“Erin Lashton is the most patient and companionate person I’ve ever known. And as you so kindly pointed out, I’m old as dirt.”
“Erin is also Devon’s mother. She will not be objective no matter how hard she tries.”
“I hear you. I just prefer to cross that bridge when and if we come to it.”
“As you say.”
Payne lapsed into silence and Ian stared out the window. It was hard to think of Devon as anything but a precocious adolescent. He knew she was a woman now, but the majority of their interaction had been while she was in her early teens. He’d lived in a guesthouse owned by the Lashtons after a tragedy left him so consumed by rage he could barely function. Erin had helped him process the anger and accept the underlying loss. Then, last year, when Erin lost her mate, everyone expected Ian to claim her as his own. But he refused to mate without a true soul bond and with Erin he’d never felt the pull. She was the closest friend he’d ever had, but their relationship had never been romantic.
Devon had been thirteen when he moved into the guesthouse. For the first few months she’d watched him with a mixture of fascination and fear, but little by little her interest took on an entirely different light. He’d been chopping wood one afternoon, shirtless and covered in sweat, when he spotted her spying on him.
The memory was crystal clear and surprisingly poignant. He’d lodged the ax in the tree stump and spun around. “Little girls shouldn’t spy on grown men. Tends to get grown men shot.”
She stepped out from behind the tree that had failed to hide her completely and held her arms away from her body. “I’m unarmed.” Mischief gleamed in her clear green eyes, making her look older than her thirteen years.
There was no way in hell he was going to encourage a schoolgirl crush, especially when the schoolgirl was his best friend’s daughter. So he put his fists on his hips and did his best to look foreboding. “What do you want?”
“I know my father can be an ass at times, but he won’t let you steal his mate.” She stood a little straighter and raised her chin. “Leave my mother alone.”
It was a convenient excuse and they both knew it. She hadn’t been watching him out of loyalty to her mother. “What makes you think I’m interested in your mother?” She’d blushed to the roots of her shiny black hair and he wanted to bite off his tongue. That hadn’t been much of a discouragement, so he made himself perfectly clear. “Go back to your house, Devon. There is nothing for you here.”
Too flustered to argue, she’d dashed into the trees, leaving him with the oddest ache in the center of his chest. He still remembered every nuance of her innocent face and the hurt clouding her eyes.
He’d seen her often in the following years, but he’d made sure they were never alone together. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust himself to resist her appeal. He just wasn’t taking any chances. Erin meant too much to him and Devon deserved someone as young and untainted as she was.
Payne turned on the radio as Ian let his mind wander. So much had happened in the past few months. The conflict with the wolves seemed to escalate daily and they kept identifying new enemies.
They’d been fighting the radical obsession of the Abolitionists for years, but now they had the name of the person who called the shots. Nehema. Unfortunately they didn’t know a whole lot more than her name. What had inspired her ongoing crusade to wipe out Therian males and “rescue” Therian females was still a mystery.
In fact, they’d thought the lab was an Abolitionist facility until the raid revealed an entirely new, and far more dangerous, enemy. According to Carly, one of the project doctors, a group of three “backers” funded and controlled the ambitious project. Therians were captured and experimented on in an effort to unlock the secret of their metamorphic abilities. The raiding party had freed all of the Therians being held captive in the lab, but Carly warned them that there were other facilities.
“You are brooding, my friend.”
“And we both know that’s not like me?” Ian glanced at Payne and smiled. They’d known each other longer than most of their friends had been alive. The average Therian lived one hundred and twenty-five years. Payne and Ian were both exceptions to the rule. Ian even more so than Payne.
“We will find her.”
“I know. But we could all use some good news right about now.”
Payne made a dismissive sound that was entirely European. “Finding Jake’s sisters before they were harmed was not good news?”
“Of course it was. Jake deserves all the happiness he can find after all he’s taken on. I just feel sorry for Erin and Kyle.”