Chapter 14
KIERA
The woodsy smell of Sean’s cabin hit my nose, and my body sagged against him. His strong arms remained wrapped around me, my own arms around his waist, and all I could say was, tilting sucked, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the last time.
Actually, that wasn’t all I could say. There were a couple more things. The first: “Is everyone else okay?”
“I’m sure they are,” he said.
I didn’t know how he could know that for sure, but I trusted him nonetheless.
The second thing I could say: “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” His hold on me tightened. “Thanks for staying conscious.”
“I knew what was coming and braced.” My face was pressed into the center of his chest, and my lips brushed against his worn flannel shirt. The fabric felt softer and more luxurious than a cashmere pashmina.
“I hear that can make a difference,” he said. “Being prepared.”
His head must have been tipped down because I felt the warmth of his breath brush against my hair.
“Though…” I added, “my legs still feel like a pair of empty tights.”
“Empty tights?”
I didn’t pull out of his hold, but I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Does the ‘wet noodle’ metaphor work better for you?”
“Ah,” he said. “Got it. I won’t let go quite yet, yeah? Give you a chance to stabilize.”
“Sounds good.” I pressed my cheek against his very solid chest and inhaled his scent. He just smelled…clean. But not like soap. More like green shoots and spring leaves and the air right after a rain.
“Just tell me when you feel steady.”
I inhaled another lungful of air. “I’m starting to feel a little better.”
This was, of course, barely true. My home was destroyed, I didn’t know what happened to Elli and the rest of them, and there was still the matter of my brother.
One of Sean’s arms fell away, and I missed it immediately. He leaned to the side, reached to grab a stool from the kitchen island, and pulled it closer.
He gently maneuvered me until I was perched on top of it.
“I don’t remember you having stools,” I remarked, surprising myself by how normal I sounded.
“Just got ‘em. Didn’t like you having to stand before. I preferred the idea of you sitting at my island, having one of your margaritas while I cooked.”
“But…” His comment caught me off guard. “You didn’t know I’d ever be back here.”
His lips quirked, then he walked around the island to the cupboards and got out a drinking glass. “I knew. I just didn’t know when.”
That could have been an incredibly arrogant comment, but I liked his confidence, and I liked that he wanted me to be here, even though the last time had ended with me being a bitch.
“Why are you so sure everyone’s okay?” I asked, circling back. “Elli and Jen, and Parvati and Amy?”
He filled the glass with water from the tap, then slid it across the island to me. “Lukas grabbed Elli and took off. Once that guy was incapacitated, Q, Rafe, and Bjorn would have made sure your other friends were okay, too.”
My throat felt thick. “And by incapacitated you mean…”
Sean tipped his head to the side, and the corners of his mouth tightened before he said, “We weren’t about to let him live twice.”
My chin dipped, and I twisted slightly away from him while his words permeated.
“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. “Are you saying he’s…dead?”
“I’m pretty sure.” He nudged the water glass a little closer to me.
“Oh my god.” There was a dead man in my apartment.
There was a dead man in my apartment!
My thoughts could have—probably should have—continued to linger there, except something else nabbed my attention.
“Twice?” I asked, my voice coming out as a squeak. “You weren’t about to let him live twice? This has happened before?”
As soon as the question passed my lips, I closed my eyes in understanding, immediately recalling Elli’s puzzling statements. You…from the warehouse…the idiot who didn’t learn his lesson…
Oh, no.
I opened my eyes, grabbed the glass with a shaking hand, and took a big gulp of water. It tasted amazing. Cold and clean. Like it came directly from a woodland spring.
“Two months ago,” Sean said, his gaze on me intent and watchful, “Elli was abducted from right outside her apartment building.”
This shocking statement—said so bluntly and with a deadly serious expression—made me sputter. Thankfully most of the water had made it down my throat. “What the hell?”
Sean’s expression hardened, but he didn’t expound.
“That’s why you insisted on walking me into the building,” I said, piecing it together. “That’s why you weren’t impressed by their 24/7 security.”
“I wasn’t taking any chances,” Sean said.
“With me,” I added.
“With you,” he stated.
I had to sit with that for a second. The profundity of his confirmation seemed to make the earth tilt.
I knew Sean liked me. I knew he was concerned about me. But I hadn’t realized how deep those feelings went. He wasn’t taking any chances with my safety. He’d been in the path of a bullet. For me. Again.
I needed time to process this, and I couldn’t do it with him so close, watching me, as if he were afraid I might topple off the stool.
My only option was to change the subject. “Did they…kidnap Elli for ransom? Did Evan or Lukas get a note?”
“It wasn’t about a ransom,” Sean said.
“Then what was it? Why would anyone want to hurt Elli?”
He walked around the island to me again.
I swiveled my stool to face him, lifted my purse strap over my head, setting the bag on the island.
“That guy wanted to use Elli to send a message to her brother,” Sean explained.
“What kind of message” I asked.
Sean drew in a breath. “We think Rogue had a gambling debt, though…now I’m not so sure.”
I bowed my head. “God, save us from dipshit brothers.”
“Hey.” Sean laid his index finger beneath my chin and lifted my face to his. “She’s obviously fine now. Lukas, Rafe, and Bjorn got to her before that guy had her for very long.”
“Oh my god,” I murmured, remembering the way Elli had looked walking into Charlie’s Coffee that one night, her cheek scraped and the purple bruise spreading around her eye socket and up into her hairline. “He did hurt her though. Lukas didn’t get there as quickly as he would’ve liked.”
“No,” Sean said, and a pained look crossed his face. “He was late.”
“Elli must have been so scared.”
“Timing is everything,” Sean said quietly, his eyes going unfocused as if his thoughts were traveling a million miles away. “One second can make all the difference. It can change your life.”
I nodded, my own thoughts moving to the tall blond stranger who’d burst into my apartment.
I now understood the odd scars I’d seen around his throat. It didn’t take much to imagine a berserker wolf’s reaction to seeing his woman bruised and battered.
What was hard to understand was why Lukas had left him alive in the first place.
“Elli never told us,” I said. “She made up some cockamamie story about a nightmare and rolling out of bed. She said she smacked her cheekbone on the nightstand or the floor, or something. God, I just knew that story hadn’t checked out.”
“You can’t be too mad at her,” Sean said.
“Can I be offended that she didn’t trust us?”
“Depends. Should she be offended that you didn’t tell her about the bodega and getting shot at?”
“Point taken,” I said glumly.
“Good,” Sean said.
“But just to be clear,” I said, unwilling to completely concede, “that guy shot at you, not at me.”
“Kiera. Seriously.”
I blew out a breath. “I didn’t want Elli to worry.”
Sean took a lock of my hair in his fingers, studied it for a second, then tucked it behind my ear.
“I knew another woman once,” he said. “She kept her troubles to herself, too. I wanted to help, but I was too late.”
I didn’t know what woman he was talking about, but I got the sense that, whoever she was, she was behind his earlier statement that one second can make all the difference.
I also didn’t want to ask what happened to the woman. Not because I was afraid of prying, but because I didn’t think I wanted to know.
“She should have let me in,” Sean said. “Just like you and Elli should let each other in, even if that means you both worry.”
I glanced away. “I don’t know.”
“Hey,” he said, gently touching my chin again and turning my face back toward his. “That’s what friends do. They care. They don’t backstab or even turn their backs. They don’t use your vulnerabilities against you. And by the way, I told Lukas about what happened at the bodega.”
“I know. He told me he went to my apartment to try and pick up a scent.”
“He promised not to say anything to Elli, so you could do it yourself.”
“Fine.” I exhaled in capitulation, wondering if Lukas was really as good as his word. Especially now. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Excellent. Now, I’ve got something to ask you.”
“What?”
He took my hands in his, which was unnecessary, I was still seated, my equilibrium restored. Still, it felt nice, and as much as I knew I should, I didn’t pull away.
This was mainly because—despite all the trouble I’d caused him—he wasn’t pulling away. Quite the opposite. So maybe it was time for me to bend. Just a little.
He stroked his thumbs over my knuckles. “When you and Elli first met, was that truly coincidental?”
I cocked my head to the side. That’s what he wanted to ask me? I’d been expecting something sweeter. Possibly even romantic.
“What do you mean, coincidental?” I asked.
“You hadn’t met before, right? Even in passing? You hadn’t heard her name through someone else, like… I don’t know…your brother?”
“My brother?” My muscles tensed the way they always did whenever Braden was mentioned.
“Did he have any friends named Evan, or someone he called ‘Rogue?’”
I drew my eyebrows together in confusion. “Why would my brother be friends with a professional hockey player?”
Sean made a little shrug without letting go of my hands, then he stepped closer into the V of my legs and moved my arms to wrap them around his waist. “I don’t know.”