Free Black Orchid by Abigail Owen

Nate’s
knock.

Chapter 12
     
     
    By
the time his knock came, Adelaide had a plan in place for what steps she needed
to take. She opened the door and stepped outside onto the veranda. Nate had his
shirt back on. Adelaide quelled a small moment of disappointment, determined to
keep to the business at hand. He backed up a bit to give her some space. She
handed him one of the glasses of water she’d brought out with her, and then she
took a seat in one of the wicker chairs.
    Nate
raised his eyebrows and moved to stand in front of her. He didn’t take a seat
but leaned back against the railing and crossed his ankles.
    “You
said you’d been tracking him?” she asked.
    He
nodded.
    “Why?”
    Nate
grimaced. “It’s a bit difficult to explain.”
    “Did
someone assign you to follow him?” she asked.
    Nate
shook his head. “No. Tracking’s something I learned young. I don’t do it much
anymore. But I happened to overhear that guy on the phone receiving his kill
orders.” He pinned her with a curious glance. “For you, apparently.” He
shrugged. “I put those old skills to use and followed him.”
    Adelaide
narrowed her eyes. She stretched out with her telepathy, trying to remember
everything Ellie had worked on with her. Her ability to hear someone’s thoughts
on purpose was still glitchy at best.
    “…
not going to hurt her … just didn’t like the look of that guy or his orders …
don’t worry …”
    Adelaide
relaxed infinitesimally. Hearing those thoughts helped. But what was more
compelling was the lack of a hive mind present. From what she understood,
Maddox’s forces were all wolf morphers like the Vyusher. Like the greasy dead
kid. While she’d been at the castle, Adelaide had discovered what the wolves
sounded like telepathically, and she couldn’t feel anything like that with this
guy. So he couldn’t be with Maddox. That didn’t make him safe exactly, but at
least it made him not an obvious enemy.
    More
than that, she wasn’t shaking. Fear should’ve had her on the verge of shifting
again by now. But she was fine. She’d have to figure out what that meant later.
But for now, she didn’t feel as if this man were an immediate threat.
    Adelaide
took in his appearance. He had sandy blond hair and brown eyes. The lines
around his eyes indicated that he was someone who laughed a lot. Adelaide sort
of liked that idea. He wore strange- looking clothes that she wasn’t familiar
with. And he obviously hadn’t showered in a long time.
    The
stranger quirked his lips. Or at least she thought he did. It was hard to tell
through the beard. What was his name again? Nate? Well, whatever. He looked
more like a shaggy dog than a serial killer.
    She
clamped her own lips together to keep them from twitching. And then she
frowned. My first moment of honest humor since I woke up in the castle and
it’s with a random would-be knight in shining armor. Or really smart killer. The urge to giggle struck again, which seemed really inappropriate given the
situation. Maybe I’m just cracking up and losing my mind completely.
    She
pulled her mind back to questioning him. “Seems like an awfully big coincidence
that you just happened to overhear him,” she said. “What were you doing this
far into the Outback?”
    “I
wasn’t when I came across him. That was in Darwin. I followed him here.”
    Adelaide
frowned. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was in relation to Darwin. But she
was positive it was quite a distance. “How’d you get here?”
    “He
came in a Ute. It’s parked about ten miles that way.” He jerked a thumb over
his shoulder off to her left. “I followed on foot.”
    Adelaide
stiffened. “On… foot?”
    He
smiled at the skepticism in her voice. Adelaide noticed that the friendliness
of his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Although she wasn’t sure how she
could tell through the scruff.
    Huh.
So the smile is more for me than for him. Interesting.
     “Originally,
I came to the