“It’s nothing.”
She cried into his chest. Into the arms of a shifter.
“You—a shifter—might have killed my father,” Avery whispered, almost as if to make it real, but even saying it out loud, she didn’t quite believe it.
“As your kind killed mine.” He said it so low that she thought she had misheard him. She froze, her breath catching until his hand stroked her back, a steady presence just as her father had been when she was small.
“I understand,” he said softly.
And for the first time, she believed that someone really did understand her. The words gutted her, flayed open her defenses as her composure completely splintered. Lost, she buried her face in his chest, her body shaking with the force. He only held her tighter. She had spent years building barricades, but she was so fucking tired.
For the first time in years, she didn’t feel so alone.
Twenty-Three
Felix
Felix watchedas Avery had spent the last couple of days hibernating from the world, waiting for the grief in her chest to settle from a roaring river to a lake. He knew it well.
Unfortunately for him, though, she threw herself into swimming and dragged Felix along with her. He hadnottaken kindly to being splashed with water; in fact, he had never quite been so murderous. During the quiet nights, they sat by the fireplace as they tried to decipher the riddle on the key. And when she had been sleeping, he had snuck out to scour the grounds for any sign of missing shifters, for which so far, there had been a grand total of fuck all. This irritated him to no end because he was a hunter, yet he couldn’t catch a scent of a damn thing.
Even worse, when he came back from hunting, he always fell asleep on the bed as a cat, but in the mornings, he would wake up wrapped around Avery, tail and all. His body had betrayed him. Secretly, he had started to look forward to it. He should stop. Pull back. Sleep on the fucking couch. He never did.
Tonight, though, was another more serious matter. Avery was going on adate. She had canceled on Callum for the lastfew nights, and tonight, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he bribed her with chocolate ice cream. The bastard knew her weakness.
Felix pretended to watch hockey, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the reflection of Avery as she shimmied into a tight black dress.Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. He groaned inwardly. It was a slip of a thing, and the neckline showed off her perfect tits. Tonight was going to be a struggle not to remove Callum’s eyes from his goddamn head.
Finally, Felix turned his head; he needed her in full line of sight. “That’s what you’re wearing on your date?”
A blush crept along her features. “Yes…What’s wrong with it?”
“You’re wasting it on a witch,” he said, doing nothing to hide his grumpy tone.
“I am a witch, Felix.”
Before she could register what was happening, he was up and across the room, towering above her. Even in her heels, she had to tilt her head up to look at him. She tried to look mad, but it only made her look more adorable.
His eyes raked her body, dragging slowly up and down, taking in every beautiful inch of her. Every part of him screamed to lock the doors and occupy her in other ways. And with the way Avery’s scent changed, he was so fucking close. The bond thrummed between them, feeding off each other’s arousal until it was painful.
“Cancel your date. We have better things to do,” Felix said, gritting his teeth.
“Like what?”
“Like solving the riddle.”
“Let’s give it a rest for one night.” She went to check her phone.
“So you can give fuckface a chance?” he bit out.
“Creative.”
“I try.” A hint of something flashed across his face before he could stop it.
“Oh my goddess,” Avery said, scoffing. “You’re jealous.”
Fuck. He said nothing. He only crossed his arms over his chest, then seamlessly shifted into a cat.
Avery rolled her eyes, muttering to herself, “Men will do anything but talk about their feelings.”
