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“Not just because of that,” I tell him.
“I know.” He kisses my forehead. His towel is slung delightfully low on his hips. I glance at Sam and catch him studying the outline of Mack’s butt from his seat at the kitchen table. Sitting down next to him, I cross one leg over the other and whisper, “I heard about your woodland encounter with the professor.”
Sam’s eyes widen, and his cheeks flush.
“When do I get the action replay?” I ask, wriggling my eyebrows at him.
“What replay?” Luther asks butting in.
“Never you mind.” I gesture to the kettle, and he rolls his eyes but obliges by taking it off the heat and setting out six mugs. When he puts my coffee down in front of me, he kneels and runs his hands up the inside of my legs, stopping just under the hem of my towel. “So, you don’t want to sleep. What do you want to do while we wait for sunset?”
Leaning forward, giving Luther a view of my cleavage that makes him moisten his lips, I put my hands on his shoulders and whisper, “You know what I’d really like to do?”
A low grumble comes from Luther’s throat.
“I’d like to eat some of Kole’s pancakes, drink my coffee, then snuggle down and watch a movie with my boyfriends.”
Luther smiles ruefully at me. He sighs a little, but then stands and kisses my forehead. “If that’s what you want, Little Star. That’s what we’ll do.”
I hop up from my seat and kiss him firmly on the lips. “Although,” I say slowly. “I could be persuaded to come up with something else to pass the time. If you can catch me…”
Luther frowns. Before he fully understands what I’m saying, I race across the room, letting my towel drop. Kole catches me, flinging his arms around my naked waist, but I kick my legs, squeal, and send a heat to my limbs that makes him yell. He lets go, and I wrestle free.
“That’s cheating,” he growls.
“Then you’ll have to punish me, won’t you?” I back into the corner, Luther and Kole advancing toward me, shoulders squared, biceps twitching.
I catch Sam watching us and meet his eyes. Slowly, he rises from his chair. Mack pats his shoulder. “I’ll make the pancakes,” he says. “You go get your girl.”
As Sam joins Luther and Kole, penning me in with looks on their faces that make my heart race, Tanner emerges from the bathroom. He clocks what’s happening, mutters, “Sweet,” and rubs his hands together.
Four of them and one of me? That’s a ratio I can get on board with.
43
NICO
Every minute feels like an hour. I watch the light through the stable door but, with its scarlet hue, it’s almost impossible to tell the passing of time. Instead of thinking, I count. The seconds, the minutes, the hours.
When it reaches what I’m sure is close to mid-day, I crawl free from the Hellhounds’ nest. Outside, The Split is dark. Just a large, cavernous hole that divides the lawn in two then snakes into the woods and through the center of Phoenix Falls.
As a hound, my vision is strange. Like I’m looking at everything through a curved fishbowl. As a wolf, it was never like this. Things splinter and shudder. Sounds are louder. Smells are violent assaults on my nostrils.
I head for the steps and locate Eve’s scent. She reeks of death. Like she’s rotting from the inside out. Possibly, after all the F.H.B. she’s consumed, she is.
In the house, everything is silent. The place is filthy. Excrement and blood and filth fill the rooms.
Like an apocalypse has ripped through the entire place, weeds and vines creep up from the floor to break huge cracks in the walls and windows. Splinters of glass crunch beneath my feet.
The times I spent here with Nova and the others feel like they took place in a different lifetime. To a different person.
I pass Mack’s study. It is empty, but Eve was here at some point because I can smell her in it. I smell Ragnor too. His scent grows stronger as I approach the living room; the one with the huge fireplace and the comfortable sofa. I smell something else, too. Sam’s mother, Elena; a strange mixture of flowers and death.
In the entrance hall, I stop, staring at the door behind which Ragnor and Sam’s mother must be sleeping. A fourth scent twitches in the breeze. It is faint, disguised by something acrid and nauseating.
Mother?
I spin around, searching for her. She’s here. I smell her. She’s here somewhere. In the house. My heart pummels my ribcage. I want to shift and call her name. Why is she still here? After everything Ragnor did to her and to me? Why would she come back to him?
