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“He just needs some time to process,” I said firmly, elbow-deep in dishes.
Why we had decideddish dutywas the ideal way to contribute to the compound, I could not say, but we were nearly finished. After this, I would see what Sariel had been up to. Today was the first day he’d shown any interest in doing anything besides hovering over me, and I hated to admit that I missed his overbearing behavior.
“I guess.” Marilyn didn’t sound convinced as she dried the plate Reese passed her way.
The whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wasn’t even the one directly affected.
Sariel’s waves of conflicted emotions were trickling down the bond, even though he tried his best to contain them—the pangs of hurt were probably the worst. Of course, it didn’t help that Auren hadn’t made time to visit us the next day like he’d said he would, leaving the anticipation to build up and fester.
“Johnny said he’d suspected who he was but never confirmed it,” I added, and the witch made a face.
“That explains why he was acting so weird,” she said.
With that hashed out, the three of us quieted down and finished our chores as quickly as we could manage. It didn’t take long. After that, we said our goodbyes as they hurried off to their next adventure-of-the-day, and I went hunting for Sariel.
Auren was waiting outside the cafeteria, to my surprise. Nobody even batted an eye when he pushed off the wall and strode towards me, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but there was a looseness to the way he moved that had my wolf’s tail wagging.
“Sorry I never got back to you guys,” he started as I stopped in front of him. “I got caught up with work.”
One hand ran over his buzzed hair, then promptly rejoined the other, almost as if he was embarrassed. “Anyway, I was hoping we could all try again today if you’re not too busy.”
I didn’t think that telling him that we would make time to have this discussion would be productive, so I just nodded. “Yeah, we could do that.”
I perked up at the prospect. Maybe they could finally reconnect and smooth out Sariel's lousy mood; seeing him acting more like himself would be amazing. He hadn’t even spoken to Johnny in days, and the man really hadn’t done anything wrong. Every attempt at conversation was shut down so soundly even I was wincing at it.
After the man had revealed his suspicions about Auren, all Sariel heard was that he knew Auren was alive. Everything else might as well have been white noise. No explanation was good enough for him as to why Johnny hadn’t forewarned him, even though, in my opinion, it made perfect sense.
Why would he have pushed the Leader’s buttons when they were already in such a tenuous situation? What if Auren had tossed them all out for prying at his secrets? He didn’t seem like the type, but Johnny hadn’t known that for sure, and he’d been looking out for Marilyn and the others.
But Sariel wasn’t ready to hear any of that, so a line had been drawn in the sand between them.
“I think he’s working with the patrols,” Auren revealed, and I could feel a smile threatening to tilt my lips.
Either the man knew I would be a good buffer for Sariel’s outbursts, or he just wanted to keep me in the loop as well—and both of those were amusing ideas. My hard-headed mate might soften for me on occasion, but this whole situation had him riled in ways I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around.
It didn’t take us long to find him heading toward us like he was on a mission. Unfortunately, he froze when he caught sight of Auren beside me, and I felt the instant rejection down our bond so sharply it knocked the wind out of me.
He looked exhausted and burnt out. I knew before I even opened my mouth that he was not going to be interested in anything Auren had to say right now.
“Sariel—” I tried, hoping he’ll give his brother a chance to work through this with him, but he shook his head, eyes meeting mine like he couldn’t even bear to look at him.
“Not today.”
Auren didn’t protest when Sariel carried on up the path, briefly pausing to press a kiss to my head and then disappearing from our line of sight. A long gust of air left the younger Ambrose, and everything felt… awkward now.
“He won’t be upset forever,” I reassured him, getting a small chuckle out of him.
“Sariel holds grudges.” He shrugged, and I swore the leather creaked around his shoulders. “I deserve it; I knew he’d be pissed off when I brought your friends all here.”
“So you were always planning on telling him? That would go a long way for him to hear, you know.”
“When he can stand to be in the same room with me, I’ll be sure to tell him.”
We stood there in uncomfortable silence. I could feel his gaze on me behind his aviators; I was tempted to ask why he was always wearing them, but he seemed so much more intimidating now than before. Chalking it up to the fact that Sariel had had Auren on a pedestal since I met him, I decided one of us needed to figure out what was happening in the world.
“I never really figured out what the plan was, but I knew Tyler was supposed to kill Sariel instead of me,” he revealed suddenly, continuing down the path we’d been walking. I hurried to keep up, curious as to where he was going with this train of thought despite the urge to check in on my mate. “I guess in my mind, I was protecting him by not going back after I chickened out that first time. If I’d shown back up, would they have tried again?”
On our stroll, we passed some of the more dilapidated houses, yet Auren seemed content to keep going. My wolf was anxious at the thought of being so far from everyone else, but Sariel’s willingness to leave us alone with him despite being estranged kept her from a complete meltdown about it.
