“My baby.” She pulls back and cups his face in both hands, turning it side to side, reading him.
“I’m fine, Ma,” Aaron says.
She slaps her palm flat against his chest. He winces, and she scowls. “I should beat your ass.”
Then her gaze slides to me, and I drop my head.
Angie groans and shakes her head. “What am I going to do with you two?”
I lift my eyes to her, my tail swaying, unsure. And then she does the last thing I expect. She crosses to me in her apron and pulls me into her arms. “Come here, silly girl.”
I gasp. But I don’t push her away. My lips start to tremble, and the tears come up fast and hot.
“I know I’ve got a shitty way of showing it.” Her hand strokes slow circles over my back. “But I worried about you too. I’m so happy you’re safe. Home with us.”
I suck in a sharp breath and look over her shoulder at Aaron. He’s just watching the two of us, the smile on his face soft. He gives me a nod, and I let my head come down to rest on his mother’s shoulder.
A portal splits the air across the room, and Tiana, Kiara, and Samara step through in their cloaks. Tiana takes in Angie wrapped around me, and a grin breaks across her face. “Good. Now I don’t have to hate you anymore.”
Seth breaks the moment from behind the counter, lifting the board of fresh-cut fruit over his head. “Y’all want some or what?”
Something heavy thuds onto the porch, and I jump. My nose catches the scent. My lion settles before the door even opens. Jacob steps inside and shuts it behind him. His blue eyes find me and Aaron, and they brighten.
I don’t know what gets into me. I pull out of Angie’s arms, cross the room, and go straight into Jacob’s. He laughs, low and warm, and folds me against his chest.
“Welcome home, lioness.” He looks up over my head at Aaron, and Aaron just looks back. The scent rolling off Jacob is relief, and something happier underneath it, that I’ve been folded into this family for good.
And so am I.
“Alright.” Tiana claps her hands once and cracks the whole moment open. “Let’s eat, and figure out what we’re doing about Eric and Henry.” Her eyes cut to her brother. “I have a plan.”
Aaron’s head turns to his sister. He lets out a long breath. And under everything else in this room, I can feel it in him, my mate is relieved he doesn’t have to do this alone.
30
Aaron
Mara hovers over Seth’s fruit board, picking through it piece by piece until her little bowl holds nothing but watermelon.
I watch her from the sofa and keep my mouth shut. Her lion burned through a lot today, and watermelon is rich with natural water, so my mate is putting back everything she spent one sweet cube at a time. She’d swear up and down she just likes the taste. I keep my smile to myself and let her have it. She’s the best thing I’ve seen since we left Detroit.
She comes back around the coffee table, bowl cradled against her, and turns to sit down beside me.
Her ass doesn’t belong on the sofa.It belongs on me.
I catch her by the waist and pull her down into my lap. She frowns back at me over her shoulder, a piece of watermelon halfway to her mouth.
I don’t give a shit. I settle her against me, and she huffs, gives up, and goes back to her bowl. Two bites in, I’ve stopped existing.
Across the room, Tiana starts pacing.
I grin. I know that walk. Her mind is going a mile a minute, and all the rest of us can do is wait for whatever comes out the other side.
“Henry is a problem,” she says.
My mother rolls her eyes. “Ya think?”
Jacob wraps an arm around her waist and draws her back against him, and the stiffness runs out of my mother’s shoulders, her crossed arms coming loose, all that temper settling under her mate’s hands. I pull Mara tighter against me.
