Chapter Three
AURELIA
The guys have gotten into the habit of hanging around the kitchen. They lend me a hand while I make us food or clean, but not today. Today, Khalil and Thorin sit around the kitchen table, discussing in low tones what to do about the dead bodies we left behind once the snow melts.
Ezekiel is nowhere to be found.
After I offered to make us food, he gave me a weird look like I’m a puzzle he can’t figure out but wants no part of before disappearing. Intuition tells me that the more I try to make him like me, the less he’ll trust me.
Of course, I can’t take it personally, but it’s easier said than done when he wears the face of the man I love. There are moments when he even sounds like Seth—though I suppose it’s not hard to do when the differences in their cadence and tone are subtle.
Seth is loud and chaotic, his mirth spreading throughout the cabin and infecting us all.
Zeke is quiet and pensive, darkening the mood of everyone around him.
And then there’s the moment in the dell earlier when Seth’s anger poked a sleeping Bane and the alter I hoped to never meet spoke in that terrifying rumble. I know what you’re doing.
The mere memory raises the hair on my nape.
Khalil and Thorin are wrapping up their plans by the time I’m done whipping together our lunch.
Thorin disappears to fetch Zeke, and I keep my gaze pinned to the table when they return to avoid looking at Zeke.
Even the way he walks is different. I hear the hesitant shuffle of his steps behind Thorin’s commanding stride.
I dare a peek when he passes Seth’s usual chair directly across from mine and a guilty pit forms in my stomach when I glimpse the hard line of his mouth and the muscle in his cheek pulsing with unhappiness as he takes a seat at the far end of the table facing Khalil—as far away from me as possible.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Zeke didn’t come willingly, so I throw everything I have into the glare I pin Thorin with when he takes his usual seat next to me. The last thing I want is to force Ezekiel to accept me.
Thorin startles and winces when he notices my displeasure and then glances at Zeke, who drops down into the chair and crosses his arms, blatantly ignoring the plate of food I left at Seth’s place.
Seth, who would have shoveled half of it down by now like there was a prize for finishing first.
Don’t make comparisons, I scold the moment the thought manifests.
I clear my throat. “Um…so fair warning,” I say jokingly to break the tension. “I have a lot of talents, but cooking isn’t one of them. I’m awful at it.”
My nervous chuckle dies an abrupt death when Zeke simply stares back at me.
“The trick is to avoid tasting the food while eating,” Khalil says, coming to my rescue. “That’s a mistake your stomach won’t recover from.”
When I cut my gaze at him, he flashes all of his teeth before lifting my hand to brush his lips over the back in apology.
Suddenly, I’m desperate to feel his lips elsewhere, but Thorin speaks and breaks through that lustful fog.
I reluctantly pull my hand away and banish all thoughts of Khalil’s lips.
Right now is about making Zeke comfortable.
“Water to wash it down is also your friend.” Thorin lifts his glass in the air in salute and takes a healthy gulp.
I snort out a laugh that isn’t all for show, but Zeke still isn’t buying what we’re selling. His gaze was hostile when he first sat down, but it’s the assessing look he levels at us that makes me squirm. Zeke’s green eyes flick toward the untouched plate of food, but he still doesn’t touch it.
Probably thinks I poisoned it.
The moment the thought forms, there’s a demanding knock on the front door that threatens to break it down if we don’t answer.
Naturally, the hackles of all three alpha males rise at the challenge.
“Shit,” I blurt out at the same time Thorin pushes back his chair to answer the door.
Thorin pauses, and three sets of eyes fly toward me, waiting for me to explain the expletive.
“It’s the sheriff,” I confess without a trace of doubt, as if I’d personally invited him here.
I can’t believe I forgot about my encounter with him earlier—before Seth and the death squad and the avalanche.
“We know,” Khalil answers.
Right. Because the sheriff is the only one who ever comes up here.
Still, Khalil’s expression turns thoughtful as he wonders how I knew. His gaze flies to Thorin. “There’s no way he found the bodies already. All that snow?” he asks rhetorically. “They’ll be buried for a few more days at least, so what the fuck?”
Khalil and Thorin are frowning at each other, but I can feel Zeke’s eyes on me when I finally speak. “It’s my fault.”
“Your fault…” Khalil echoes slowly.
“I’m so sorry. We crossed paths while I was out hunting.” I look at Khalil. “H-he knows I’m not your cousin. I think he’s here for me.”
“If he knows who you are, why did he let you go?” Thorin questions.
“I…um…I might have told him I wasn’t interested in being rescued, and when he refused to leave, I…persuaded him.”
Khalil and Thorin swear at the same time. Zeke is silent—the weight of it falling over the room like a heavy blanket.
“Jesus, Aurelia.” Thorin rubs at his brow and sighs heavily.
It’s then I realize the sheriff is as likely here to arrest me as rescue me.
“So I guess hiding you isn’t an option,” Thor surmises.
I shake my head. “No.”
“So, what do we do?” This time Khalil directs the question to Thorin, but it’s Zeke who answers.
“We answer the door.” His body is loose and a small smile plays at his lips now like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
What did you expect, Aurelia? He offered to help you, to get you out… This is what Zeke wants.
“Fuck.” Thorin shoves away from the table and stalks across the cabin.
I guess we’re answering the door.
My heart is pounding, and I’m shifting nervously in my chair, eyeing the distance between the table and the stairs and wondering if I can make it to the den before it’s too late. It’s pointless to keep pretending I’m dead, but I don’t see any other way out of this.
Unless we kill the sheriff.
A new bolt of panic seizes my muscles.
Oh, God… They’re not actually going to kill him, are they?
My eyes slide to the side where Se—uh…Zeke—is sitting quietly, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced on his abs and an unreadable look on his face and for the first time I’m happy that Seth isn’t awake.
He would snuff the sheriff in a heartbeat to keep me.
Miserably, a pang of longing for the unhinged alter stabs at my heart, and I force myself to look away.
Zeke isn’t Seth. And I’m pretty sure Zeke hates me.
The door opens, and I hear Thorin mumble something and then stand back to allow the sheriff and the two deputies by his side to enter the cabin. Khalil stands, but he doesn’t move away from the table. He futilely angles his body at the head of the table to block me from view.
I hear a sharp inhale and follow the sound to see Zeke sitting forward, his knuckles white and the veins in the back of his hands bulging from how hard he’s gripping the edge of the table.
He looks cornered…scared.
He looks ready to bolt.
I can’t help reaching out a hand to comfort him, stretching my body to reach him at the other end of the table. “A-are you okay?” I whisper.
Those wide green eyes shoot to me and immediately narrow. He snatches his hand back and answers shortly, “I’m fine.”
Okay then. The rejection stings a little, but Zeke doesn’t owe me anything, so I shake it off and refocus in time to see the muscles in Khalil’s back bunch and hear his bark.
“That’s far enough, sheriff.”
I peek around Khalil, and the knots in my stomach twist further when I see the sheriff making a beeline for the table.
For me.
There’s a deputy stoically posted at the front door with his arms crossed while the other is a step ahead of the sheriff with his hand already on his gun and his uneasy gaze pinned on Khalil.
My stomach bottoms out and it’s fortunate that I haven’t had the chance to eat or else my lunch would be all over the floor.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I reach for Khalil as if I have any hope of removing him from the path of a speeding bullet.
I’m not the only one who notices the unspoken threat either.
“Sheriff,” Thorin growls in a tone so menacing that as the hairs on my nape and arms rise, it dawns on me with a wind chill cold enough to rival Everest’s that I haven’t seen Thorin truly angry.
Until now. “Get control of your fucking deputy before any goodwill between us dies and I remove him from my home out the back door.”
We don’t have a back—oh.
The cliff.
Thorin just threatened to throw an officer of the law off the cliff.
And his words fall on deaf ears as the nervous deputy continues to watch Khalil, who’s standing perfectly still with his arms crossed and not saying a word.
The sound of chair legs scraping across the floor breaks the tense silence, and in my peripheral vision, I see Zeke standing as if he seconds Thorin’s warning.
Zeke may not like me, but he loves Khalil, which means that in this moment, he’s just as unpredictable as Seth.
My heart is starting to thunder and I can no longer feel my fingers.
“Deputy!” Sheriff Kelly reprimands. “You will remove your hand from your firearm and contain yourself! I told you we are here in an unofficial capacity only.”
I call bullshit.
The sheriff is bluffing. Otherwise, he would have come alone instead of bringing backup. I don’t blame him though. Not even I know how my mountain men will react now that the cat’s out of the bag.
I’m alive.
And I’ve been right under the sheriff’s nose the entire time.
That’s got to sting.
I think we all take a collective breath when the nervous deputy finally drops his hand and straightens. Khalil is angled just enough for me to see his profile and the smirk on his lips as he winks at the deputy.