Epilogue #2
Her eyes went to his glass. "I've read about whiskey." She reached across and picked it up without ceremony and brought it to her nose.
Cal watched his glass leave the table.
"It smells like woodsmoke," she said. "And something under it. Sweet." She tilted it toward the light. "Is it always this color?"
"That's my glass," Cal said.
"I'm looking at it, not drinking it." She set it back in front of him with the same efficiency she'd applied to her coat. Her attention moved on. "Why do their eyes change color?" She was looking at Fen, whose irises had gone briefly gold.
"You ask a lot of questions," Cal said.
"I've been alone for a long time." No apology in it. Just information, delivered evenly. "There wasn't anyone to ask. I have a considerable backlog." She looked around the room again. "This place has been here a long time. I could see the lights from across the water. I used to wonder what it was."
The table went still again, differently than before.
She'd been over there watching their lights. For however long she'd been on that cursed impossible shore, she'd watched Devils Point glow across the sound and wondered about it.
Ryker looked at Gray. Gray looked back. Something moved between them, a shared recognition of a world quietly adjusting itself to make room for a new fact.
Cal was staring at the table as if his map of the last several years had just stopped adding up.
"How long?" Gray asked. Careful. "How long have you been there?"
She considered that with those deep-water eyes. "Long enough," she said. Then, as if she'd just remembered: "Can someone take me to the siren now?"
Cal looked at Damien. Damien looked back. Immovable.
Cal looked at the ceiling briefly, making peace with his evening.
"I'll take you," he said. "After you answer some questions."
"I can answer while we walk."
"You'll answer them here."
She looked at him. He looked at her. Neither moved.
"Fine," she said. "But I want to try the whiskey while we talk. I may not get another chance for some time."
Something crossed Cal's face that wasn't quite annoyance anymore. Ryker couldn't name it. He filed it away anyway.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, read the message, and felt the corner of his mouth lift.
He glanced at Damien. Damien looked back and tipped his chin once. They had it.
He stood, finished his whiskey, set the glass down. Ryker pulled on his jacket and stopped at Cal's shoulder on the way out.
"Good luck," he said.
"I hate you," Cal said, with feeling.
Ryker grinned and walked out.
The night air was cold and clean after the noise inside. The village lights were at his back, the path north ahead, and the bond pulled steady in his chest the way it did now, pointing toward her without effort, like it had been waiting for him to stop fighting it.
He was going to collect his mate. The plan had solidified somewhere around the second whiskey.
He'd spent two nights crammed into Willow's narrow bed with her coven on the other side of walls that were not as thick as anyone was pretending, and everyone involved had been gracious about it, but enough was enough.
His cabin. His bed. The coven could have their peace back.
He was fairly certain she'd have no objections. He was also certain she'd make him ask properly, because she was Willow, and he had earned every hoop she felt like making him clear for the rest of their lives. He was fine with that.
Dead Man's Island was invisible in the dark, just a shape against lighter water, but he knew where it sat. Everyone on Devils Point knew exactly where that particular unease lived on the horizon.
Except now he couldn’t shake the idea that a witch had been there for a long time. Watching their lights. Right across the water.
He didn't know what that meant yet, and the pack would want answers tomorrow.
But her voice stayed with him. I can't stay long.
I need to get back. Said both times like there was an urgent reason.
He'd been in security long enough to know when a calm voice was carrying something heavy.
Whatever was on that island with her, she'd left it unattended since this morning.
And the only one with answers was currently sitting in his distillery trying Cal's whiskey.
He stopped on the path and looked back. The distillery glowed warm through its windows, voices carrying faintly, the pack doing what the pack did, absorbing the strange and the dangerous and figuring out what to do with it.
They'd been doing it long before him and they'd keep doing it now.
Whatever was coming from that dark shape on the water, it would arrive the way everything arrived on this island.
Loud, unexpected, and demanding an answer.
When he finally turned the last corner between him and the witch’s cabin, he promptly forgot about the other woman.
The cabin window was lit and his mate was waiting inside. He felt her through the bond, warm and awake, the steady pulse of her that he was still getting used to having. Still grateful for.
He stepped onto the porch and pushed through the door.
Willow looked up from her grandmother's recipe book. Flour on her cheek, which was impossible since she hadn't been baking.
"Pack a bag," he said.
"What? Right now?"
"Your coven deserves a full night's sleep and we both deserve a bigger bed."
Her mouth curved. She looked at him the way she'd been looking at him since last night, like she couldn’t stop thinking about him either and was only biding her time. "You could have just said you wanted me in your bed."
"I want you in my bed."
"See." She stood, closed the book, and headed for her room. "Much better."
Her boots were already by the door.