Chapter 18 #2
I laugh. “Hit a seven-hundred-for-one sale on cushions?” I quip.
She smiles a supremely pleased smile. “And I’m bringing at least forty on the road with us for our first adventure.”
“Adventure?”
“Yup.”
“What adventure?”
“Adventures. Camping. Duh. Your private eye jobs. I’d like to see it all. Always wanted to RV to Alaska and down to Baja California, too.”
I stare.
“You got some other spot you retreat to somewhere?” she asks.
“No.”
“Just here?”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“We can stay here whenever. In that sweet little spot you were using by the river. But I’m not giving this place up.
I love my apartment. You prefer your spot, we can stay there, too, with the odd night here.
I’ll run the shop when we’re here but when you hit the road, I come with you.
That camper’s plenty big enough for us to live in if we travel light, which I’m happy to do.
Dad’s also got a little cabin about two hours from here bordering a national forest. We can use that whenever we want, too. Candy and Colly never do.”
“Got it all figured out?” I ask.
“Most of it,” she says.
“Candy and Colly?” I inquire.
“Candace and Colleen. My sisters.”
“Two sisters? No brothers?”
“Four sisters, technically, because Amie and Ivy are my stepsisters. Dad recently mated with their mom, Kathleen. I guess I have a stepbrother too, but I haven’t met him yet. He’s mainstream human, though the Brennans do have Fae blood from way back. Leo doesn’t know about our world yet.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She died a decade ago.”
“What happened?”
“Long illness.” She looks away.
I tip her chin so we’re eye-to-eye again, hating the look of loss in her eyes.
“Sorry you had to watch that happen.”
Her lips part.
“Don’t say it,” I warn.
She swallows and her eyes go sadder.
Yeah, she was going to tell me she’s sorry for what I saw, too.
Though it wasn’t a slow death, watching someone I love wither away.
Mine was different. Waking up to that shocking sight of carnage, knowing I inflicted it on my mother and my sister.
Swallowing the harshness of the emotions they must have felt when I shifted and attacked them.
I don’t know who I attacked first. Whether my mother had to watch one child of hers murder the other or whether my little sister watched a feral adolescent wolf murder our mother before my monster came for her.
“Ow,” Cicely says and snuggles closer. “That feels awful, baby. I wish you didn’t have to feel it.”
And now I’m inflicting my pain on her through this mate bond. I don’t want her feeling all my shit.
“Stop that,” she demands, grabbing the cage of the muzzle and forcing me to pay attention. “Fate gave you me for a whole lot of reasons. And gave me you for reasons, too. Stop thinking that way. We’re going to figure it out.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we deal. I deal with you instead of you dealing by yourself.”
“Ah, so you’re happy to live with me like this for the rest of your life? Carrying around weapons in case I lose it? Staying somewhere I can be restrained? We’ll just outfit my pickup with a fortified cage, yeah?”
“If necessary,” she says and folds her arms over her chest stubbornly.
“Or wait. More than one cage because when we have pups and they grow enough to shift–”
“We deal,” she repeats, eyes fierce.
I love you. I think this, instead of saying it, and it scares the absolute shit out of me. She scares the absolute shit out of me. Because I do. Fuck. I love her already. And I haven’t let myself love since I was a kid.
It must come across somehow because her gaze warms before she gets up.
“Never know what today’ll bring. Maybe answers.”
“Maybe not.”
“But maybe yes.”
“Maybe not good answers.”
“But maybe good answers.”
I sigh. The glass is half empty for me, half full for her.
“Shower or breakfast?” she changes the subject.
“Shower back at the trailer, then breakfast there. The same breakfast you made me yesterday. Exactly the same.”
“Or what?” she teases.
“Or… I’ll think my mate is a little cruel.”
“Oh, I can be a lot cruel. You’ll learn this about me.”
I smile, but it’s a little tight. And she probably can’t tell what with this stupid thing on my face, but I wish I could say I can’t wait to learn everything about her.
I can’t say that out loud. I can’t let my guard fully down. I also evidently can’t stand being away from her by what happened last night.
Fear shunts through me. Fear that her strength and my inability to stay away from her will be her downfall.
“I think I’m already learning,” I say.
“Good. Maybe you’ll behave yourself then. Let’s go.” She opens a dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of tiny lace underpants. Red ones. She pulls a pair of jeans on over them.
I’ll be thinking about those red underpants until I can set eyes on them again.
As she buttons the jeans, I ask, “Now?”
It’s early. I only slept an hour or two. I could use another snooze. As ridiculous as her apartment is, her bed is comfortable. And it smells incredible.
“Yep. The gas station will open at six and folks will show up. I suspect you’re not going to want to be around anyone with that mask on your face. Especially considering unattached council and pack alphas could be among them.”
Good points, both of them.
“We’ll take my car back,” she adds.