“So do I,” Caelan snarled. “Now get it inside. It has a message she wants me to see.”
Seymour didn’t reach out for a bite, but I could see the flytrap quivering. The shifter reached for it, carefully holding the plant at arm’s length, and went inside, Caelan following behind.
I waited for a long moment to ensure no one would pop back outside before shifting to my wren form. A few seconds later, I sat atop his roof, inspecting the area to ensure nothing nasty would happen when I shifted back.
That was another thing about property protections. A lot of people forgot to protect the roof. Caelan had installed no less than a dozen cameras, and that was okay. I wanted him to know it was me.
But I didn’t want him to see exactly what I was going to do next, so I encouraged some mold to grow in one of the small puddles of water atop the roof and sent it crawling in different directions until every camera facing me was covered with a layer of green growth. Time was of the essence now. Someone would quickly discover the covered cameras.
I fished in my pocket for the small bag of charged seeds and pulled out a handful. They sparkled and glowed in the moonlight, ready to serve their purpose. I cupped my hands together, blew into my palms, and cast the seeds off the roof, sending them scattering across Caelan’s property. I turned in the other direction and did the same, ensuring every inch of his property was covered.
Then I did the thing that horrified every red-blooded American male obsessed with lawn care. From my other pocket, I pulled out a handful of charged dandelion seeds and scattered those in all directions.
Once I scanned his property and felt the seeds waiting in anticipation in every direction, I settled in to wait, knowing I didn’t have long.
The first horrified scream rang through the property a couple of minutes later, quickly followed by several more, until I heard Caelan’s low snarling curse.
A grin spread across my face.
Game on, asshole.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
CAELAN
“Stop being such a sissy,” Simone snapped to the shifter lying in the fetal position, holding his bleeding hand.
“It attacked me,” the shifter whined.
“You’re lucky it didn’t do worse. The note warned you not to get too close.” I eyed the angry flytrap. “There’s something else inside the traps.”
“I’ll get it,” Simone said, reaching for the folded piece of paper.
“No. I’ll do it.” Evie sent the rabid thing to me to prove a point, but I don’t think it was making the one she’d wanted.
“Lord.” Simone reached out to me, but at my look, she lowered her eyes.
“Apologies.”
I stood before the plant—Seymour, she’d named it—and studied the traps. There was the main one, far larger than it should be, and somewhat sentient. The other traps lay closer to the soil, watchful and wary. The envelope was tucked into several of those traps, and if I reached in, I’d leave my hand vulnerable.
The shifter, still lying on the floor, moaned. “Lord. It’s poisoned.”
“I’m aware.” My shifter was still alive. In pain and in a piss poor mood, but still alive.
“The healer will be here momentarily,” Simone said. “If she wanted anyone dead, you wouldn’t be lying there bitching about everything.”
I schooled my expression into blankness. A mother hen, she was not.
“But what kind of poison?” I murmured to myself.
“Paralytic,” the shifter said. “Can’t move anything below my waist.”
Simone’s lips twitched then. The study doors opened, and a massive shifter walked in.
Ben had been with me for over fifty years. He was not a wolf and had never revealed his animal form to me or anyone else that I knew of. Though I suspected maybe Simone knew since I’d caught them making moon eyes at each other a couple of times.
