After a quick shower, I changed into a soft pair of joggers and a loose tank top, then returned to find the room empty. Snorting and muttering under my breath, I went into the kitchen, grinning as the heavenly scent of coffee filled my nose, awakening my soul.
A knock sounded on my door, and before I could answer, Noah entered with clothes in his hands.
He shrugged and cleared his throat before speaking. “Micah is in my shower. Do you mind if I use yours?”
“Go for it, but the hot water takes a moment to catch up with the cold,” I admitted, walking back to stalk the coffee pot. “Thanks for making the coffee.” I sighed dreamily as it continued brewing. “I love that smell. I wish we had a place that made beignets like they do in New Orleans. My tits even miss the powdered sugar stuck in their cleavage.”
Noah laughed while heading to the bathroom. When I heard the water running, I went to the sink, counting to twenty before turning on the hot water, listening for his violent cursing before switching it off. Smiling, I hummed beneath my breath, pouring two mugs full. I added creamer to mine and three sugar cubes to both before stirring them and setting them down to wait for him to finish showering.
I tapped my fingers on the table until I heard another knock at the door. Standing, I went to answer it as Noah called from the other room. Twisting the knob, I pulled it open to see Micah focusing on his feet until his sad eyes lifted.
“Look, Xari, about last night,” he began, but paused, looking over my shoulder, hissing.
“Shit,” Noah growled, grabbing his towel from where he’d dropped it on the floor.
“What the fuck?” Micah sneered, sliding his angry gaze to mine.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out as my eyes shifted back to Noah, with an owl-like expression. Damn, he wasn’t playing around down there. I blinked, reminding myself how inappropriate that thought was.
“You’re fucking him now? What’s the plan, Xari? Fuck your way through the guild? Daddy isn’t here to give you a gold star or stroke your fucking ego, so you’re going to ride dick until you get that high he gave you with his praise?” he sneered, snapping my attention back to him.
“What did you fucking say to her?” Noah snarled, lunging.
“Fuck you, Noah! Always second best, asshole. You’re nothing more than second-string, and you never will be! Do you like fucking my leftovers? She’s just a whore now, anyway.”
“I’ll fucking end you, prick!” Noah growled, heading directly for Micah.
I jumped between them, shoving them both backward. “We’re not fucking doing this!” I snarled. “You, cover your dick!” I shouted at Noah, swinging back to face Micah. “And you, you can fuck off. You have no right to come in here and judge me. You fucking cheated on me! I didn’t choose her; you did. You got Meredith pregnant, asshole. You broke me, and how I fix myself after your betrayal is my choice and mine alone. You don’t get to call me a whore. I was willing to give you every part and piece of me. You ruined us. You did this to me. If I want to fuck Noah, I will fucking do so without your input.”
“Is that what you want? To fuck him now and be some bitch that gets passed around the base? You’re better than that, Xariana.”
“You know that’s not who I am, but it’s too fucking bad that’s who you turned out to be. I was supposed to be your wife and have your children, remember? You chose Meredith, and now she’s gone, and you are a widow. It’s fucking tragic, but that doesn’t change what happened. Deal with your shit somewhere else. It isn’t my job to hold you or comfort you anymore. Stay the fuck out of my house and keep your criticisms to yourself. Your opinion of me and how I live my life no longer matters.” I pushed him out and slammed the door, turning on Noah.
He started to say something, but I held my hand up while marching to the table to down the caffeine. When he tried to talk again, I flicked my finger at him, guzzling my drink.
“Did you even try to discourage him from thinking we had slept together?” I snapped, frustrated at both of them.
“We did share a bed,” he snorted, reaching for the coffee I’d poured for him, uncaring that the towel hung low on his muscular hips.
“Not like that we didn’t, jerk-face,” I grumbled. “You know, Micah assumes we fucked.”
“Do you care what he thinks happened? Because it didn’t sound like you did a moment ago,” he replied, taking a sip from the mug while holding my glare, a brow lifting in challenge.
Someone knocked on the front door, and I groaned, moving across the kitchen and throwing it open. “What now, Micah? You want to shove more insults down my throat for sleeping with Noah?” I demanded, pausing as Onyx and Kaderyn both glanced over my shoulder where Noah stood in his towel, gripping his mug with a smile that I wanted to slap off his face. “We didn’t—”
“There’s a body,” Kaderyn stated, waving off my reply. “The sheriff is outside the gates, waiting for you. He said they found this a few feet from the corpse,” she informed, holding up the wallet I’d given my father two years ago for Christmas.
My stomach shrank as my heart leaped into my throat. Tears burned behind my eyes, and my knees threatened to deposit my weight in a puddle on the floor. I grabbed for the door as she exhaled, sliding in to place an arm around me.
“Breathe, Xari. Just breathe. We don’t know if it is Xavier or if the wallet was placed there to throw us off the trail. We won’t know until we get there,” Kaderyn said. “You need to get presentable, both of you,” she grunted, peering into my kitchen.
“I’ll get dressed, Xar.” Noah walked down the hall and into the apartment’s only bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, dressed in normal attire, with weapons decked beneath my leather jacket, I strode toward the front of our compound with everyone behind me, even Micah. It didn’t matter how much we fought or what problems we had. When shit hit the fan, we had each other’s backs and always would.
“Sheriff,” I nodded, opening the gates to slip through them.
“Miss Anderson, wish I was visiting under better circumstances.”
Jeffery Wheeler had been the sheriff of our town for as long as I could recall. He knew otherworldly events were happening, but he wasn’t one to stick a foot into things on our end. Instead, he ran interference when needed and never asked too many questions because he didn’t want the answers to keep him up at night.
“You and me both.” I exhaled to stop the tremor of emotion in my voice. “You found this on a body?” I asked, needing to hear it from him.
“Yeah, we did. The remains were discovered early this morning, out by the canyon. We were training new cadaver dogs, and they got a hit. We didn’t think it would be human, but it looks like it was.”
“It looks like it was?” I echoed, swallowing to rid myself of the saliva building as bile pressed against the back of my throat.
“Yeah, the body was burned. I discovered the wallet tossed in the bushes. It’s not uncommon for predators to take things from a corpse before disposing of it.” He rubbed the back of his neck while explaining, eyeing the people around me. “You sure you don’t want someone else to identify him, kid?”