This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,116

than the other two men, wearing a suit of the darkest blue verging on black. His hair is light brown, but the more I stare at it, it could be dark blond, and his eyes are a shade of hazel green. Or maybe pale brown. While the details of his features are unsettlingly hard to determine, his jaw is shadowed with growth, his lips are perfectly curved, and high cheekbones round out his strong face.

I blink rapidly, my instincts screaming at me, but I’m not sure if they’re telling me to run or stay.

“You’re human,” I say, drawing the only conclusion I can from the absence of any glow around him.

He leans on the balustrade at the foot of the stairs. “You’ve caused quite a stir, Tessa Dean,” he replies, as if we’re having an entirely different conversation.

I narrow my eyes at him in distrust. “What is a human doing here?”

The crease in his forehead disappears, a tension easing, but he doesn’t extend his hand when he introduces himself. “My name is Ford Vanguard. Baxter Griffin is my business partner. We’ve made a number of profitable deals together.”

“Sure.” The hairs on the back of my neck have risen and my skin prickles all over my body. I rub my arms, disliking the tingling sensation. “Would you mind asking your men to step aside?” I say. “Cody directed me to go this way.”

“Oh, he did?” Ford scratches his chin. “That’s interesting.”

The men continue to block my way and Ford continues to stare at me.

A growl threatens to erupt from my mouth. I take a swift step toward Ford, abandoning my polite approach.

“Tell your men to get the fuck out of my way or we’re going to have a problem, do you understand?”

Ford breaks into a grin. “Ah, there’s the woman I heard about.”

He tips his head at his men, who promptly step aside.

Even so, the gap between them is narrow.

I turn on my side, make myself small, and angle between them while they watch me closely.

The big guy with the pale blue eyes glowers down at me while the guy with the eyepatch is impassive, weirdly distracted, as if his mind is elsewhere.

My arm brushes the big guy’s bicep as I pass.

He’s ice cold.

I jolt. My eyes fly wide.

I should have realized sooner. These two giant guys just happen to be at Baxter Griffin’s party and they aren’t shifters.

They’re the ice jotunn and the warlock.

Chapter Thirty-One

I fight every instinct in my body that tells me to defend myself against them.

Both men remain where they are, simply glowering at me. To strike out at them would start a battle I don’t need right now.

Deftly slipping past them, I spin to keep the ice jotunn, the warlock—because that’s who the eyepatch guy must be—and Ford Vanguard, the unsettling human, in my sights as I back up the stairs.

Some business deal this human has made.

Ford fixates on me, his focus unrelenting until I reach the top of the stairs and head to the left. I stop and press my back to the wall once I’m out of sight, expanding my senses and waiting to see what they do.

All three of them move on, and I exhale with relief when they don’t follow me.

What I really need now is a place to catch my breath and figure out how I’m going to get Baxter Griffin alone. My time is running out. Tristan told Baxter and Cody that he wanted to negotiate a truce. If I haven’t killed Baxter by midnight, then things will get ugly.

I hurry along the corridor, open the last door on the left, and stop.

This can’t be right.

It’s a bedroom, not a bathroom. Maybe Cody said to go right, not left.

I’m about to back out of the room when a photograph catches my eye. It’s a familiar face I wasn’t expecting to see.

Stepping into the room, I’m struck by the remnant scents inside the space. It’s a distinctly feminine bedroom, beautifully laid out in pastels—a plush, pale blue armchair, a lavender bedspread, a large abstract painting on the opposite wall, a pair of heels set beside the armchair, one of them tipped on its side, as if its owner just stepped out of them and will return any moment.

I cross to the dressing table with the large mirror and the photograph tucked into the bottom of it.

My hands shake as I remove it.

Ella.

She’s dressed in a strappy summer dress, smiling widely, her long, blonde hair falling across her face on one side,