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“How are you so calm?” Jace asked.
The easy mask dropped off his face. He wasn’t calm at all. If anything, his instincts were just as out of control, and he was hanging on by a thread. “Sheer force of will.”
“But you want to…?” I asked.
“Yes.” No hesitation. “If there hadn’t been people in the studio I probably would have fucked her against the mirrors.”
Jace looked down at Ash with sympathy. “None of us are going to hit you. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t with a show this close. Gotta keep your face pretty. I’ll lock you in your room if you think it will help.”
“Probably not. I’d be out the window before any of you knew I was gone.”
“Come on,” Jace hauled him up by the arm. “Gym. We’ll spar.”
“I thought you said you wouldn’t hit me.”
They disappeared down the hall, and Jace laughed. “I’m not going to clock you barehanded while you’re defenseless and just standing there. But with a glove and you fighting back? Sure. And maybe you’ll burn off some of that excess energy.”
Gabriel looked at me once they were gone. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true. She’s going to love you just as much as the rest of us.”
The words got tangled up in my brain, just like they always did. It was less often now, but conscious words were always harder. And no matter how much work I did to make them easier, I’d always struggle. Anxiety rattled through my limbs and made my hands shake. I put down my sketchbook.
Slowly, I focused my mind and looked at Gabriel. “Are…youokay?” The words were slow.
He let out a strangled laugh. “Not even close.”
“Really?”
Gabriel sank into a chair across the room. “I was just talking, and it’s exactly what Asher said. Like the best thing you’ve ever scented in the world. And I looked up and saw her. I justknew. She’s mine. And I might laugh at Ash to help him keep sane, but I’m about five minutes away from where he is.”
I smiled, my fingers tightening on my sketchbook. “Do you need a punch too?”
Smirking, he stood. “I’ll let you know. For now, I’m going to punish myself on the treadmill for a while.”
He left, and I sat in the sun. The peace I normally felt sitting here was gone. Time to go. I made sure I had all my drawing supplies before passing through the kitchen to the back door. Our townhome on the west side of the city had a long and narrow backyard, and what used to be a carriage house and garage was now my studio. Both floors. We had a new garage.
Since I was the only one of us that didn’t work outside the home, it made sense. The bottom floor contained all my supplies. Giant hunks of rock and tools. A pulley system to get the stone up to the second floor where the glass ceiling gave me better light to sculpt by.
I already had a piece of marble on the second floor, which is what I’d been sketching before they dropped the news we might have found our Omega. The beginnings of a new commission. Nerves twisted low in my stomach, along with hope. Just a tiny seed of it, like a spark of light that refused to be ignored now that it had appeared.
But I couldn’t start sculpting. The design wasn’t ready and I felt too unsettled. Still, I couldn’t simply sit in the house like it was a normal day. It was very much not a normal day. Everything could change, and it could be amazing, or it could…
I leaned against my workbench and pulled out my phone. Asher had spoken to us about Sloane when we decided to move to Slate City. How they’d been friends, how she’d disappeared, and how she danced here. I remembered her a little from conservatory. We hadn’t been friends. I knew her in that way you vaguely knew people in school withoutknowingthem. But I hadn’t looked into her more than that.
Now I did.
Sloane Glass
I typed her name into the search bar.
Immediately, her face popped up in the results, and the image hit me in the gut. The photo displayed most prominently didn’t feature her looking at the camera. She was mid-movement, head thrown back and hair flying, arms crossed delicately in front of her, neck arched, legs showing her bendingbackinto the movement. She was breathtaking.
Another image showed what must have been her picture for Slate City Ballet. A small mysterious smile and looking at the camera playfully. Her eyes were so blue. Sofuckingblue. Nearly violet. And this was only an image.
The anxiety in my body eased.
