Chapter 2
Felix leaned against the threshold to his parents’ cluttered kitchen and gritted his teeth, adding noise cancelling headphones to their Christmas lists. How they could stand dealing with all the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!
His inner grinch winced. That child…Felix shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and glared at the screaming two-year-old in his mother’s arms. The little blighter’s pitch increased to a decibel just shy of glass-shattering. Whoever the kid’s father was, he had to be part banshee.
Though at this point, preserving their hearing was probably a lost cause.
Case in point, his mother patted the urchin’s back like she didn’t hear a thing.
It had to be a superpower the way she was able to deal with that, oversee Sway flinging ingredients into a bowl, and keep tabs on Axle rolling out dough.
The glint in the kid’s eye was definitely malevolent.
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dad gonna be home soon?” he yelled over the commotion.
His mother nodded, still bouncing the screamer. Did that kid ever take a breath? “Anytime now. He went to go pick up Cruze.”
“Detention again?” To put it mildly, the eldest of Felicia’s brood was “non-compliant.”
His mother glanced over at him, her pinched lips answer enough.
Felix shook his head, not surprised. Cruze was all but Felicia’s clone—well, how she’d been before she’d started using.
His mom frowned at him like she’d caught the thought and deposited the screamer into a battered booster seat with a cookie.
Felix went weak-kneed at the blessed silence that descended once the little blighter’s mouth was otherwise occupied.
His mom came over to stand with him beneath the tired piece of garland strung across the doorway.
She absently picked bits of food from her gray-streaked curls, then wiped her hands on her apron.
She’d lost weight and didn’t look like she’d been sleeping.
Shocker, there. “You know, it might help if you spent some time with Cruze, maybe took her for a weekend? There’s that play that’s opening in—”
“You hear from Felicia at all?” he asked, not about to entertain the suggestion as he watched the other two hard at work destroying the outdated kitchen.
The 1970s tract house desperately needed a makeover, everything in some variation of rust and mustard.
It’d been ugly when Felix was growing up, and time hadn’t improved it.
Neither had the urchin invasion. Sway squealed, spattering creamed eggs and sugar over the worn, dark pine cabinets. Not that he was in the position to critique anyone else’s culinary skills, but Felix was pretty sure the beaters needed to stay submerged for them to work properly.
“No, no, Sway, honey, keep it in the bowl. That’s it, great job, now add the flour.
” His mother turned back to him, missing the cloud that went up as the kid ignored the pre-measured cup and dumped out the bag.
“You know I haven’t heard from your sister,” she murmured, taking the chaos in stride like every other urchin-related inconvenience.
“She was supposed to pick up the kids yesterday. No one’s seen her, and she’s not answering her phone. ”
Wouldn’t be the first time or the last, especially if Felicia was using again, which was pretty much a given.
His mother’s brow furrowed. “I’m sure that’s why Cruze acted out in class today.”
Felix rolled his eyes. Yeah, having a strung-out, shitty absentee parent will do that to a kid, among other things. He eyed Axle dismembering gingerbread on the corner of the kitchen table that wasn’t piled with half-finished crosswords and mail. “You try scrying for her?”
His mother nodded. “Matilda can’t find her.”
Damn. Scrying was Matilda Hanson’s bent. If the witch couldn’t find her, it meant wherever Felicia was, it wasn’t on the Eastern Seaboard. “She probably hooked up with a truck driver again. I’m sure she’ll be back when he gets tired of giving her money.”
His mother was silent, and he sighed, running a hand over his face. He felt like a dick shutting her down about Cruze, but goddamn it, taking her for the weekend wasn’t going to make anything better. How many times did they have to go through this? Not to mention it was almost Yule for fuck’s sake.
The front door slammed open, racing footsteps stomped up the stairs, and another door slammed shut. The screamer detonated. Axle jammed a second cookie into her mouth, bless him.
Felix’s mom forced a smile and wiped her hands on her apron again. “Sounds like your dad and Cruze are home. I’ll just go see if she wants to join us making cookies.”
Felix was pretty sure that was gonna be a hard no.
His dad came over and clasped Felix on the shoulder, looking far older than he had a week ago. “I’m surprised you’re still here. Everything okay?”
“Peachy.” He tilted his head toward Axle. The little psychopath was giggling over his dough reenactment of a Civil War hospital, a pile of severed limbs at his side. “You going to do something about that?”
His dad rubbed his jaw. “What do you mean? He’s happy, isn’t he?”
“Only because he’s bathing in the blood of his enemies. It’s time for ‘the talk.’”
Felix’s dad grunted. “You know, it might be better coming from—”
“Right, gotta go.” Felix turned on his heel and grabbed his jacket from the banister, low sobs and his mother’s murmur coming from above.
His heart dropped to his stomach, God, maybe he should take Cruze—No.
It wasn’t his problem, and he wasn’t doing this anymore.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself as he stepped outside and closed the door on the chaos behind him.
Liam opened the front door of his parents’ house, the knot in his stomach loosening at the silence.
It was too early for his dad to be home from work, and his mom had some church thing.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. The quiet ate at him, but it was better than seeing them try to hide their disappointment.
In the situation. In him.
Especially now that his dad had managed to bring the Westside weres back into the fold and create a single Havers pack beneath his leadership—making Liam the presumptive heir to the throne—or he would’ve been.
Now that the twins’ paternity test results had come back, without a son to carry on the family name, he didn’t qualify.
And he didn’t see that changing at any point in the future. His inner wolf whined, but he was part of the goddamned problem. God, sometimes he hated being a were.
Sorry to shit all over your legacy, Dad, but from now on, women are a no-go.
Liam slowly made his way up the hewn cedar steps, the banister wreathed in pine and twinkling lights.
A massive tree dominated one corner of the great room below.
He took in all the decorations, some from his childhood and more he didn’t recognize, expectation weighing on him.
Being back home was weird, but running into Becky had only reinforced that staying in town wasn’t a good idea.
He didn’t need her or anyone else showing up at his door for a cup of sugar.
Living in a trailer farther down in the hollow might’ve been an option, but all the seasonal digs were filled with workers.
The ones they kept for guests had shitty water pressure, and none of them stayed hot for more than a handful of minutes.
The combo had become a weird kind of lifeline; the shower was one of the few places Liam felt at peace.
It was stupid, and he didn’t care.
He trudged along the upper landing spanning the length of the great room, its big fieldstone fireplace hung with stockings, and wall of garlanded windows overlooking the forest. A part of him missed the desert with its lonely, windswept expanses and star-filled heavens, but a bigger part had missed the smell of pine and subtle salt-tinged air of Havers.
It messed with him. How could he miss a place that had always made him feel so out of place?
He pushed through the door to his room and tossed his jacket onto the bed, stripping down and heading into the bathroom.
The water only took a few moments before it was scalding, and his mom had left freshly laundered towels on the vanity, his meds lined up like tin soldiers all in a row behind them.
Liam swept up two prescriptions at the far end and downed a pill from each with a scoop of water from the sink. He locked the door behind him and stepped beneath the water, letting it sear through all the dross of the day, reddening his skin until it prickled.
Punishing himself.
Liam put one hand against the wall, letting the water soak his hair and run over his face.
He ran the other over the base of his throat, wishing the node had left the nasty scar when it’d healed him.
Then maybe he wouldn’t wonder if everything that happened had been real, or if it was just some fucked up figment of his imagination.
The lariat of sliver slicing into him, eating away his flesh like acid—
No. His pulse pounded. Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth.
He dashed a hand over his face, blinking water from his eyes.
That had been real. He knew it had. So had the look on Felix’s face when Malcom’s weres had attacked him.
Felix had been so afraid for him, so scared.
The memory of his concern calmed Liam’s pounding heart.
It was proof Felix still cared, Liam knew he did, he just—fuck.
He had to make things right between them.
Had to get him back. Felix would be at Jena’s tomorrow.
They could talk and get everything out on the table.
Liam grimaced, his guts churning, but he wasn’t going to hold back about what he wanted anymore.