I was wearing a towel, the material damp along the edges from the shower I had taken…at a cabin.
The owner of that voice finally pierced the panic clouding my brain, and I almost sobbed with relief.
Ambrose, leaning against the wall, watched me tremble and tear up while shaking his head at my hysterics.
For reasons that eluded me, he felt I ought to trust him to look out for our best interests. When he was on good behavior, it was tempting. But that never lasted for long. Then he went right back to building his stores, tugging on his leash, and attempting to sever our ties through any means necessary.
And yet, he still took offense when I side-eyed his motives.
Happy to turn away from Ambrose, I pushed the damp hair off Midas’s brow. He turned his face into my palm, his distress easing, but he didn’t rouse. He kept talking in that low, rich voice thick with an accent I doubted modern Gaelic speakers could parse.
He had fallen asleep curved around me, but I had to move. I couldn’t bear the stillness any longer.
Untangling from him with care, I slipped off the bed and peeked out the front windows to discover forest spreading in all directions.
We were at the den.
Midas had taken me home with him.
The warmth spilling through me chilled as I recalled what I had done.
Acid rose up the back of my throat, and I padded onto the dirt porch where I dry-heaved until my eyes watered from the strain. Sure. That was why I couldn’t stop crying.
This whole time, I had made Ambrose out to be the bad guy. He had committed murder. Several times. I had no issue with accepting half the blame, since I had been the power-hungry idiot who invited possession in the first place, but it had been his hands with blood on them. He had always done the actual deed.
After this, I could no longer tally myself in a different column.
I had killed in the line of duty as Linus’s apprentice, and it had been justified, but this was an execution. I could have made my peace with that, the man deserved to die for what he did to Krista, but it was different killing a child on her knees and then slicing her open to harvest her innards.
Desperate to get out of my head, I checked my phone and found texts from Bishop, Remy, Ford, and Linus.
That last one broke me out in cold sweat, even though he had negotiated on Midas’s behalf and was fully aware of the debt we owed for Ford’s recovery. He knew what it would take to hold up our end, but what we had agreed to do struck me as wrong on so many levels I felt guilty at the prospect of confessing to him.
The phone rang in my hand, and I switched it to silent before it woke Midas. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Adelaide came off as distracted. “Linus mentioned you had a recipe for horchata I might want.”
“Horchata?” I rubbed my eyes to make certain I wasn’t still dreaming. “When did he tell you that?”
“About an hour ago.” She slammed something shut. “I’ve gone through every drawer in the kitchen, and I can’t find mine. Gramma Dietrich swore by it, but ugh.”
“I do have a recipe.” I downloaded it off the A Warg Called Wanda blog. “It’s not something I would pass on to the grandkids, but it will do in a pinch.”
Wanda was helping me learn my way around my own kitchen through her online tutorials. What I loved about her was how often she set things, and herself, on fire. Which, now that I thought about it, might not be the best credentials. Her recipes always turned out, though. Maybe not great, but they were edible. As defined by wargs, anyway.
“Can you email it to me?” Adelaide begged. “Dad put in a special request, and I’d hate to let him down.”
“No problem.” I might link her to the blog too. She would probably get a laugh out of it. “How’s life?”
The awkward segue made me flush, but Adelaide didn’t make me feel lame for my rusty social skills.
“Your brother is driving me nuts. He has started and stopped four projects around the house in the last two weeks. I get his job is demanding, and I understand he works all hours, but come on. The man has serious commitment issues. He’s always hopping to the next shiny thing that catches his eye.”
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood to keep from agreeing with her.
Boaz did have serious commitment issues, and I wasn’t convinced their engagement would be enough to hold him in check forever without a deeper investment on both their parts. But I wasn’t about to suggest she put stock in him when he had been such a miser with his heart up to this point.
As much as it pained me, I had come to terms with the fact Boaz was a grown man, and his romantic problems were for him to solve. All I had ever done was make things worse when I meddled, for him and the poor girl involved. This time, that girl was my sister, and I didn’t want to see her hurt.
And yes, that made their relationship sound…icky.
But, and it was a big but, they weren’t blood related, despite the fact I was stuck in the middle with distant claims to siblingship on them both.
Frakking hell, life was complicated.
Addie chattered about her dad, her life, my brother, for a good half hour. I made appropriate noises in the right places, and we ended the call with the promise to Netflix a show together soon. Not until the call ended did I realize how much better I felt without breathing a word of my problems to her.
Just having someone with normal issues reach out to vent made mine somehow less.
A vibration had me checking my phone on reflex, which torpedoed my plausible deniability, but thankfully it was just Addie bullying me as if we were actual siblings instead of a technicality.
>> Say it.
>> Come on. Don’t be shy.
Um.
>> I will call you back.
I am enough.
>> You typed that. Out loud this time.
A grin sneaked up on me, and I laughed softly.
You don’t know that.
>> I’m your big sister. That gives me mystical powers to peer into the great unknown.
Fear she was superimposing me over her Hadley lingered in the back of my mind, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know where I began in her mind and her real sister ended.
>> Don’t try to deny it. I’m marrying your ox of a brother, remember? We’re sisters. Deal with it.
“I am enough,” I whispered to make her happy.
There. Done. Weirdo.
>> Love you, sis.
More tears overflowed my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. “Love you too.”
While it was still on my mind, I linked her to the recipe and the video, and I hoped it made her smile.
“Trouble sleeping?” Midas leaned against the doorframe. “I heard you moving around out here.”
Gwyllgi ears being what they were, I was willing to bet he had heard more than that.
“I couldn’t sleep.” I held up my phone. “Then I saw all this.”
“Your sister called,” he said, reading the top caller ID entry. “She’s worried about you?”
“Linus must be,” I huffed. “He’s left me messages, but I haven’t answered him yet.”
“He set your sister on you?” Midas laughed softly. “That’s brutal, exactly what I would expect from him.”
“He’s not so bad.” A year ago, I might have fallen over dead imagining myself defending him, but I was a different person then. “He’s done a lot for me.”