Chapter 2 Fetch
FETCH
AURORA
The sunlight is pure bliss against my skin, and I let it burn away the dark thoughts before they can ruin my mood.
But fuck those steaks looked good…
Maybe if I just—
Nope. Not going there.
I set my towel and snacks on a lounger next to the pool. Elijah is already swimming laps up and down the length of it and I watch as the scars on his back stretch with every lithe stroke of his arms.
Seven lazes at the side of the pool with one leg hanging into the water. His clear blue eyes rake over me as I shimmy out of my shorts and toss them onto the lounger, joining him at the pool's edge.
"Hey you."
"Hey yourself," I reply, dipping my feet into the water as I sit next to him. "It's so warm."
"Had Eli crank it," Seven explains. "It's practically a hot tub."
"Ugh." I sigh as I shift to let my legs sink deeper and shiver. "Can we keep it like this every day?"
He snakes an arm around my waist and hauls me against him. "If it'll keep that smile on your face."
I melt against his sun-warmed skin. The ink over his bare chest and arms must absorb more of the heat because he's absolutely scorching.
He smells like leather and spice and sunshine and I lean my temple on his shoulder as Elijah comes up for air and notices us watching him.
"Hey, Angel."
He swims over to us, curling his hands around my calves beneath the water in a way that makes my skin tingle with anticipation. He presses a kiss to the spot beside my knee on my inner thigh and lifts a wicked brow at my reaction. "Sleep well?"
"What do you think?" I tease, and he gives me a knowing look before biting the inside of my thigh playfully, making me yelp before he pushes off from the wall of the pool and dives under for another round of laps.
After Elijah coaxed me into three orgasms last night, I slept better than I have in days.
"It's been years since I've seen him this happy," Seven murmurs against my temple, and something I don't have a name for yet swells in my chest.
When I turn to look at him, the angle of the sun catches on his eyes, turning them a clear, bright blue, like shards of broken glass.
He smirks as I stare into them. "What are you looking at, Ro?"
I shake my head, but I can't stop staring. "Your eyes. They're so clear in the light."
"Yeah?"
I nod. "I wish I had eyes like yours."
His smirk turns sharper, wicked as he bites his lower lip and gives a slight shrug against me. "Your kids could."
I shove him. "Seven."
"What?" He jerks me back against him, tighter this time, making my thighs squeeze as he stares down into my eyes with the intensity of Hades's blue fire. "They could."
He lifts my chin with a knuckle and smiles against my lips. "But for the record, my eyes have nothing on yours."
Seven crushes his mouth to mine, fingers tripping along my jaw until they curl around the back of my neck, tipping me open for him to sweep in mercilessly with his tongue and take what he wants.
His teeth scrape along my lower lip, biting playfully before the back door of the house slams shut behind us and we break apart.
Atticus's heavy footfalls are punctuated by the clatter of metal trays as he makes his way down to the pool deck and the built-in outdoor kitchen area off to one side of it.
Seven runs his fingers through my hair, sighing at the interruption. Not that he cares. He'd strip me down and fuck me right in front of Atticus. He offered to do as much the other day—said it might teach him a lesson. But I don't care to teach him anything.
He's like a black shadow I can't escape, casting his shade, his cold over everything around him.
At first, I thought that coldness was the worst of him. But I think maybe it’s the warmth underneath. The warmth he showed me and then ripped away.
I listen to him start the barbecue and organize some things over the smooth concrete surface of the countertop, and I wish I could ignore him. Pretend he isn't there. He doesn't exist, after all…
But it's easier said than done when he's so obnoxious about making his presence known.
He hasn't said a word to me. Hasn't looked at me—or at least he pretends he doesn't.
He's followed my instructions to a T, aside from making his presence very clear when we're in the same space and the fact that he never wears a fucking shirt anymore, even though it's starting to get cold out.
I wish I could tell him that no amount of added muscle can erase what he's hiding beneath. Those forearms may be wide, veiny, and tatted to perfection, but they are connected to hands that shoved me against a wall. That pressed the barrel of a loaded gun to my belly.
And those abs? The ones that would render any woman to a puddle of desire? They're the armor protecting a heart that's shriveled and black. Incapable of trust.
Seven lifts a brow when he catches me staring at the nonexistent man in our midst and I frown, clenching my jaw as I cast my gaze back to Elijah in the water.
Unlike Elijah, Seven hasn't tried to get me to see the other side of things. He and Atticus are speaking again, but Seven's not hiding the fact that he's still pissed at him.
"Want me to knock out another one of his teeth?" Seven asks mischievously, and I snort, but there's no real humor behind the sound.
I don't answer him because the truth is that I don't even know what I want other than to see Atticus as little as possible. I do know what I don't want, though.
I don't want to drive a wedge between the three of them.
They're family. Brothers.
The absolute loyalty and love between them is what drew me to them in the first place. It's what made me trust them. It's what made me mistakenly trust Atticus and stupidly think that his loyalty, his love, could extend beyond his brothers.
I see now that he's hardened himself against ever letting anyone else in.
And that's fine.
I won't ruin what they have, but I'm not going to make the same mistake twice.
"I think I know what you need…" Seven murmurs, and before I can stop him, he yanks me into the pool. I manage to get out a short scream before the warm water swallows us beneath its surface.
When I come back up, I splash his face. "Oh, you're going to pay for that."
"Yeah?" he coaxes, shaking the water and hair from his eyes. "Come get me, Ro. I dare you."
His eyes flash with danger before he dives beneath the surface, coming straight for me like a shark after its prey.
I laugh, and back away, right into Elijah, who wraps his arms around me, caging me in for the attack.
Seven grips my waist with both hands under the water and I squirm against Elijah as Seven kisses and bites a path up my belly and between my breasts before breaking the surface and throwing his dark hair away from his face.
Ellie barks, and we turn to see her prancing onto the pool deck with muddied paws, a bone proudly clenched in her teeth.
It's big, and it doesn't look like the bone Atticus brought home for her the other day. "What do you got, girl?"
Elijah releases me so I can swim to the edge of the pool as she comes to bring me her prize.
The first thing I notice is the smell. Not the meaty rawhide scent of a bone purchased from the pet shop in town. This is more rank. Putrid with a sickly-sweet undertone.
"Hey," I say in my stern voice, trying to temper the wild excitement in her mismatched eyes. "Ellie, drop that."
She pulls away from me, and I give her a look as Seven and Elijah swim over.
"Give it here, Eleven," Seven tells her, and even though his tone isn't even half as stern as mine, Ellie brings him the bone and sets it down on the pool's edge, rushing back with her tail wagging like she's waiting for him to throw it.
"What is that?"
I don't want to touch it, but I give it a nudge to better see what looks like a metal screw in the rounded top part of the bone. "Ugh." I shudder.
Seven makes a face, giving me a plaintive look, and I know all at once what I'm looking at.
Oh god.
"Is that…?"
Seven purses his lips.
"What is it?" Elijah asks, wiping the water from his face to get a better look.
"I'm pretty sure that's Jesse's."
Elijah's eyes widen at Seven just as the shadow of Atticus grows over us.
"Really?" Elijah asks.
"Yeah, he had a bad shoulder injury before I met him. Told me there were screws in the bone."
Seven nudges me beneath the water, trying to get me to shut up, but it's too late.
"You buried him on the property?"
Atticus's voice is a growl above us.
Oops.
I mouth sorry to Seven as I push backward from the wall of the pool, away from the bomb I accidentally dropped.
"Nah, man," Seven says, lifting the bone from the pool deck to look it over, unbothered by how nasty it is. "It's only been a few weeks. No way it's his."
Atticus's face reddens. "It could be if your lazy ass dumped him in a shallow grave and Ellie dug him up and exposed him to the elements."
Seven flinches.
"Goddamn it, Sev. We said no more bodies on the property."
Ellie whines with impatience, bouncing on her front paws as she waits for Seven to throw her the bone.
Seven pulls himself out of the pool, back muscles rippling beneath ink, and shoulders past Atticus.
He walks the bone to the small wooden hut that contains a steam sauna and pulls out a pressure hose from behind it.
He starts to clean it off, fingers checking it over for any sharp bits.
He's completely unbothered by the fact Atticus is chasing him down, looking like he's about five seconds from blowing his top.
"Where did you put him?"
"Drop it, Atty."
"No, you fucking said you would handle it. I told you not to bury his ass here. Why do you always have to—"
"Atticus," Elijah interrupts, ever the voice of reason, but Atty's not in the reasoning mood. The way his fists clench, how his eyes darken and his chest expands…
It's like fingernails picking at a fresh scab, until I remember in visceral clarity what it felt like to have that rage directed at me. My jaw locks.
Elijah twines his fingers with mine under the water as Atticus continues to lay into Seven for being 'so fucking irresponsible and lazy', but if he doesn't shut the fuck up soon, even Elijah's steadiness won't be enough to keep me anchored here.
He isn't supposed to exist.
Not to me.
But right now, all I see is an asshole shouting at my man.
When I walk forward in the water, Elijah's hand on mine squeezes. "It's all right, Angel."
"We agreed," Atticus roars at Seven. "And now who knows how many of that fuckface's bones are scattered around the property."
Seven shuts off the water and flicks the bone to cast off the excess droplets. "Dude, relax."
He whistles for Ellie and lifts the bone in a taunting wave overhead.
She yips in excitement, doing a twirl on the spot, keeping her keen eyes fixed on the clean chunk of Jesse in Seven's grip.
"Don't you dare," Atticus hisses.
But Seven only smirks, his brows rising in challenge as he and Atticus face off on the pool deck.
"You really need to lighten up, Atty," Seven says, and then twists to hurl the bone as far into the trees as he can, sending a happy Ellie scampering off after it.
Atticus turns to watch it vanish into the wall of pines, his nostrils flaring.
Then he's ripping off his apron, and throwing the metal spatula onto the counter next to the smoking barbecue to stalk after Eleven into the trees.
"Don't," I snap, and the sound of my voice directed at him for the first time in ten days makes him falter. His jaw works as he decides whether to listen. Whether to hear a voice that shouldn't exist.
He twists his head to look right at me, his stare burrowing beneath my skin in a way that makes me squirm, but I don't look away. His lips part like he might speak, but I shake my head. Giving him another warning.
"Leave it," I hiss, and a muscle twitches beneath his right eye as he unfurls to his full height, every muscle taut and rippling with his frustration.
For one fleeting second, I think he might shout at me, and a small part of me hopes he does so I can say all the horrible things I've been holding back this past week.
Instead he rips his gaze away and mutters, "I was just thinking about Ellie," and pivots on his heel, storming away.
The glass rattles in the pane of the cabin door as he slams it behind him.
Ellie returns with the bone, casting her sparkling eyes around in confused excitement as she senses the shift in atmosphere.
"Come here, baby," I call for her, pulling myself up out of the pool. When she brings me Jesse's humerus, I don't recoil this time. I take it from her, feeling the heft of a piece of him he once used to hurt me with.
Seven already checked, but I give the bone a quick inspection anyway, looking for anything sharp. It still smells a bit, but not as pungently. I give Seven a questioning look when I see how one edge of it is sawn flat.
"Took him apart," he explains with a nonchalant shrug. "Started with his junk, but things escalated."
“Escalated?” I repeat flatly.
“What? It’s therapeutic. Ten out of ten, would recommend.”
“Mhmm.”
I press my lips against a laugh, not sure if I'll ever get used to the casual way Seven admits to the most brutal acts of violence.
"I hate to say it, but Atty's right," he adds with a heavy inhale. "If Ellie dug him up, his bones are probably all over the place. It's not safe for her."
"Shit!" Elijah races up the pool steps to the outdoor kitchen, getting to the barbecue as the steaks Atticus started grilling there begin to catch fire. He quickly turns the heat down, blows out the flames, and gives them a flip.
"We should probably go check," I say in reply to Seven. "She can play fetch with this one for a bit, but I don't think I want her gnawing on it. And the other bones could be sharp."
"Or still covered in half-rotted Jesse." Seven makes a face of mock disgust.
It really is gross to imagine, but with the smell of Atticus's chimichurri steak now permeating the air, it isn't enough to put me off my appetite.
"Check the property after lunch?" I suggest.
"Sounds good."
Ellie growls playfully, laying her chest on the pool deck to wag her rear end in the air, urging me to hurry up and throw the bone.
"You joining us for steaks, then?" Elijah asks hopefully from where he's adding the seasoned vegetables to the grill next to the meat.
"If you're the one cooking it."
He smiles and shakes his head. They think it's a step too far—refusing to eat Atticus's cooking. But I see how much it bothers him, and that shit brings me joy, so…I'll stick to my frozen meals and pre-prepared salads.
"Okay, Ellie," I say, pulling my arm back for a good, strong throw. "Fetch!"
She's off like a shot before the bone even leaves my fingertips, chasing the whistling arc of it into the trees.