This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,111

Tristan Masters is here to see him.”

The guard jolts, gives a shout, and suddenly, about a million guns are pointed in our direction.

It isn’t lost on me that Tristan requested Cody and not his father. Slowly lifting my hands so they’re visible through the windscreen, I carefully reach for the door handle and push the door open.

Holding my hands high, I slip from the vehicle, angling for full visibility by the security camera at the top of the gate, gratified to see it follow my movements. I tip my head back and wait as the tense seconds stretch out.

All it will take is a trigger-happy shifter and I’m a dead woman.

The security guard whom Tristan greeted points his weapon directly at Tristan’s head while the seconds tick by.

His two-way radio finally crackles. “Escort them in.”

The radio distorts the speaker’s voice, but it sounds like it was Cody himself who responded.

The guard gestures at me. “Back in the vehicle. No sudden movements.”

Carefully and slowly, I slide back into the passenger seat and close the door while Tristan drives the vehicle forward at a crawl, slow enough that a dozen security guards can jog at the side of the vehicle.

A minute down the private road, we finally arrive at a sprawling building, multiple levels high, a mansion with a grand entrance all lit up.

Tristan slips the pistol beneath his seat after he brings the vehicle to a stop. He raises his hands like I did and we both wait inside the vehicle, hands visible while the security guards usher the guests on the stairs into the house.

Baxter Griffin and Cody Griffin stride down the front stairs, both dressed in black suits and ties. I focus on calming my breathing and remaining in control. The last time I saw these men, they stood over my father’s body.

Because of the way we’re facing, I’m closest to them.

Cody looks different as he stops at the base of the steps only five paces away. His sandy blond hair is cut short now—it was slicked back and halfway down his neck the last time I saw him—and his upper body and thighs appear larger, as if he’s spent that last two months working out. It could be the cut of his suit, but there’s a finely chiseled edge to his silhouette that wasn’t there before.

In contrast, his father appears more weathered, his hair more gray, his mouth set in a cold line, his brown eyes turning hard as he focuses on me.

“Get them out and search them,” he orders.

The security guards on either side of us open our doors. Tristan exits and steps to the side of the vehicle, where Baxter and Cody can see him. He promptly submits to a thorough pat down.

I take my time slipping my feet to the ground. An appraisal of Cody tells me he hasn’t glanced at Tristan once, his focus intent on me. Angling my legs so that the split in my skirt does its work by falling away from the curves of my left leg all the way up to my thigh, I slide from my seat.

Finding my feet, I appraise Cody quietly from beneath my lashes, my lips parting, and now my confusion is genuine. The first time I saw him, he glowed with power. Now, he’s more controlled, but his control feels dangerous, the same way I am more of a threat now that my power is held tightly within my grasp.

When the security guard reaches out to pat me down, I lean away from him. “Oh, honey,” I say to him. “It takes stronger hands than yours to handle me.”

The guard growls a denial, but Cody is already crossing the distance under his father’s sharp eye.

“Step aside,” he says to the guard. “I’ll check her.”

I sense Tristan watching us as closely as Baxter is, although Tristan’s emotions are so walled off that I’m getting barely anything from him.

Cody reaches for me without pause, his hands gripping my waist and ribs in a firm hold, his face tipped to mine. Up close, his eyes appear more animal, his hickory brown irises flecked with gold. He speaks my name with a rumbling growl. “Tessa.”

“Cody.” I inhale his scent. Like his appearance, it’s changed too, now with layers it didn’t have before, but I don’t know what the change means. I remember when I first saw him through my wolf’s power, the glow around him was a confusing mix of cobalt and crimson, forces at war with each other.