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Her gaze travels to the trees next, and she shifts her weight from foot to foot. “Then let me come with you. I can help you set up the cameras.”
I scowl at her, about to object, when a bright flash of lightning splinters the sky above, followed by a boom that shakes the mountain beneath us. “This storm is going to hit soon. I want you inside.”
She shakes her head, squaring her shoulders, trying to make herself appear bigger and immovable when we both know I could toss her easily over my shoulder and take her anywhere I wanted to. “I’m coming with you.”
Fighting a grin, I step closer to her, until my chest brushes hers. “Stubborn little Beauty, aren’t you?” I capture her chin between my thumb and forefinger and drag her head up so I can kiss her deeply. “Fine…but stay close.”
Having her with me might be better. Anyway. If she’s somewhere I can keep an eye on her more easily, I can worry less about that and more about ensuring I have the property covered with the new cameras quickly, before the storm gets so bad that it’s too hard to move through it.
She scans the woods behind us. “Is Gray here?”
Following her gaze, I search the trees for his silver-gray fur, but if doesn’t want to be seen, he won’t be. “Somewhere, but he won’t come near you if you’re with me.”
Her brow furrows as she shifts nervously. “You promise?”
“I won’t let the big bad wolf get you, Beauty.” I press my hand to her lower back, urging her into the forest. “We don’t have much time.”
Almost as if on cue, the sprinkles start, and she scowls at me but allows me to usher her into the cover the canopy provides from getting soaked.
“This way…” I direct her away from the main path and to a harder-to-find trail that runs parallel to the road.
We move through the trees as quickly as the terrain allows, slower than I could move on my own. I have to wait for her to climb over fallen logs and inch through shrubs I can easily maneuver around. It should annoy me that my task is taking longer than it would have if I had come out here alone, but I hate to admit how good it actually feels to have her with me out here.
Not just good.
Right.
Which only makes what we’re facing so much worse.
Would Wendy really hurt her to force my hand?
She might.
She’s the queen of playing twisted games.
First, dangling the carrot by sending the woman up here in the first place, then when it doesn’t garner the results she wants, threatening to take her away now that I actually give a shit about her.
Diabolical for sure…and all Wendy.
How did I ever miss what she really was for so many years?
Not that there was anything I could have done to stop her from killing Ray.
She had a plan to take over, to make Father see what she could do; she was just biding her time until the perfect opportunity presented itself.
It worked far too well. And that left Wendy in charge of the family when she had barely graduated from college and her political career was only a pipe dream.
Now that she’s attained so much, she’s going to fight even harder to retain it. If she thinks she needs me to accomplish that, then she’ll stop at nothing to get The Beast back.
Even if it means hurting Callista.
I pause next to a large pine, and Callista comes to a halt next to me.
“We’ll set up a camera here. It catches the edge of the road. Plus, this is the least steep portion of the mountain, where they might come up on foot.”
Her blond brows wing up. “You think they’d try that?”
“Anything is possible with her. She knows the mountain and its secrets almost as well as I do. She can move around it relatively undetected, but she won’t suspect I put up new cameras after I disconnected the ones she had access to.” I pull the camera out of the bag and strap it onto the trunk, assuring the angle is good and catches as much of the road and surrounding area as possible. “Come on, fifteen more to go.”
