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“Brick.” Liz stops me in the hallway before I get there. She wears a tight expression, and she’s wringing her hands. I narrow my eyes to discern what the problem could be. She doesn’t ordinarily bother me with anything related to the running of the property. “Your mother is here. I’m sorry. She came with your sister.”
From the look of hatred on Liz’s face, it’s clear she’s in the anti-mom camp with me. She and I were the ones who found my father after my mother’s visit. When he’d been poisoned by silver.
Anger rushes through my body like venom, tainting my vision, stiffening the muscles I thought I’d finally worn down.
“Fuck!”
I stalk into the living room, which is decorated like a hunting lodge, with large overstuffed furniture and a stone hearth on each side.
My mother is on the couch talking with Ruby and Eagle. She shoots to stand the moment she sees me. She, too, wrings her hands, and there’s so much emotion in her eyes it nearly knocks me down. Guilt. Hope. Adoration.
That’s the part that twists in my gut and turns me inside out.
I want to hate her. Idohate her.
But she’s still my mother. The woman I never could have enough of growing up. The one who was kept from me. Only allowed to visit once a week. The one who loved me so deeply, she cried every time she had to leave.
I’m suddenly as gutted as I was as a child every time I had to see her go. She’s mymother.
That’s the only reason she’s still alive.
Otherwise, I would’ve avenged my father’s death long ago.
“Brick.” There’s so much hope and angst woven together in her voice. Enough to cut with a knife.
“Get out.”
Ruby surges to her feet. “No. She’s staying. I invited her.”
I grind my teeth, trying to keep the rage from turning me back to wolf form. I’m sure my eyes are flashing amber.
I tip my head toward the doorway and rephrase my command, “Get out of my sight.”
“Brick, I just want–”
“Now.” I put enough alpha command in my voice to make both Ruby’s and my mother’s knees go soft.
Eagle also stands now and puts a steadying hand on his wife’s elbow, but he wisely keeps his gaze averted from mine.
Both my mother and Ruby start toward the door.
“Not you,” I bite at Ruby.
She freezes. She’s fuming, but her wolf biology makes it impossible to refuse my commands.
I wait until my mother is gone before I start in. “What do you think you’re doing inviting her here? You can’t bring that woman into my home.”
“It’s my home, too, and my children have a right to know their grandmother. It’s a holiday, and holidays are family. She’sourfamily, Brick.”
“Their grandmother is a murderer.”
Ruby sucks in a shocked breath.
“Do you think those kids are safe from her? Do you think any of us are?”
She draws herself up. “Yes Brick. I know we are. She's ourmother.She loves us.”
“How can you know that?”
