I nodded, the adrenaline spike slowly fading. “What happened?”
“We—” Ronan began, but his attention suddenly shifted to the super-hyper wolf circling us, wagging his tail and yelping like a puppy.
“What? Look atyou!” Ronan let out a full-on laugh, dropping to his knees to grab Emilio’s huge wolf head. He scratched him behind the ears and brought his face close, inhaling Emilio’s scent, his eyes full of emotion. The whole thing was so adorable and touching, it basically turned my insides into a puddle of goo.
“Who’s back in action, huh?” Ronan wrestled Emilio to the ground, teasing him like he reallywasa puppy. “Who’s the biggest, baddest wolf that ever was? Who’s a good boy?”
The two of them went at it, rolling around in the snow until Emilio finally pinned Ronan by the shoulders. He licked his face from chin to forehead, and then, shocking us all, shifted back into his human form.
Asher and a crowd of witches had gathered on the lawn now, and all of us busted up laughing at the sight of a very hot, very naked man straddling a very stunned demon.
“Dude, are you fuckingkiddingme?” Ronan shoved Emilio off and got back to his feet, dusting himself off. “I didn’t miss youthatmuch! For fuck’s sake, put some clothes on.”
“No!” McKenna shouted. “Don’t cover up on our account, hot stuff.”
“Seconded,” Kasey, another witch from the prison, called out. Elena had bought everyone new phones, and she had hers out now, probably filming a livestream of the whole thing. Not that I blamed her.
“EvenIgot a little buzz from that display,” Asher said, kicking snow at Ronan.
Emilio smacked Ronan on the shoulder. “You love it and you know it, hellspawn.”
“I feel totally violated,” Ronan said, but he was grinning like an idiot. Rubbing the snow from his hair, he said, “Shit, it’s good to see you walking, brother.”
“Good tobewalking.”
“All sorted?” Darius asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, “Excellent. Perhaps you might consider dressing, preferably before that summer sausage of yours turns into a cocktail wiener? Itisten below out here, you daft bastard.”
Emilio wasted no time in hauling Darius in for a hug. Unlike Ronan, Darius took the “violation” in stride.
“You look much better than the last time I saw you,” Darius said, his voice heavy with relief. He might not remember everything about Emilio, but he’d come to care for him all over again. That much was obvious.
“Unlike you guys.” Emilio wrinkled his nose. “Whatisthat stench? I thought I smelled shifters. Elena and I bolted out here, thinking you’d been attacked.”
“We were waylaid by a pack of hybrid shifters,” Darius said. “Mountain lions. The whole thing was a mind-fuck cleverly disguised as an ambush.”
“Orendiel?” I asked, snapping my fingers for my hounds to come back. Though the wolves had decided we weren’t under immediate attack, my hounds were already patrolling the street in front of the house. I couldn’t blame them—they’d been cooped up most of the day on account of the snow. Seemed it was lightening up a bit now, though.
“Yes,” Jael said, coming out from behind the van with an armload of grocery bags. “Along with his associates on the fae council. They left us a message.”
“I don’t care what it takes,” Lansky was barking into his cell phone, pacing in the snow alongside the van. “Get a team up there. I need barricades between the seven-mile marker and the twelve. That whole section is officially closed until they can clear out the vehicles and the body. No, no ID. Let the M.E. figure it out.”
“Body?” I asked.
“Girl, you have no idea.” Haley handed me a package of toilet paper about the size of a small condo, then returned to the van to retrieve some kind of crate. With a bright, trademark-Haley smile, she said, “The good news? The alcohol survived the crash. I repeat, the alcohol survived the crash.”
Twenty-Two
RONAN
In celebration of our wolf pup’s triumphant return from the land of the near-dead, Elena had outdone herself in the culinary department, setting up a massive buffet in the dining room featuring all of Emilio’s favorites from the homeland. It was so good to be home, to be surrounded by everyone I cared about… All the Orendiel bullshit began to fade into the background.
Liam was still in the Shadowrealm, and part of me actually missed the guy, despite my feelings about what he’d done to get Gray’s soul back from hell. The longer I’d sat with it, the faster my rage had started morphing into something pretty damn unfamiliar to me.
Gratitude.
We’d all done things to keep her safe. To keep eachothersafe. I couldn’t fault him for that. Not when I caught her blue-eyed gaze across the table, the soft smile on her lips just for me. The woman still loved me, even after everything.
I gave her a wink, then reached for my glass. We may have been temporarily without everybody’s favorite surfing philosopher, but we still had a lot to celebrate tonight. It was the first time the rest of us had all been together in a long-ass time, and that alone deserved a toast.
