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Rain seemed like he was more upset about the delivery guy than he had been about the actual flowers. I appreciated this because even though I had no intentions of ever putting myself out there for covens to court, it seemed like I enjoyed receiving gifts and loved the effort Finn had clearly made.
Finn was definitely going the extra mile for me, and he’d receive no complaints from this girl.
The bell over the door jingled, but I didn’t bother looking up from the sight my beautiful roses made. I was transfixed and afraid to look away, worried they might disappear on me.
“What in the holy blazes of hell arethose?”Romero demanded in an accusatory voice as he stormed into the shop with a finger pointed at my flowers.
I attempted to wrap my fingers around the vase, but it was too big to accomplish that feat. Still, I tightened my grip and pulled them closer to me. I didn’t like Romero’s tone or the way he was looking at them. They needed me to protect them and keep them safe and alive for as long as possible.
Romero was a threat to them.
The man had never been cruel to me, but he had a look to him that said he wanted to rip them right out of my hands so he could shred them to pieces.
Roses had thorns. It almost might be worth it to let him try just so I could watch him bleed for his thoughts alone.
“They are mine, Romero,” I hissed as I hugged the vase protectively. “Don’t even look at them.”
Romero stared at me like he thought I was the one with a screw loose before storming toward Rain. Rain wouldn’t even make him work for the answers I knew he wanted.
“That shithead Finn is really putting in work for our girl here,” Rain shouted across the shop, and I rolled my eyes.
I just knew I’d been right.
“We’re going to have to up our game before he runs off with her. I’m telling you, Rome, the kid is unpredictable as fuck, and we’ll both need to stay sharp with him coming around and sniffing after her.”
Did he really just call RomeroRome?
Just who in the actual fuck was this man and where had the real Rain Kimber run off to?
I turned in my seat in time to see Romero stumble over his own feet before coming to an abrupt stop in the middle of the room.
Yeah, he was clearly just as shocked by Rain’s change of heart as I was.
I still didn’t know exactly what it meant for me, but I was glad he included Romero in it as well. I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting the redhead, and I fancied he was either halfway in love with Rain or, like me, completely a goner.
“Unpredictable?” Romero questioned in a quiet, unsure voice.
Hmm…
Ignoring it wasn’t going to make what had changed go away. I had been trying that method since it happened, and look at how well that had been working out for me.
“Unpredictable,” Rain confirmed lazily. “He’s also a little crazy and has no problems doing shit the Council and the community would more than frown upon. Sometimes I like him, and other times I want him to stay far, far away from our family. He had a punk ass sort of boyfriend named Rebel that he didn’t treat very well. It was the one Quinton stole my baby girl’s cats from, the one who got slaughtered in the storage facility Quinton owns. He wasn’t a witch and was really fucking weird.” Rain shrugged his shoulders carelessly. “It was no real loss to anybody but Finn.”
My mouth popped open, and my heart threatened to plummet to the bottom of my stomach at hearing his callous words. I had no idea what he was talking about, I’d never heard anything about it before.
Had they all been purposely keeping me in the dark about the shit that went down around here?
“Happened while you were stashed away with Raven’s crew, precious. No need to look at me with that kind of payback in your eyes. No one told you because it’s done and over with, so what would be the fucking point. You know?”
I scowled at Rain. No, I didn’t fucking know. That was why we were having this conversation in the first stupid place.
Rain held up his hands in mock surrender, but it did absolutely nothing to change the look on my face.
The bell over the door jingled as first Trenton and then Simon stepped inside. It immediately felt like all the oxygen in the room got sucked up into the depths of their eerie, silver eyes.
I didn’t particularly care much for the two men. They were brothers, and they were Ariel’s personal bodyguards. They had some magical tie that bound them to her for life. They were trained in all the right ways they needed to be to protect her, and that training had started when they’d just been little boys.
They were like the unicorns of our community. Rare, and even more coveted than female witches themselves.
