A hiss escapes me. I bite it back, but Aaron’s head turns. He looks at me over his shoulder, grins like he’s caught me at something endearing, then looks back at his father.
“I have to go,” Aaron says. “I need to take care of my woman.”
“Hopefully I’ll see you again,” Eric says, and there’s a hunger in his voice that Aaron seems deaf to.
Aaron sighs, and I can hear the conflict in it, the yearning.
“Maybe.”
He raises his palm and the mirror breaks apart into blue-gold dust that scatters on a wind I can’t feel. The clearing is just a clearing again.
“How long?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine. “How long have you been speaking with him from the Glen.”
“About two years,” he answers.
“How many know about this?”
“Only Torin and my sisters.”
“Yourmotherdoesn’t know?” The question tears from me, incredulous and pained.
Aaron’s hand comes up to my wrist where my claws are pressing into him. He doesn’t peel me off. He just rests his fingers there. The gesture both soothes and infuriates me.
“No, Mara. She’d find a way to ban him from reaching me if she did.”
I make myself unclench my hands, forcing my claws to retract. I have to be careful. My lion paces within me, agitated but focused.
If I push him to tell her, he won’t. He’ll shut me out. He’s let me in this far because he trusts me, and one wrong word from me will close the door.
I have to be a lioness about this.
I let my hands soften on his arms, consciously relaxing my grip. I feel my claws pull back fully, though my heart still pounds with adrenaline.
Aaron grips my waist and pulls me into him. His hand strokes my back, slow. It drifts down to steal a touch of my ass. My lion is furious, and she still flicks her tail across his cheek.
“I think you should tell your mother,” I tell him, keeping my voice gentle, non-confrontational.
“No, baby. I can handle it.” He kisses my lips, gently.
I let him kiss me, though my mind races with calculations, strategies. I keep my voice level, careful.
“He wants to rebuild a relationship with you? Or something else? Has he reached out to your sisters?”
Aaron chuckles into my mouth and kisses me again. He’s not taking me seriously.
“To answer your first question, I don’t know what he wants. But I can tell you he’s been consistently helpful.” He pulls back and looks at me, warm with an affection I can’t return right now. “The answer to your second is no. He hasn’t gone to my sisters.”
I hiss again. This one I let through, unable to contain it, the sound carrying all my fear and suspicion.
“You don’t like him,” he murmurs, his expression amused.
“No. I don’t like him.” The words come out with a fierceness that surprises even me.
The quickness of it makes him laugh.
My lion settles into something focused. Something like the moment before a hunt, when she has chosen what she is watching and goes very still.
I can’t tell him. He won’t listen. Not now, when he’s desperate for any connection that feels like family.
