13. Hannah

Chapter 13

Hannah

T he feel of Reylor’s mouth on mine lingered as I strode down the hall to the closet.

Why had I kissed him? So much for my dating hiatus. Although, you didn’t need to go out on a date to kiss someone. With that in mind, I opened the closet door.

And screamed.

Reylor rushed down the hall, sweeping me up and wrapping me in his arms and wings.

Wait. Wings?

I looked up at him, taking in the flames licking in his eyes and the smoke pouring from his nostrils. His face otherwise remained the same except for the fangs jutting up from his lower jaw. But wings! Partial ones, that is. I suspected his full dragon form would overflow the foyer.

“What happened?” he barked.

“There’s a dead rat on the floor of the closet. There are no rats here. No mice either. Max wouldn’t allow them to live inside this building.”

His wings retracted into his spine, and I wanted to ask him to do it slower so I could watch. It was amazing. I couldn’t imagine how wonderful it would be to have wings. Maybe, then, I wouldn’t be afraid of leaving the ground.

Stepping away from me, he moved over to the closet, squatting down. “It’s not dead.”

“It’s still alive?” Sympathy flooded me. Was the poor thing injured and if so, was that a creature I could take to the local vet? “Is it someone’s lost pet?”

He lifted it and straightened, turning to lean against the wall beside the open closet door. “It’s fake.”

“It wasn’t there this morning. I know that for a fact, because I received my toiletry samples the other day and loaded them in the bins in the closet earlier today.”

“Who else has access to your house?”

“Just me. I let any contractor in myself, and when I bought the place, the first thing I did was change all the outside locks.”

“There has to be access.” But where? “Is there an attic?”

“Fourth floor. It’s full of old furniture and odds and ends. The estate left it all behind, and let me tell you, they left everything in the same spot they’d taken ages ago. I had to haul it all up to the attic myself. But I added a lock on the attic door on this side, so even if someone could somehow find access, they can’t get inside the main building from there.”

“Show me.”

I took him up to the third floor and down the hall to the end.

“See?” I said, tapping the padlock, grateful to find it still locked. “Completely secure.”

“I’ll look around tomorrow, then. When I went down into the basement, I didn’t find any easy access there. I noted the lock on the inside of the bulkhead. Wise.”

“That was one of the first things I did. I lock the door at the top of the stairs, of course, but I didn’t want to think anyone could get into my basement from the outside.” My yawn slipped out, though I covered my mouth. What a stressful day. A stressful week. No, a stressful few months since I bought this place, and odd things started happening. “Sorry.”

“It’s after midnight. We can look into this in the morning. I’m grateful no one appears to be eager to hurt you.”

“Everything seems to be simple pranks. If it was one or two random things, I’d dismiss them as kids, but I doubt they’d bother to continue, especially if Detective Carter started asking questions around town, something he told me he did.”

“I don’t think this is kids.”

I sighed. “Neither do I. It’s too . . . methodical. Organized, I guess you could say. With one goal: To drive me from this building.”

If they didn’t succeed, would they escalate to something deadly?