A Girl and Her Wolf (Howl, #7) (12 page)

Chapter 17: Colby

Back at the house, Emma was putting Davenport down for yet another nap
as Colby made them a late afternoon lunch.

“He’s out like a light,” Emma told him as she walked into the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“Chicken salad and tater tots,” Colby replied as he spooned the chicken salad onto bread.

She wrinkled her nose. “I think I might just have some
decaf coffee. I feel exhausted.”

Colby studied her face; she didn’t
look
tired. That didn’t mean much, of course, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the bad mood she’d been in lately had something to do with why she was so tired. Maybe all he needed to do was cheer her up.

He knew just the thing that would pull her out of her bad mood—at least for a little while. “I have something I want to show you after lunch,” he told her.

“What is it?” Her eyes lit up a bit as she looked at him curiously. It seemed like his idea was working already.

“I can’t tell you. It’
ll ruin it.” He picked up both their plates and carried them over to the table.

She gave him a pouty look.

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll give you one clue. It’s outside somewhere. And it’s
sort
of dark.”

“Oh,” she said disappointedly. “Maybe you can show me when Sam and Declan get back, then? I don’t want to leave Daven in the house by himself.
And I don’t want to wake him up from his nap, either.”

Bennett the ghost said as he appeared in front of them. “Now’s the perfect time to test out my babysitting skills.”
He beamed at them.

“Well . . .” Emma said,
sharing a glance with Colby.

“He’s right, Em. We won’t be gone long. And we’ll be close-by if something happens.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she agreed with a nod. “Don’t make us regret it, though.”

“You can count on me,” Bennett said before disappearing again.

“You don’t have to eat, but will you sit with me?” Colby asked her.

“Actually, I
am
kind of hungry now,” Emma admitted.

Colby smiled. He was
pretty sure
now that he really was right; Emma just need something to cheer her up.

And the best part was, he was really excited that he could share this secret with her, too. It’s something that he’d known for a while now—ever since he’d accidentally found out about it.

Then, he was sworn to secrecy, which only made things worse. He struggled a lot with the idea of having to keep a secret from his Alpha. That’s not something that members of a pack are supposed to do.

There was a catch, though. He
hadn’t
promised to keep it a secret from Emma, and that was exactly why he was going to tell her about it. . . .

*

“Colby, do you remember when we had that talk about pre-approved places to do it? This is definitely
not
one of them,” Emma declared, wrinkling her nose as she glanced around the spider webs that were strung in every nook and cranny of the barn. She glanced above her, convinced that a spider was dangling over her head. “But
thank you
for at least making me change my shoes first, at least. I would’ve been so angry if I got chicken poo all over my new Coach heels.”

“Trust me, I’m not trying to mate with you in the barn,” Colby chuckled as he led her through it. “I just wanted to show you this.”

“You wanted to show me the chickens?” she questioned, deciding not to point out that she’d seen them so many times. They found the barn after they moved in, and eventually Colby decided that having fresh eggs would be fun. So, he’d bought some baby chicks, which were cute for a while. Until they grew into flesh-picking monsters. Emma learned that, on top of her fears of spiders, snakes, and heights, chickens were also terrifying.

He still brought her down to see them every day since
, and they just weren’t all that interesting to her. She did learn her lesson, though: no more wearing flip flops around chickens.

“Oh, come on, Em. Blinky isn’t
that
bad. Your toe just got in the way when he was eating his breakfast. It’s not his fault he thought your toes looked appetizing,” he said with a grin. “And nope, it’s what’s
under
the chickens that’s so interesting,” Colby said with a toothy grin as he rocked back and forth on the heels of his sneakers in anticipation.

“
Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted in confusion. “So, you brought me all the way out here just to show me their eggs? That really is, um . . .
interesting
.”

My mate
can be
really
lame sometimes
, Colby heard her think.

“Hey, I heard that,” he told her, his face falling at her lack of enthusiasm. “And you’re wrong, anyway. It’s not their eggs. The interesting thing is
under
the eggs, too,” he explained. “The thing is, this is
top
secret, so you can’t tell
anyone
what I’m about to show you. Pinkie swear.” He held out his pinkie.

Hesitantly, Emma wrapped her pinkie around his. “I promise.”

“Prepare to be
amazed
,” he told her, wagging his eyebrows up and down excitedly. He picked up the bundle of hay that had been put there on purpose. “See?” Colby asked, waving her over to where he was crouching down. He glanced up at her and grinned. “There’s a door here.”

Emma’s forehead scrunched up a little as she stared down at the half-moon shaped handle
on the floor. “I never would have noticed this on my own,” she commented.

It had only been a coincidence that Colby had found it himself.
He’d been sweeping out the barn when he dropped his cell phone. “I only found it by accident,” he explained as he pulled the door open.

She peeked down the newly uncovered stairs. The first steps were visible in the sunlight that streamed into the barn, but the rest of the stairs were in total darkness. “You’ve been down there before?” she asked, eyeing him curiosity.

Colby could feel the adrenaline coursing through his body. He knew that it was a side effect of Emma’s growing curiosity about what the passageway lead to. Even though there were a lot of people who got really freaked out by old abandoned buildings, they actually gave Emma a little bit of a thrill—which was one of the things that the two of them had in common.

“I shouldn’t tell you about it up here,” Colby whispered. He glanced around the room nervously, wondering if someone might be watching them. He didn’t want to get in trouble for letting her in on these secrets, but he had to tell
someone
.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “But I can
show
you,” he said, stepping down the stairs, the flashlight guiding his way. He turned around and held his hand out to her. “Come on, grab my hand. We both know how clumsy you can be.”

“I’m not
that
clumsy,” Emma insisted, but she took his hand, anyway.

“Be careful. The stairs are a little steep,” Colby told her as he began to climb down the stairs. First, there were about ten steps down, and then there was a small landing that took them to more steps that led them in the opposite direction.

When they reached the bottom of those steps, Colby handed his flashlight off to her. She used it to look around. Paintings lined the walls of the hallway, and Emma took a moment to admire one.

Colby took the second painting off the wall, feeling around for something.

“What are you looking for?” Emma asked him with wide eyes.

“The light switch,” he told her, just as the hallway was flooded with light, which gave them a good view of the paintings on the wall. “All of these paintings were done by werewolves,” he explained, motioning to a painting of two wolves
nuzzling against each other. “This one is from one of my favorite history books. It’s worth a fortune.”

“Whoever made this place went to an awful lot of trouble to keep it hidden,” Emma observed. “It was weird enough to find this old barn behind the fence and all of the pine trees, but for someone to have this secret passageway? It’s a little eerie.”

“Actually,” Colby replied excitedly, “It’s really brilliant. And we’re two of only a few werewolves who actually know about this place, except for Bennett, Nadia, and Dante. They know everything.” He rolled his eyes.

“So, what else is down here?” Emma questioned, examining the hallway for a door. Her eyes drifted down the hall to the book case. Colby heard her think
about how it just seemed to stick out for some reason, as she turned to him. “That’s the door, isn’t it?” she asked, walking over to the book case, examining the shelves to see if any of the books were out of place.

“Well, it
is
,” Colby agreed, impressed by how intuitive his mate could be at times.

“It’s not intuitive, Colby. I watch a lot of movies.”
She pulled one of the books from the shelves and sneezed as some dust blew into her face.

“
You can’t access it from here,” Colby told her. “It only opens from the other side. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.” He pulled the rug up and opened yet another trap door.

Emma followed him down the steps and through another
, smaller, hallway. It would have been large enough for their wolf forms to comfortably walk through, but in their human forms, they had to crouch down. They walked up a couple of stairs that led to a door, which Colby opened with a key.

When Colby flicked on another li
ght, Emma raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t been expecting the room to be so huge. Rows of book cases lined the far wall, and two long glass cases sat on either side. There was also a table and chairs set up in the center. A spiral staircase that led to seemingly nowhere sat in the corner of the room, right next to the door they had just come in.

Colby followed her gaze. “That leads to the bookcase door.”

This place looks well-maintained. It doesn’t even look dusty. Someone must keep it up,
Colby heard Emma think to herself.
But the question is . . . who?

His mate turned to him. “How did you find this place?” she
whispered.

“A little birdie told me,” Colby said mischievously.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Bennett?”

“It’s always Bennett, isn’t it?” Colby laughed. “Yeah. A
while ago, I saw a tray of food floating down the hallway. I asked him what it was for, and he told me it was for Grandpa Joe because he was out working in the barn. I asked him what he was working on and he told me that he couldn’t tell me, just that ‘there’s more to the barn than meets the eye’. So I knew there had to be
something
here. I followed Bennett outside without him knowing, all the way to the barn. And of course by the time I got to it, he’d disappeared. I looked all over for a clue to what he was doing, but I never did find it. Then one day I was out in the barn, not even looking for anything, and I dropped my phone. I bent down to pick it up and that’s when I saw the trap door handle peeking out from under some hay. I felt so dumb, because the whole time I didn’t even think to look there.”

“Wow. I didn’t even know about any of that,” Emma commented.

Colby hoped that she wasn’t upset that he’d kept it from her. “Grandpa Joe asked me to keep it a secret from Samara.”

“Why?” she questioned.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He shrugged. “So, after I found the trap door, I asked Joe what it led to. I didn’t want to snoop around down here without asking for permission, so he brought me down here to show me around. He even gave me a key and told me a story and everything.”

“A story?”

“Have a seat,” Colby said, pulling out one of the chairs to the table. “I’ll tell you it.” He only hoped that he could tell it as well as Grandpa Joe had.

*

“What is this place?” Colby asked as he looked around the secret room in awe. There had to have been hundreds—no,
thousands—
of books. Every single one of them was about werewolves. He hadn’t even heard of most of them.

“My lair,” Grandpa Joe said with a chuckle. “Every one of those objects in those glass cases are important in one way or another. And also
very
dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands.” He studied his face seriously. “Can I trust you, Colby?”

“Y-yes,” he said honestly. He stood up straight, as if trying to prove his worth.

“Yes, I think I can,” Joe said with a nod, taking a seat at the table. It was covered with open books. “Have a seat. I want to tell you a story about what things were like when I was around your age.”

Colby sat down, eager to hear about Joe’s past.