Chapter 20: Lucan's POV: The Bluff

Lucan's POV

Dottie reached me first.

She came across the chapel at a dead run, in her good shoes, with a biscuit still in her hand.

"The side door," she said. "She went out the side door, and Odette's got her, there was a man in a gray suit..."

I was already moving.

I do not remember the vestibule.

I remember the cold air outside, and the path down through the pines, and then I was not on two legs anymore.

My wolf is big, and he is not subtle.

I bounded up the path and smelled her at the second bend, lemon soap and ink and the sharp thread of her fear.

I followed it to the bluff.

The bluff is a flat shelf of rock above the river, sixty feet over the water, with a low rail on the landward side and no rail on the other.

I came out of the trees and stopped.

Poppy stood near the edge with her hair coming out of its braid.

Odette stood four feet from her in her silver-gray dress.

The guard in the gray suit stood behind Poppy, with a hand on her elbow.

I had hired him myself, three years ago.

"...and that's another thing," Poppy was saying. She sounded quite calm. "Your rate is what?"

"Excuse me?" said the guard.

"Your hourly rate. For this."

"Ma'am, that's not..."

"I'm not a ma'am, I'm a client. How much does Mrs. Holst pay you to hold my arm at the edge of a cliff?"

"Poppy, darling," Odette said, "he is not a negotiator."

"Does it include dental?"

The guard blinked.

"Because if I fall, you're a witness, and then you're an accomplice. You'll need a lawyer, and Frankie says they're four hundred an hour."

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