“No. It’s perfect.” I smiled. “All of it. I don’t… I don’t even know what to say.”
“De nada.We just want you to be comfortable here.” Emilio squeezed my shoulder, and the room fell silent. No one bothered to fill in the rest of that sentence, but I sensed we were all thinking it.
Because we don’t know if you’ll ever be able to go back home.
I thought of the cute little house I’d shared with Sophie, and a sliver of regret touched my heart. But despite how much I’d loved that place, deep down I knew home wasn’t a place at all. Places were easier to come by; I’d had lots of them during my time on the streets, often with strings attached.
But I’d also been blessed with homes. First with Calla. Then with Ronan. Then Sophie.
Now, I was making a new home all over again. Temporary or not, that’s what this place was to me.
“Thank you,” I said, stretching up to press a kiss to Emilio’s cheek. “For everything.”
He stroked his hand down my back, and when I finally pulled away and met his eyes, he quickly dodged my gaze.
The wolf shifter was actually blushing.
“Alright,” Asher said, clapping once. “I hope you guys are hungry, because I’m pretty sure I outdid myself here.”
“Wow,” I said, scoping out the spread he’d set up on the counter. “I didn’t know this was going to be such a formal affair. You actually put on a shirt?”
“Had to.” Asher flashed me his bad-boy smirk, reminding me that no matter how long we played this little game, he’d always come out ahead in the end. “You were drooling so bad, the bacon was getting jealous. Now let’s eat.”
Ten
GRAY
We served up heaping piles of food, buffet style, then took our places at the dining table—a massive oak slab with polished benches on either side, centered before a row of huge bay windows that overlooked the backyard.
The eggs were cooked perfectly, the bacon nice and crisp, the fruit salad sweet and fresh. But despite our happy family meal and the beautiful home we were now officially sharing, tension had crept in and settled over us like a cloud.
Every one of us at this table—as well as the vampire still sleeping downstairs—seemed to be holding a different piece of the puzzle. I was sure they thought they were protecting me, shielding me from some new danger or painful knowledge. But the only way we were going to solve this thing—to help the witches and erase the hunter from existence—was to work together.
No longer willing to sit silently and wait for someone else to take the lead, I said, “We need to talk about what you guys found at Norah’s place, and about what happens next. I’m supposed to start training with Liam today, but that could take weeks—and that’s just the magic stuff.”
The guys exchanged glances, but I didn’t give them a chance to contemplate.
“What are the chances the hunter will stay quiet much longer?” I asked. “We need to move on this, and we need to have a solid plan. That means no secrets, no matter how ugly the truth might get.”
“Gray’s right,” Emilio said, pushing his plate away and leaning back in his chair.
“For starters,” Ronan said, “just because he’s quiet doesn’t mean he’s easing up. We have to assume he’ll try to take another witch, probably sooner rather than later.”
“Any witch in the Bay is a target,” I agreed. “Neighboring towns, too. If my hunch is correct, he’s keeping them on the coast, and probably commuting back and forth as needed.”
I filled in the guys about what I’d seen in the flames, and though it probably didn’t qualify as irrefutable evidence in the eyes of Blackmoon Bay’s finest, they all agreed it was worth investigating.
“If what you saw was real,” Emilio said, “and we’ve got no reason to doubt that, any witches west of the Bay need to be on high alert.”
“Agreed,” Ronan said. “But that doesn’t mean other communities won’t be hit, too. Gray’s vision suggests he’s keeping them near the ocean, but even if we narrow that down just to Washington state, we’re still talking about hundreds of miles of coastline.”
“It’s a start,” Emilio said. “We just need to move through this methodically, ruling things out and slowly narrowing our search.”
“Slowly isn’t an option,” I said. “Witches’ lives are at stake.”
I took a long pull from my coffee, trying not to let the impossible odds bring me down. Despite the obstacles, there was still hope—the witches I’d seen were definitely prisoners, hurt and scared, but alive. And as long as they were alive, there was still a chance we could help them.
Haley. Reva. The others. God, there’d been so many.
