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“And you are bad at asking the right questions,” she countered. “For example, do you want to know what Melony was really here to ask me about?”
“She came to you to end her blood curse.” My eyes narrowed. “Didn’t she?”
Striga laughed, high and hearty. “Oh, dear me. No, my poor boy. Not at all, in fact,” she said. “Melony Houghton doesn’t want my help ending her blood curses.” Striga grinned wide, like she was genuinely enjoying this. “She wanted my help creating one.”
Chapter24
Felicity
The second the Impala pulled into the drive, I gathered Rylan up and rushed out the front door.
“Xander!” I called out, my breath hitching as I jogged down the porch steps.
The driver’s side door of the Impala swung open, and Xander emerged from behind the wheel, looking exhausted, but thankfully unharmed.
It was a little past sunrise the day after Marianne had woken from her coma. The sky was tinged purple and pink on the horizon. The rest of the world was still cloaked in muted gray as it awaited the sun.
After Dylan brought Rylan and me home from the hospital last night, I’d fallen asleep on the couch, clutching the baby monitor, waiting for Xander to return. Someone—Gena or Kingston, maybe—had draped a blanket over me and tucked a pillow under my head while I tossed and turned.
In my dreams, I’d seen Xander die over and over again. Melony had killed him in a more horrible way each time. I woke in tears several times, certain that it had been real, only to remember that I had nothing to fear.
“Hey, Cheeks.” Xander left the Impala’s door open. He had time to take only a few steps in my direction before I launched myself into his arms. They wrapped around Rylan and me, protective and warm. “God, it’s good to hold you again.”
“When I was calling you, and you didn’t answer your phone…” I clenched my eyes shut and buried my face in his broad, firm chest. “I thought the worst. We all did.”
Marianne had given us all a scare, one that Xander had only exacerbated by missing my calls. I must have left him a dozen voicemails and twice as many texts before he finally answered.
Denny’s phone had gotten the same treatment.
“I wouldn’t have let anything happen to him,” Denny assured me, closing the Impala’s passenger side door. “He was never in any real danger. Scout’s honor.”
“Denny’s right,” Xander said, then pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I was in good hands.”
The only hands I was concerned with right now were Xander’s. They rubbed my back soothingly, working away the knots tied into my muscles on either side of my spine. We’d only had a brief chance to talk before Denny and Xander caught their plane back from Las Vegas, so I was up to date on the broader strokes of what they’d been up to but was still short on specifics.
They’d come back as quickly as they could manage. The most important thing, beyond the fact that Melony hadn’t slaughtered them, was that they knew with near certainty now where Ryder was.
The Du Pont estate in upstate New York. There, Melony claimed, he was being kept safe by Quincy, Samuel, and their pureblooded shifter allies.
Safe being a generous and uncertain word.
* * *
Xander and Denny both needed sleep. I could see it in the way they moved around the lounge, slow and stiff, lurching. The signs were in their eyes, too: bloodshot whites, dark, deep bags underneath. They’d spent all of yesterday locating Melony, dealing with her while they waited for the authorities to arrive, then traveling home. Whatever sleep they’d gotten on the plane hadn’t been enough.
But though I’d told them both to get some rest, even offering to make up a guest room for Denny, they’d turned me down.
With Ryder in Samuel and Quincy’s possession, time was of the essence.
We needed a plan. A good one. One that would take.
They fussed over Rylan at the kitchen island while I brewed coffee as strong as I could make it. Xander was so exhausted that when he put his mug back down on the counter, he missed the mark by several inches. It fell to the floor and shattered at his feet.
“Shit,” he swore, pushing his stool back.
“Don’t,” I ordered, grabbing a towel. “I’ll get it.”
Xander let out a heavy sigh. “Thank you, Cheeks. You’re an angel.”
