The Last Word
Lyra
The sun pours through every window, warming the inside of the truck. It smells like sawdust and coffee and the four men I belong to.
Nico is driving with one wrist draped over the wheel, and Adrian's got the passenger seat kicked back and his boots up on the dash. Nico keeps knocking them down, and Adrian keeps putting them back up.
I'm wedged into the middle of the back bench with Mack on one side of me and Owen on the other, close enough that they warm me down both arms.
The sky's gone that deep scrubbed blue you only get after rain, and we're driving with the windows cracked toward the worst house I know, and I feel steadier than I have in my entire life.
Since my heat broke, I’ve been filled with the constant presence of my three alphas.
Nico runs steady and warm and always there.
Adrian sits bright and close to the surface, every feeling right out where I can touch it.
And then there's Mack. Under all that laughing and all those big country jokes lives a deep well of old sadness.
And now that I can feel him, my heart breaks a bit for the alpha.
He still spends every day trying to make the rest of us laugh, but the poor man is filled with so much old sadness.
Then I catch Mack staring at me out of the corner of my eye.
"What?" I laugh as I twist to face him. "You keep staring at me like I'm about to sprout a second head. What is it?"
"You really can't feel anything off me but good?" he asks carefully, like he's braced for my answer to suddenly change. "There’s nothing else in there? And you swear you'd tell me if there was."
"Mack." I take his big, rough hand in both of mine and press his palm flat over my heart, so he won’t argue with me.
"For the hundredth time. I feel you. All your love and sass, and a whole lot of worrying.
" I squeeze his fingers. "You worry more than Adrian ever thought about worrying, you know that? "
Up front, Adrian twists around, delighted. "You hear that?" He jabs a finger at Mack. "All these years you've been calling me the nervous one."
Mack's mouth finally tips into a little smile, and the worry down our bond eases back a notch, and I count that as a win.
Feeling a little bratty, I touch the edge of Mack’s mating bite with two fingers, and a soft drift of emotion slips through the bond.
His eyes go wide, before narrowing at my face, and that sexy teasing grin takes hold.
I stop, but the sensation doesn't.
My body fills with a low, settled kind of warmth, like embers rather than flame, with something steadier underneath it. My Mack.
"You are trouble," he whispers as he presses his forehead to mine.
"You like trouble," I remind him, smiling wide.
"We’re here." Nico turns the truck between two stone pillars and up a long, pale drive. My parents’ big house rises at the end of it, and all of us go quiet at once.
Nico parks the truck, lays his arm over the seat, and turns to face me. "I'll say it one more time, Lyra." His dark eyes hold mine. "This is a terrible idea."
"It might be." I don't look away. "But I'm done running from these people. I've spent my whole life running. I'm not going to spend the rest of it looking over my shoulder for my own mother to jump out of the shadows." I reach up and squeeze his shoulder. "I just need a little bit of closure."
Nico nods once, then we all climb out into the sun.
Mack shuts his door behind me, then he leans back against the truck with his arms crossed. "Mind if I stay here?" He looks at me. "I don’t want to be rude, but I’d rather shit in my hands and clap then step foot in that fucking place ever again."
"Of course you can wait out here." I smile at his ridiculous turn of phrase. "In fact," I glance at Nico and Adrian, "all of you can—"
"No," Nico and Adrian say at the same time.
"You aren’t going into that house alone," Nico says firmly, letting me know there will be no discussing it.
"I’ll keep you company." Owen moves next to Mack, bumping his shoulder against the alpha’s. "Someone will need to have the getaway car ready to speed out of here."
Mack smiles and wraps an arm around Owen’s shoulders.
"Actually." I point past the corner of the house, where a long bed of roses runs the length of the east wall, heavy and red and open in the light. "There's a beautiful garden around that side. It's one of the few things in this place I loved."
Mack pushes off the truck and holds his hand out to Owen. "Come on, beta. Let's go look at some flowers while the grown folks fight." Owen takes it, and the two of them wander off toward the roses.
Turning toward my parents’ home, I take a deep breath and smooth the front of my pretty blue dress down with both hands.
Then I hook a finger in my collar and tug it up on one side and the other, making sure all three mating bites on my throat stay hidden.
Adrian and Mack’s bites are still a little raw, but Nico's has scarred over quite nicely.
Walking up to the house, Nico takes my right hand and Adrian takes my left.
Nico raps his knuckles against the heavy door and it swings open. Thomas stands there in his black coat, older than I remember, and his careful expression falls open when he sees me.
"How nice to see you, Ms. Lyra," he says with a soft smile. Thomas has worked in this house since before I presented. He used to slip me cookies when my mother wasn't looking.
“It’s good to see you too, Thomas.” I smile.
“I didn’t know you would be bringing company.” The beta glances at Nico then Adrian, clearly flustered, before finally recovering. “Madam Van Houten was expecting only you, miss."
"Lyra asked us to come," Nico says, with all his alpha power pouring into his voice.
I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to talk to Thomas like that, but there’s not much of a point. We’re never coming back here, anyway.
"I'm not comfortable being in my father's house without my mate," I tell Thomas gently, because none of this is his fault. "Adrian stays with me. And Nico stays with Adrian."
Thomas hesitates. His eyes move over the two big men on either side of me, and his mouth thins. I can see he doesn't like it, that some part of him is already bracing for what my mother will say. But he's known me since I was small, and whatever he reads in my face now, he gives way to it.
"Of course, miss." He steps back and draws the door wide. "Please. Come in."
We're barely three steps into the marble entryway when Calla comes around the corner, a stack of folders pressed against her chest. She stops dead at the sight of me.
"Lyra." Her whole face lights up, and then she catches it and smooths it back to something proper. She shifts the folder to one hip. "Thomas, I can take Ms. Lyra up to Mrs. Van Houten, if you like."
Thomas nods quickly, and I don't miss the relief that crosses him at being handed something else to do. "Thank you, Calla. Madam is expecting Ms. Lyra in the sunroom." He gives me one last look, and then he's gone down the hall the other way.
Calla waits until his footsteps fade. Then she leans in close, her voice dropping low and fast.
"The police are here."
My mouth falls open. "What?" I glance back toward the front windows. "I didn't see any police cars."
"Two detectives. They came in a plain car. That sedan out front." She looks over her shoulder, then takes my hand and holds it tight, and her voice drops even lower. "Lyra. Mr. Maleth is dead."
The floor seems to drop an inch beneath me. "What?"
"Murdered. They found him Tuesday morning, in the parking garage under Maleth Media. They think he died Monday night." Her eyes search mine, full of worry, "Somebody killed him."
I stare at her. Monday night. The same night Nico and Adrian met with Crispin. The same night Mack roughed him up.
Behind me, I feel Nico and Adrian go still. They don't make a sound. They don't seem to breathe. They stand at my back like two men cut out of stone.
"Wow." I bring my hand up, placing it over my heart. "Do they know who did it?"
Calla shakes her head, her voice slipping into a whisper. "The police were here only two days ago, and there back again today.” She glances around, before adding, “I overheard one of them say that your father is a suspect."
My eyes go wide as I try to picture it. Could my father actually kill someone? I don’t think so but…maybe?
Adrian clears his throat. "I don't mean to be rude." His voice comes out perfectly smooth. "But we do have lunch plans, and I'd hate to keep Mrs. Van Houten waiting."
"Of course. God, I'm sorry." Calla squeezes my hand once and lets go. "Come on. She's in the sunroom."
Calla leads us down the long hall toward the back of the house, where the light grows brighter, and we round the last corner, and there she is.
Lavinia stands outside the sunroom doors in a column of cream. She’s wearing an ivory silk blouse and wide-legged trousers the color of bone, with a rope of pearls at her throat. Her platinum hair is swept back off her face, and she’s holding a pale drink that doesn't look like it’s been touched.
As we get closer, I can hear her speak in a low, clipped tone to two men in gray suits.
The older of the two turns as we approach. He has silver at the temples and tired, kind eyes that don't quite match the sharpness underneath them.
"Hello," he says to me. "I’m Detective Warren. And this is Detective Wong."
"This is my daughter." Lavinia's voice slices clean across his, but she doesn't look at me. "My omega daughter. She knows nothing about any of this, Detective, so I'll thank you not to waste your breath."
"Artemis Van Houten?" he says, like he’s making sure he knows who I am.
I nod and give him a polite smile. "Everyone calls me Lyra."
"I’m glad to see you," he says as he takes a small notebook out of his front breast pocket. He flips the pages, clearly looking for some kind of note.
The second detective is younger and heavier through the shoulders, and his eyes are zeroed in on both Adrian and Nico’s faces. Not leaving once.