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“You got it,” he said. To Jasper he said, “Let’s light this place up.”
Lucian carried her out of the house, followed by his father. She looked over Lucian’s shoulder and saw flickering flames through the windows.
“Burning the bodies helps to hinder the police,” Lucian said.
“Will you be in trouble?” she asked.
“I’ve probably lost my job, but that’s no hardship. The nest was a criminal enterprise. No matter what the consequences are, you’re safe and that’s all that matters.”
She wanted to stay awake, but exhaustion pulled at her. Despite her best attempts, she fell asleep as soon as Lucian laid her gently in the backseat of his car. She had no idea what the dawn would bring, but she had Lucian, and the ravens were dead. Everything else was just details.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Lucian stopped at his father’s house. Mia was still asleep in the backseat, and he didn’t want to disturb her. He didn’t know a lot about what the females went through during their heat-cycles, but he did know that what she’d gone through with the drug was far faster than what she would’ve normally endured.
He glanced at her, his thoughts traipsing into unwanted territory. He knew she’d spent her heat cycle with a male from another pack, and he couldn’t help but feel a simmering jealousy. His beast perked up, questioning whether they could go kill him.
Turning his attention back to his father, he said, “I need to get her to Mal’s.”
“And then?”
“I’m going to see the witch.” He rolled his wrists and looked at his bare arms. The tattoos had faded so much that there weren’t many still visible. Only the most recent ones remained – an eagle and a yin-yang. He didn’t understand why the tattoos had faded. Even if the magic had been released, the ink should’ve stayed.
“You promised me a conversation.”
“After.”
“Look at me,” his father said.
Lucian turned his head and stared at the man he’d hated for the majority of his life. He’d lost everything because of him – his mother, his home – but Jasper had stood by Lucian during the darkest night of his life. He’d give him the conversation promised, but he wasn’t sure it would change anything.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Lucian shook his head. “I can’tnotdo it. I have to be safe for Mia to be around. That’s my mate back there. Her heat-cycle is over, and whether it was manufactured or not, she’s most likely carrying my child.”
His father’s dark brow arched. “Your berserker stopped the moment Mia was safe, right?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that enough for you to know that there’s more to what you are than you were led to believe?”
“I know what I am,” he snapped. “I won’t take Mia’s safety for granted ever again.”
“Lucian,” Jasper started, but Lucian cut him off with an impatient grunt.
“Not now.”
“When?”
“I don’t know! For fuck’s sake, I need time to figure things out on my own.” He shook himself out and snarled. “I didn’t say it earlier, but I wouldn’t have been able to get her to safety on my own. Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome. Come find me when you ‘figure things out.’”
His father got out of the car and shut the door gently. Lucian pulled away from his childhood home and headed toward Wilde Creek. The drive was one he hadn’t made since his grandparents had come to get him after his mother was killed and his father disappeared. He’d sat in the back of their car, crying and afraid. He didn’t remember a lot about his mother’s death; his recollection of that day was distorted and foggy. He remembered her screaming for him to run away. He’d tried, and that was where his memories stopped. He’d woken up with his grandfather carrying him to their car, his grandmother weeping at the loss of her only child.
His father had come for him a week later. By that point, his grandparents had gotten the law involved, and Lucian had been given into their custody. He hadn’t wanted to talk to his father. His grandparents had told him that his father had slaughtered her in a berserker rage, and because Lucian was a berserker too, he’d be a danger to anyone he loved. He’d carried that burden for years. Hating the creature inside him, and loathing the male who had passed it to him. But now, as he watched a man he barely knew walk into his childhood home, he wondered if he’d been wrong all this time.
It was tempting to take Mia into his father’s home and take the time to have their chat now, but he couldn’t shake the deep fear that he wasn’t safe to be around. Whatever his father wanted to talk about would have to wait until Lucian had done what he needed to do to ensure his mate’s, and his unborn child’s, safety.
