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Izel could tell his mate cared deeply for his mother. It was that kind of love that made Izel believe that humanity wasn’t as lost as it seemed. As a reaper, he had witnessed too many horrors inflicted by one person upon another. Too many senseless deaths. It was refreshing to see the exact opposite.
Orion glanced around, as if he felt Izel’s presence. “Who’s there?”
Izel frowned. No one had ever sensed his presence. Was it because Orion was his mate that he felt Izel in the room?
“I really hope I’m imagining things,” Orion grumbled. “Just what I need, to lose my damn mind.”
Izel would have revealed himself, but then his mate would truly believe he was insane. He wasn’t sure he’d ever reveal himself to his mate. Orion didn’t deserve someone like Izel, a reaper whose emotions were muted to the point that he’d forgotten he’d had any.
Even so, he started to reach out, wanting to caress Orion’s hand, but he cursed when he felt himself being pulled away once again.
* * * *
Orion was positive he’d felt someone in the room with him. If he hadn’t just learned about shifters, he would think he was going insane. But some guy named Panahasi had made a swirling hole appear in Orion’s hospital room, and then he, along with three others, had disappeared into it.
One of those people being Orion’s attacker.
When his mother left the house, Orion sat down on the couch, exhausted. He hated it when they argued, which wasn’t often, but it still bothered him to be at odds with her.
Pulling out his phone, Orion called Santee, the only friend he had. It was Santee’s brother who’d attacked Orion and put him in the hospital. Not that Orion blamed Santee. How was it his fault that his brother was jacked in the head?
The only reason Marvell had come after Orion was because Orion had covered for Santee a time or two while Santee simply wanted to have some fun, free from his brother’s tyranny, or when Santee had come to Orion’s house for dinner. Which had only been twice.
“Hey, Orion,” Santee said when he answered. “How’re you feeling now that you’re home?”
Santee had offered for Orion to stay with him, but Marvell had been taken away in the hospital room, the threat gone, so there was no need for Orion to accept the offer. Besides, if Marvell had still been after him, there was no way Orion would have left his mom alone.
“Tired,” Orion said.
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “I just wanted to call to let you know I’m doing okay.” That hadn’t been why Orion called. He wanted to ask if there were preternatural that could be in the same room and a human wouldn’t be able to see them.
For some reason, that wasn’t what Orion said.
“You want me to come by?” Santee asked. “I’m not sure if you know, but Deloris fired me.”
“That’s bullshit!” Orion sat forward. “You can’t help it that your brother threatened her. How is that your fault?”
“She said I was a no-call, no-show.”
“But we both know the real reason.” Orion dropped back, settling into the cushions.
“Seriously. People were killed in the forest, and then my brother ups and leaves town, though we know where he really went. People aren’t stupid, Orion. They think that Marvell was the killer. Especially when those two hunters ended up dead.”
No one had known the hunters were the ones who were killing people. Marvell had simply sold out some shifters in town to the hunters. It had been a complete mess that Sheriff Harper had spun the best he could.
But Santee was right. The residents of Midnight Falls weren’t complete idiots. They had put two and two together and come up with their own conclusions.
“Why don’t you come over?” Santee asked. “Duncan is putting some steaks on the grill. There will be plenty to go around.”
Getting out wasn’t a bad idea. Orion could use a good afternoon of food and company. He didn’t want to sit in the house for the rest of the day, especially after the fight he’d had with his mom.
“Someone will have to come and get me,” Orion said. “My car died on me.”
It was a clunker that should have been scrapped already. Orion’s mom hated his car, saying it was a death trap waiting to kill him.
“Hang on.” Santee whispered to someone, but Orion couldn’t make out what he was saying, and then he came back on the phone. “Beckett is gonna swing by and grab you.”
