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And our enemy had more power than ever.
Harvey rummaged through the shopping bag, his hip pressed to mine, the physical contact the only thing grounding him. He came up with a carrot that had a bulbous root that looked suspiciously like a dick and balls.
I smirked. "Must be an organic carrot."
"An organdick carrot," he joked, earning a groan from the entire room.
"That's fucking awful," Kai muttered, slouched against the fridge across the room, his eyes branded on me and refusing to budge.
"I'd like to hear you do much better," Harvey quipped, throwing the carrot at him. Kai ducked; it smacked into the fridge.
Wynvail snapped his hand out and caught it before it met the floor, turning to give both of them a foreboding look. "If you fuck up any of my food, I'll poison the both of you."
"As if," Verena scoffed, standing in the doorway watching the tableau with her arms crossed over her chest and a vacant look in her eyes. She was paying attention though; she was listening. I really hoped that was a good sign. I didn't know how to take care of an obviously traumatised teenager when I was equally traumatised. "If you poison them, Haley will be pissed, and you'd never risk that."
Wynvail turned to her, an eyebrow raised. "Interesting assessment."
"Accurate assessment," she threw back, but there was something too forced about the attitude in her voice.
Wynvail scoffed, washing and cutting up the carrot. "I can make decisions without taking my mate into account for every one."
"Can you?" Emlyn drawled, making a smile tug at my mouth. "Give me that," he huffed at Harvey when he pulled a knobbly potato from the bag and snorted. In his defence, it did look like an ass, complete with a crack and two butt cheeks.
Em cuffed Harvey across the head and passed Wynvail the potato, and it was such a normal action that another knot unwound from my chest. But—where was Wane?
I searched for him in the mess of my soul and found his location—close, maybe a few rooms away—but not a hint of emotion. Wane had been open and raw for days, his walls shattered by a hundred years of Cronus's torture. The fact that he'd now walled himself off from me was a bad sign.
"Back in a minute," I told everyone in the kitchen and tugged one of Verena's red pigtails when I squeezed past her out the door.
"Why does everyone keep doing that?" she spat, throwing a scowl at me.
"Because you're cute."
I glanced up when Kai and Harvey moved to follow me, and whatever anxiety had loosened in my chest tightened all over again. "I won't be long," I promised them. "I'm just going to find Wane."
Harvey's bronze throat bobbed, his nostrils flaring as he fought his panic, but he nodded.
Kai just stared at me and stopped halfway across the kitchen, tension in every line of his body. His eyes glowed, dark, dark red—far deeper than usual.
"Kai," I breathed, sending him a gentle brush through the bond. "Please."
"One minute," he said, his voice low and foreboding.
"Ten," I countered, brushing against that iron wall Wane had thrown up around his emotions.
"One," Kai growled, never looking away from me.
I flicked my tongue over my dry bottom lip, every part of my chest filling with pain—mine, theirs, then my own sympathy for their grief. It was a bloody mess of thorns and barbs and every time I moved, I opened more wounds.
"Five," Emlyn input, worried blue eyes flicking between us. "Come help me with this spaghetti, Kai. Harvey, get the berries out of the bag since you're so interested in its contents. You can make the compote for the pancakes."
I shot Em a grateful glance, letting my love bleed through my eyes. He returned it with his softest, most affectional look, and I had to clench my jaw to stop my bottom lip wobbling. I'd been a second away from bursting into tears since I woke up three hours ago, and the emotion showed no signs of fading.
