Chapter 15 Rory #2
Isla’s expression softened with sympathy as she looked at me.
She reached out to touch my arm gently. “Good luck. You know, I’d love it if we could spend some time together before the gathering on Friday.
If you’re not too busy, of course.” She shot a knowing look at Maxwell, complete with a cheeky wink.
Standing there, watching my cousin’s genuine concern and warmth, I felt a stab of guilt. Maybe I’d been too quick to write off my entire family in my head. It made me think that perhaps I could make an effort to reconnect with the nicer ones who weren’t actively trying to kill me.
“I’d like that,” I found myself saying, surprised by how much I meant it.
“Edina is waiting,” snapped Callum.
I laughed. “We haven’t spoken properly in years. I think she can wait five more minutes.”
We entered the house, and I caught sight of Bernard scurrying across the corridor.
Isla and Callum peeled off at the entrance hall, leaving us to follow Tariq up the spiral staircase to the first floor.
The path was achingly familiar from my childhood—too many times I’d been marched up these same steps.
Despite the anxiety gnawing at my insides, I reminded myself that I was returning here as my own person.
Not part of the pack, not a manipulated child anymore, but a confident, accomplished—semi-accomplished—adult, with my wonderful, sexy-as-fuck, extremely intelligent boyfriend beside me. Well, pretend boyfriend.
We reached the door of my father’s old office—clearly now Edina’s. Tariq knocked, two sharp raps.
My mother was sitting at her desk when we entered. Her gaze swept over me, lingering with obvious distaste on my tight-fitting tie-dye shirt—the bright pinks and purples seeming to offend her personally. Tariq bowed to her before silently retreating, shutting the door behind him.
The office was exactly as I remembered it, complete with the Scottish flag hung on one wall and landscapes of the Highlands on the others. The desk’s feet had been carved to look like wolves’ heads, their snarling faces frozen in eternal aggression.
She addressed Maxwell. “I expected Rory alone.”
“You might need to readjust your expectations, then,” Maxwell replied coolly. “Rory has asked me to be here with him.”
Edina made a clicking noise with her tongue, a habit that had always set my nerves on edge.
Maxwell moved to take a seat in front of her, dragging me along with him. I sank into the chair, trying to appear more confident than I felt.
Edina eyed me for a long moment. “The intruders made it to their transport successfully?” Her tone made it clear she already knew the answer.
“Yes. I didn’t realise they were coming. They… just wanted to see where I grew up.”
“They know what you are? What we are?” she asked carefully.
I panicked, not quite knowing the right answer. “Um… no…”
Edina laughed, the sound brittle. “You were never any good at lying, Rory. But you can drop the pretence. I know that you all work together in London, under a vampire called Sebastián Salazar.”
I gasped, my mind reeling. “How—”
“You thought we’d let Kit go without keeping tabs on him?” she asked. “As soon as he left the military to head to London, we had people on it.”
My mind was reeling—Kit and I had no idea. We hadn’t heard from our pack in so many years, it was like they existed in a different universe. To learn we’d been watched all this time… was unsettling, to say the least.
“How much do you know?” I asked.
Edina shrugged. “To be clear, I dinnae really care what the pair of you get up to. You’ve left my pack, made your choice. My point is, you don’t need to play games with me.”
“So why did you invite us back here, then?” I demanded. “You tried to ring me for the first time since Dad died, and then Alex made it sound like you were desperate for us to come in his email to Kit.”
“Desperate is a strong word,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. “But you and Kit are still my sons, and I’d like a distant, cordial relationship with you both. Other packs have been asking about you.”
I scoffed. “Of course. It’s all about appearances.”
“Not just that. And I’ve wanted to reach out for a while,” she continued. “When Callum suggested—though slightly last minute, I confess—that the Spring Equinox Gathering could be a suitable time to reconnect, I agreed.”
“Callum?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Did you know he attacked me last night?”
“He told me everything, aye. Including who made the first strike.”
“Rory came back bleeding,” Maxwell interjected, scowling so deeply his glasses slid down his nose.
“I trust Callum’s assessment of the situation.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Those two have always had their issues.”
Maxwell leaned forward, his voice dangerously calm. “So you’re not going to discipline Callum for almost killing your son?”
Edina’s gaze slid from Maxwell to me, her eyes cold. “Let’s stay on topic, shall we? Rory, I’m glad you decided to come up early, because I would like to move forward.”
“Well, I’m not interested in any sort of relationship, especially one just for appearances. You’ve got Callum now anyway, your perfect little lapdog. I only came up this week to see Uncle Alex and Isla, and to get closure.”
Edina frowned. “Closure?”
I laughed, the sound hollow. “You really have no idea, do you? What you put me through when I lived here?”
Her face froze. It took a while for her to say, “Your father was… harsh, that is true. But he was just trying to teach you discipline. You needed structure. Your mind was always… everywhere. Your… condition… made you unpredictable. Dangerous, even. The pack couldnae afford that kind of liability. How else could you learn? And he was harder on you because he saw potential. Don’t you see that was a compliment?
That’s how we learn—through challenge and hardship. ”
Beside me, I felt Maxwell shift in his seat. I looked over to find his face thunderous. I reached across to grab his knee.
Yet my own vision blurred with rage. I wanted to scream at her, throw the objects on her desk at her, to shout that all I ever wanted as a child was a mother who loved me, a father who didn’t beat me with a belt and lock me in the basement.
But I took a deep breath and said, “Well, I hope you’re happy with the result of your methods. Because neither Kit nor I became your perfect successor. We’d both rather have died. We moved countries to get away from you.”
My mother visibly recoiled, and I rejoiced in my small victory. “How is… Kit?” she asked, tensing—clearly desperate for information about her favourite son after all these years.
I could have told her how equally traumatised Kit was, how my parents’ behaviour pushed him to join the military unit that further fucked him up in ways that I didn’t even understand yet, on top of everything he experienced here. That he couldn’t even bear to talk about our childhood.
Instead I said, “He’s doing great. Brilliant, in fact. He laughed at Alex’s email. The idea of bothering to come up here to see you was hilarious to him.”
Edina’s fingers drummed against the polished oak of her desk. “Is there any way Kit would consider coming up?” A flicker of something—vulnerability, maybe—passed across her face.
I paused, genuinely surprised by the question. Was there a slight maternal instinct beneath Edina’s many icy layers—a mother aching for her firstborn? For a brief, unsettling moment, I felt a twinge of sympathy for her.
Then I remembered Kit’s face whenever our childhood was mentioned. The nightmares he still had. The way he’d lock himself in his room on the anniversary of the day he left.
“Nope. No way,” I said flatly. “You’re never going to see him again.”
The softness in her eyes hardened instantly. Her lips pressed into a thin line, jaw tightening as she rose from her seat with deliberate slowness.
“You may leave now,” she seethed, her voice a controlled blade. “I shall see you at the gathering on Friday.”
I stood, teetering on the balls of my feet.
A part of me was unsure if I should ask her about Dev—maybe I secretly wanted to see a look of genuine confusion across her face.
Because although Dev was convinced my family was involved with his investigation, I didn’t want to believe it, despite hating them.
The question hung in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Not yet. Not until I knew more.
“Goodbye,” I said, marching to the door without looking back.
When we were outside the manor, at the bottom of the steps, Maxwell stopped me with a gentle hand on my arm.
“You did a great job just then,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “You were right. You didn’t actually need me there at all.”
I turned to him, studying the afternoon light on his face, the genuine respect in his eyes. Something bloomed inside me, warm and fragile.
“You’re wrong,” I whispered, reaching up to stroke his cheek, enjoying the slight roughness of stubble beneath my fingertips. I leaned in and pressed my lips gently against his cheekbone, lingering for a heartbeat.
It happened the moment my lips touched his skin—a surge of electricity that shot through me like lightning finding earth. My entire body seized with it, a current flowing from my lips through my chest and down to my toes. I gasped against his skin, fingers involuntarily clutching at his shirt.
With the shock came that scent—raindrops on hot pavement—but amplified, as though the sky had opened above us and drenched everything in a summer downpour.
It filled my lungs, my head, making me dizzy with its intensity.
For a moment, I could have sworn I felt the phantom sensation of rain on my skin, despite the clear afternoon sky.
Maxwell jerked back, his eyes wide with shock, pupils blown. His hand flew to the spot where my lips had touched, and he stared at me with a look of bewildered wonder.
He opened his mouth—likely to ask for the hundredth time what the fuck was going on—and panic flashed through me. I couldn’t risk telling him. Not while I was enjoying this fragile thing between us so much. Not when it would send him running a thousand miles from me.
So I did the only thing I could think of—I lunged forward, grabbed his face between my hands, and crushed my mouth against his.
Not a gentle peck, but a desperate clash of lips and teeth.
I swept my tongue against his, swallowing his question, replacing it with a groan that vibrated through both our bodies.
For a heartbeat, he stood frozen, clearly caught off-guard by my sudden attack. Then his hands found my waist, pulling me against him with a force that made me gasp into his mouth. Whatever he’d been about to say was forgotten, lost in the heat building between us.
When we finally broke apart, Maxwell cleared his throat, his glasses askew. “Let’s go back to the cottage,” he said breathlessly. He quickly added, “To um… see if Felix has sent us anything else yet.”
“That,” I said, unable to keep the grin from spreading across my face, “sounds like an excellent idea.”