. The fur at his temple runs softer than the rest of his face. I don't ask what happened. Everybody's got a past they don't talk about. He'll tell me when he's ready.

I hold the damaged part. He lets me.

The purr deepens. His arm tightens around my waist. His breathing slows against the top of my head. The hand on my hip goes heavy and still, the same hand that sets every tool on its labeled hook and sutures lacerations by flashlight and held my wrist in the garage while he counted my heartbeats.

I close my eyes. His heartbeat thuds against my cheek. The room smells like him and like us. For the first time in six years I'm lying in someone's bed without counting the minutes until I need to check a cage.

That's enough for now.

Chapter 10

Steel

The phone buzzes against the nightstand before I open my eyes.

Isla's hair covers my chest. Her hand rests against my pecs, fingers spread, and for two seconds I let myself have this. Her breathing slow and deep beside me, the weight of her arm, the purring low and continuous in my ribcage, a sound I haven't made for fifteen years and now can't seem to stop.

The phone buzzes again.

I reach for it without moving the rest of my body. The screen reads Diane, 6:14 AM. She doesn't usually call at six in the morning.

I answer. "Hello."

"Thomas. I drove past Isla's place this morning. The front fence is down. Three sections, maybe more." Her voice shakes. "The cages are torn apart. Equipment everywhere."

"Okay, hold on a sec."

I slide out from under her arm and pull the blanket over her shoulder. She doesn't wake. I grab my jeans off the floor and pull them on in the hallway, then take the phone to the kitchen and close the door behind me.

"How bad?"

"The intake pens along the east fence. And the raptor mews—the door's off its hinges. Equipment scattered across the yard, smashed. And there are snares around the old-growth stump. The fox den. I couldn't see the family anywhere—there are tracks heading into the timber but the kits—" She stops. Breathes. "It looks really bad, Thomas."

"Stay off the property. I'll handle it."

I hang up and a tremor runs through my fingers. It lasts about four seconds before I dial Knox. It stops as soon as I have a plan to make.

Knox answers on the second ring. His voice sounds like a man who slept three hours and hurts everywhere. He's still recovering from Bloodstone, ribs wrapped and shoulder stiff, but he sharpens the second I tell him what happened.

"Ridgecrest?"

"Looks like it. Systematic, not random. They tore the place apart. Destroyed equipment, ripped doors off, cut the fencing. This isn't Humans First. This is targeted."

"What do you need?"

"Colt on the surveillance footage. I want every camera on Isla's property reviewed from midnight on, if they haven't smashed them. Rex on the road—I want to know who drove out that way last night, if he can find anything. Garrett on a repair crew. The front fence is down in three sections."

"Done. I'll call Church for this afternoon."

I hang up and dial Colt. Then Rex. Then Garrett. Four calls in six minutes, each one putting somebody on something. I stand in the kitchen in my jeans with no shirt and the phone warm against my ear and I build a plan because building is the only thing that keeps me moving. If I stop, the fear catches up, and I don't let it catch up.