Page 108 of Blood and Trouble

It crushed my soul to think about what her final moments were like. Maybe she had hunted down some monster in the night and fought until her very last breath to ensure Marx couldn’t use her how he wanted. It was a heartbreaking thought. As far as I knew, the Vanderbilts and the Scorpions had an alliance at that time. Our father hated the Bastards as much as Marx did…enemy of my enemy and all that.

“Why didn’t you ever tell us this?” Sol asked, her voice hushed and small.

“Like mother said,” Guin continued, flicking her gaze to our sister. “I had to be strong. It was my albatross, my burden to carry. She knew our father was emotionally stunted on a good day. After her death, he’d be…well, he turned out the way she expected.”

Distant. Demanding. Stern and ruthless to a fault. I didn’t have many good memories of him. After Mother died, he poured all of his energy into his work, shipping us off to whatever boarding school or summer sleep-away he deemed appropriate. He saw us as an obligation, an extension of himself.

“You shouldn’t have had to do that,” I said.

Guin reeled in whatever modicum of emotion had seeped through her hardened interior and straightened. “It’s over now. Nothing to be done about it. We need to talk about the Fitz Global meeting tomorrow.”

And just like that, this displeasing show of Vanderbilt dishevelment had been carefully brushed under the family rug.

Back to business.

After we walked through the particulars of the meeting with Scott, my sisters said good night and went to their rooms, leaving me to shower and do my nighttime routine alone. I heard my husband and my mate enter, flirt with each other, and collapse on the bed in a heap of giggles and soft innuendos. I opened the bathroom door and leaned against the jamb, relishing their combined scent—leather and pine and amber.

Poe was stretched out under Lycan, his legs on either side of my husband’s hips, his arms bound overhead.

“Only if you’re good,” Lycan whispered, pressing his lips to Poe’s neck, right over his mark.

Something wanton and hot boiled in my stomach. Jealousy, perhaps, that Lycan had bitten Poe but not me. Or desire, for want of watching them tear each other to pieces before they did the same to me. Memories of last night flooded my mind—the sound of Lycan’s dominant tone, the taste of Poe’s sweat-slicked skin, the scent of sex intoxicating the three of us.

They both turned to face me, two sets of eyes glowing in the moonlight.

“Uh-oh,” Lycan murmured. “I think our Trouble is having naughty thoughts.”

“Hmm,” Poe replied. “What to do about that?”

I laughed as Lycan pushed himself off the bed and stalked toward me, scooping me in his arms before gently flopping me into the bed next to my mate.

We kissed and touched and teased, and Lycan took his time with both of us, bringing us nearly to our breaking points before scaling back and starting all over again. He hushed us when we got too loud and gloated when he found that one spot that drew us wild. And when it was over, when we were knotted together and sweating adoration, he wrapped an arm around both of us and kissed us off to sleep.

I wanted to live in that moment forever, to stay stuck in the fantasy that the three of us could be so happy for the rest of our lives. But it was always when I had my guard down that life found a way to knock me sideways.

I’d been telling myself that these nightmares were my mind playing tricks on me, that it was stress or some demented way of coping. Easy enough to deny their importance. But bad things always came in threes.

In this one, I prowled the forest in my shifter form, tiny white paws plodding through the snow on territory I’d memorized years ago. I hunted rabbits, and I dug burrows, and I raced away from the predators too big for me to fight. Most days were the same mindless drab of eat and sleep and survive.

But on this night, I sensed something I hadn’t felt in a long time, a presence that ricocheted through my blood like a homing beacon. It rattled awake a part of me I’d long thought dead.

Sol, the voice whispered. Sol. Sol. Sol.

I ran toward it, jumping over fallen logs and nearly slipping on an icy patch I didn’t see. The presence drew closer, and with it came an overwhelming sadness. Sol was upset. She was angry. And…she was drunk.

I had to get to her. I had to see her. I couldn’t…

The blinding beams of headlights disoriented me and sent a shudder of fear straight through my body, and just when I was sure it was going to hit me, it swerved to the right, skidding into a tree. The booming sound of crunching metal nearly had me sprinting into the forest to find a place to hide, but that presence…that echo in my veins…it called to me.

I jumped onto the hood of the wrecked SUV and watched Sol blink awake. Blood trickled down her forehead. The cabin reeked of whiskey and shame.

“What the fuck?” Sol groaned, narrowing her eyes at me.

I thumped my tail on the hood, delight swimming in my gut to see her. It had been such a long time. Too long. The urge to chastise her for being so reckless roared up my throat, but I squashed that down. That wasn’t me. Not anymore.

Be strong, I tried to tell her. You are strong. You are special.

“I don’t think I can be,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how.”