Page 37 of Mage Massacres

The wolf’s chuckle followed me. “He’s right. The other guys won’t step in until she asks.”

“She shouldn’t have to ask for help,” Murph muttered.

“Yeah. Okay,” Briggs agreed. “You tell Barbie that you’re going to do all the fighting and killing for her. See how she takes your chivalry.”

The idea of the dark mage telling our mate to sit down and be a good girl made me cackle, but I stopped as soon as I spied Miller drinking from a dusty vodka bottle. Palmer’s panicked voice echoed through my memories as he shouted, Run away.

I sighed as I propped myself against the counter beside her. I’d never seen her act so irresponsible, and it bothered me.

“How much was in there before you started drinking?”

“Does it matter?” she snapped.

“No. I was just curious if I should look for a second bottle or if that one was going to be enough to mellow you out.”

She set the liquor down to rub at her face, her mannerisms reminding me of Palmer.

“I have two mates,” she whispered, and I immediately knew I wasn’t equipped to handle this conversation.

“One of them comes and goes. The other rejected me. Both say it’s for my safety. Neither realize how much danger I’ve been in, even when I try to talk to them about it.”

Miller’s eyes flared as she picked the bottle back up.

“I’m nervous about taking Sloane with me to... my meeting,” she evasively admitted. “If she can do what she says she can, then the problems I’ve been having will be cut in half. But what if she can’t help me fix my problems? It’s not her place to solve them, anyway.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if I don’t have that weight on my shoulders anymore. I can’t dismiss the thought of everything going badly, though. She sounded confident, like she could handle my issues, but what if she gets hurt? That would be my fault for dragging her into my mess.”

I held my hand up. “Let me stop you right there, Mills. Did you seek her out, tell her all the drama in your life, and beg her to step in?”

She gave me a bland look.

“That’s what I thought. There was a reason Sloane decided to step in.”

“She overheard me while I was on the phone. Someone threatened us.”

“Palmer?”

“Yes.”

I nodded, figuring as much, but knew there was more to it.

“He was the ending she needed to step in since you wouldn’t ask. She would have involved herself, anyway. It’s what she does for the people she cares about.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“No, not yet,” I agreed. “But she cares about Palmer, and she knows that he cares about you. He told her about Aoiden. My guess is—if you, Murphy, and Palmer allow it—she’ll kill him too.”

She stared at me in shock before questioning, “Palmer? My older brother? Darker hair than me, lighter eyes. That Palmer?”

“One in the same.”

“He told her about our dad?”

“I was surprised too, but, yeah.”

Millie sank, her back sliding against the cabinets as she stretched her legs out. “She’d kill him?”

“Any of us would,” I acknowledged, taking a seat beside her. “Palmer had debts to pay first, but now that Sloane knows about Raguel... It’s not too far-fetched to say that she’ll hunt down all the people who were involved. I mean, the ones that you three haven’t already found.”