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After the coffee maker is going, I turn the fan on. It’s a scorcher today. I look around and the floor didn’t stain from all the blood. The guys cleaned it up, not letting me lift a finger, just telling me to stay by Riley’s side while Cat bandaged him up.
And he’s okay. He looks totally healthy today. I’m so grateful. Grateful but not hopeful.
Because I can’t let my heart go where it’s trying to go after our conversation. Yes, he wants someone to pay for what was done to him. To … us. Which throws me because I’ve never looked at things from that perspective. I’ve always looked at it like I’m the one that did it and I’m the one that needs to pay for it, hating the fact that Riley got punished, too.
I give myself a shake. Though he’s placing blame on them right now, that doesn’t mean he’s going to forgive me. It doesn’t mean things are going to be okay with us, that I’m off the hook and that we can build a relationship from here. How could we? A relationship on top of the charred remains of our hearts because of what I put him through? I can’t let myself hope for anything.
Two more days and then he’ll have fulfilled the one-week agreement and we’ll go our separate ways. Right now he’s mad at them, but he’s still likely got all sorts of rage simmering beneath the surface for me.
He’s been through trauma after trauma. I’m the reason he and his wolf split and his wolf locked him out after he was forced to spend all that time attached to me. I’m the reason he spent seven years in mourning. He got hit with drug darts, shot, stabbed, and almost blinded by a gas bomb. Beaten while he was unconscious, too. Of course he’s pissed off.
Maybe he’ll go on to fight with the ones who sentenced us, but hopefully he keeps his head clear and doesn’t do anything reckless. I know from personal experience how harsh they can be.
I look at my phone and see a text from my sisters’ group chat.
Vivi: Checking in, Erica.
I tap the flower twice. And then decide to add a third. And it’s not exactly true, but another single flower reply could mean involvement from them. It’s also not entirely a lie. I’m counting my blessings, so I’m a little better than I was. Because he’s healed physically. So have Mason and Lincoln. He’s speaking to me. And not that it should count, but I’ve had several orgasms in the past twelve hours not counting the many other ones over the past five days.
More than that, I got to feel what it feels like to lay underneath him, feeling his warmth, listening to him purr and feeling like he needed something I was able to give him. My presence. The soft looks, too. The soft voice and the soft looks and…
I shake it off again, my face hot as I root through the fridge and pull out a package of bacon and the half-full carton of eggs and shakily set about finding the rest of the implements needed to cook some food.
My phone rings. Vivica.
Shit.
“Hello?”
“You’re lying about the third flower, aren’t you?”
“Sometimes it’s not good to have such perceptive relatives,” I mutter.
34
Riley
I’m about to step into the cabin, but I hear her talking on the phone. I also hear the person talking to her. My hearing is back at what it was. Maybe even sharper.
Though I’m raging with anger, still, and I’ve just been on the phone with Mase and Joel getting updated about all that’s going on, I’ve now got a new focus. My mate. My mate who saved my life yesterday. And Mason’s and Linc’s. My mate who killed two assholes. My beautiful little witch who has been hurting for seven years waiting, wanting to be mine.
Ty didn’t find that alpha asshole Wyatt Meadows. But Grey and Joel have been working on learning as much as they can about him and his pack.
My council co-alphas are capable, have shit under control, and will keep me in the loop where necessary, so I’m determined to focus on her, feeling like doing that will get me back to myself so I can do the right things, so I can move shit forward and deal with the garbage that got piled on her.
I wait and listen.
“You’re lying about the third flower, aren’t you?” the female voice on the phone accuses.
I can usually hear this well, but I haven’t been at this level for the past week. My sense of smell has sprinted past full capacity, too. And I’m feeling closer to myself.
“Sometimes it’s not good to have such perceptive relatives,” my mate grumbles.
“What’s happening?” the female on the phone asks.
“The pack bond means he had to be alone with me for a week to work things out after he wasn’t able to stand being around me, so they sent us to Tyson Savage’s cabin. Under duress.”
