Right now, blondie’s expression is unreadable. If she hadn’t used my most hated nickname, I would have thought she was distancing herself from me. But she is still trying to yank my chain to see if I’ll yank back.
“You’ll pay for that,” I grit out, attempting to sit up, but a sharp stab of pain halts me.
Across the room, Goldie reaches out instinctively, her hand hanging mid-air, torn between coming to help and staying put. She relaxes when I don’t make any further attempts to move. “No, I won’t. I saved you,” she says, before pausing. “After putting your life in danger.”
“Only because you were dragged intomyfamily’s problems,” I point out. I expect her to retort but she goes oddly silent, looking down at her chipped nails.
After I figure out a way to pay Eli’s debts, I’m going to take her for a manicure and the one they do for the toes, I don’t know what it’s called. I bet it’s one of those girly things she loves.
“You killed someone,” she says. There is no judgement or emotion attached to it. More like she’s stating a fact I may or may not know.
“I killed someone,” I repeat slowly.
Goldie’s hand covers her mouth as if she is processing something internally. She doesn’t push the subject though part of me wishes she would.
More words spill out of me. “I should be bothered. I should see the stain of red on my hands and cringe, maybe hate myself, but I don’t.” In fact, I feel a dark satisfaction at slaying the man who put her in danger.
I go on. “I wonder if this is the fae part of me, the creature that understands kill or be killed and accepts the rule of nature without further contemplation because it is what it is. Or maybe years of fostering my brother’s bad habits have chipped away at the humanity inside me until I’ve become someone who would protect their family no matter the cost.”
“That’s pack, isn’t it?” Goldie asks, her hand making a sweeping gesture as if trying to encompass something immense.
When I give her a questioning look, she goes on, “I learned a lot about were packs from Brexley, how you not only metaphorically rely on each other, but that you'll literally waste away if separated from your pack.”
“That’s true, but living among humans for so long makes it difficult to revert to were ways of thinking. At least we got your stalker,” I say, shooting her a weak apologetic smile. “He won’t bother you anymore.”
“Do we call the cops?” she asks. From the look on her face, I know she’s thinking of the headless body at her house.
I shake my head. “This is pack business. Fae take care of their own.” Eli is already over there, cleaning up. She may not be fae, but she’s more family than my own brothers right now.
“So that’s the end of it,” she says in a flat tone I don’t like.
“Well, no,” I admit though it pains me to do so. “Eddie works for someone else who still wants to collect on Eli’s debt. And now that we’ve sent his people running once and took out one of his top enforcers, he’ll be coming for me and Eli.” After a moment, I add, “Maybe you.”
“That’s okay,” she lets out a dry, humorless laugh. “He thinks he wants me dead, but when he meets me, I’ll just make him fall in love with me.”
“That’s not funny,” I growl. When Eddie dared to lay a finger on her, threaten her safety, he‘d ended his own life right then. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Go bear and never come back.
“I’ll fix it, Goldie. Don’t worry. I’ve cleaned his mess up before and I’ll clean this up too. You have to believe I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Goldie stands. “I have to get to work. My shift starts soon. I called JJ and he’s coming to get you.”
She starts to walk by and I reach out, my grip on her arm almost too tight, a fierce, possessive urgency pulsating through me as I pull her close, unable to bear the thought of her walking away into the night, possibly out of my control. I gaze up into those sad brown eyes. “I am so sorry, Goldie.”
“I know,” she says, her soft smile barely reaching her eyes that shimmers with a mingling of sadness and understanding.
Again I feel some part of her has slipped out of reach from me. Because of how real things had been this morning? It was like being inside a bubble of domestic bliss I aspired to, but always fell so short of it.
Because I killed someone? Because my family put her in danger? I want to pry it out of her.
She bends over and drops a soft kiss on my lips, but I deepen it. My hands tangle in her hair, a desperate need to claim her, to mark her as mine bubbling up from a place dark and fierce within me.
When I let her break away, she says, a little breathless, “I’ll check on you in the morning.”
I tug on her arm, insistent. “After your shift.”
“That’s the middle of the night, Tedly, and you need rest,” she scolds, her lips quirking into an almost smile.
“I know. And Eddie may be out of the picture, but I won’t rest unless you come over and spend the night with me.”
