21. Wolfe Moderate Sedation #3
“I don’t want you here,” he shouted. “Do you hear me? Go the fuck away!”
A bear-shaped trinket broke against my kneecap.
“Are you seriously throwing shit at me now?” I stomped through the glass toward the mattress, swallowing down the image of a monster with his knees pulled to his chest. “Because we are twelve now?”
“It’s better than shooting you in the goddamn face,” his fist swiped at her nightstand for more ammunition, but this time, I caught it: a photograph of us on her last birthday.
“Debatable,” I rolled my eyes, tossing the memory on the dresser to save its life before climbing over him on the bed.
“If you came here to fuck me, I am not into it,” he landed a punch to my sides before kicking me off his body into a pile of shirts and unpaired socks.
“No?” I flashed a smile. “Because something tells me a video of your hand around my throat in the middle of Daphne’s clothes would get our favorite midwife sopping wet.”
I licked my lips, chasing the taste of her in my mouth.
“Until the moment I squeezed and didn’t let go,” he said, and while I knew it was a joke, a piece of him wanted me dead.
Needed me out of her life. But he did not know how to cut out the cancer without killing her, so, like the chivalrous knight he was, he allowed me to spread.
Another black mark on his failed attempt to keep her safe.
“Even then, it is kind of hot.” I brought one of her sweaters to my nose and breathed it in. “You want to tell me what happened in that house tonight?”
Threx stiffened, and I could hear him blinking in the dark.
“Do you ever know when to shut the fuck up?” He turned away from me toward the shine in the window, the breath in his back hitting him between the shoulders like a missile.
But I had no idea what to do. I had seen Daphne regulate him twice, always removing her shirt and pressing his head over her heart as if it was the only thing that reminded his body how to work.
Well, I was not fucking doing that.
“Is Blade okay?” he asked, the words falling flat and distant.
Deflection. Fine. I’d play.
“Yes. It will be some time before he is fully mobile, but the doc removed the bullet, and he is packing him full of blood and meds as we speak.”
He did not respond, but I could tell he was relieved, even if he could not process it.
“But we’ve got bigger issues to deal with.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is Lyla.” The confession was rotten milk, but I was hoping the memory of Daphne being in mortal danger might pull him out of whatever hole he was trying like hell to die in. “Jessie confirmed she snapped the pic of us in the alley.”
Threx did not move. He did not breathe, but I watched the way his fists curled along the edge of her mattress until the fabric died.
“I instructed Jessie to remove the hold and finish this once and for all.”
It would be only minutes before someone took the deal, now that there was a face to go with the picture, and less than twenty-four hours before it was complete.
But my role was far from done. By now, everyone in the Underworld knew that Karsten had placed a contract on my so-called queen, and if I did not make some effort to prevent it, that would raise more questions than I cared to answer.
No, I needed to get out of town so I could play dumb when this all fell onto my lap.
“I should kill you for this,” he ground out, and I could not help but agree. Everything I touched turned red.
“Do you have your ID with you?” I asked, searching for a couple of his old t-shirts she wore religiously, knowing full well those were the first items she would have packed.
“Why?” he threw a glance over his shoulder while I searched through the pile until I found an old Tool shirt hiding in the far corner.
“Put this on.” I tossed it at his shadow, calling Nathem until he answered. “How is Blade?” I asked, moving to the window to shut it. Because we were done with that shit.
“Fine. Resting. Why?” Nathem asked.
“Threx and I are going out of town, and I want you and the crew to monitor Lyla.”
He knew what I meant. I did not have to explain it.
“Got it.”
“You are in charge when I am gone. Watch Rinley, too, and don’t let the recruits go stupid over this. We do not need any more attention than what we are about to get. Questions?”
“No,” he mouthed in a breath.
“Where the fuck are we going?” Threx sat up, the scent of Daphne circling his waist. I could feel him unraveling from here, the offset madness in his expression as he twisted his jaw around the question.
“Tell her hi for me,” Nathem said with a smile, and my attention shifted from the unhinged monster to the shimmer of humanity in his tone.
How was it that, despite being covered in his brother’s blood, Daphne could still make his mouth do that?
I should hate her for it, but it was not the four-letter word that crowded my chest whenever I thought of her.
“Will do,” I nodded, snapping the phone shut.
Threx’s eyes met mine in a cold, calculated breath.
“Come on,” I arched a brow, reaching for the bedroom door. “Before we miss our flight.”