Again, I glared at him. “Galen!” On one hand, his relationship with his mother was his own. It wasn’t my place to get involved. On the other, I didn’t think him harboring a steamship’s worth of vitriol for the woman would help anyone, especially himself.
Galen’s hand was big and comforting when it landed on my back. “Fine,” he conceded. “I’m not going to fight because Hadley is dealing with enough, but you need to tread carefully.”
Marjory eyed him. “I’m not a monster, Galen, no matter what you think.”
“You’ve spent the last two weeks pretending I don’t exist because you’re mad I didn’t handle the Julian situation as you wanted. You shut me out when I was meeting a new brother. You’re my mother. How are you not the monster in this situation?”
“I told you to let the situation go,” Marjory seethed. She might have come here to make amends, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t fight back.
“Why would I do that?” Galen’s eyes flashed with impatience.
“That boy is nothing to you.”
“He’s a man,” Galen fired back. “He’s a man and he was raised believing one man was his father when it was someone else. It was my father, who wasn’t a step up in the father department if I’m honest.”
“Don’t you dare badmouth your father,” Marjory barked. “He was a complicated man.”
Galen snorted. “Complicated is a word people use when they don’t want to admit the truth. My father was a douche.”
“Your father loved you.”
“I don’t remember the love. I remember the disappointment.” Galen’s voice softened and it hurt my heart when he spoke his next words. “He always told me I was a disappointment.”
“He never used that word,” Marjory countered.
“He hated that I hung around with non-shifters,” Galen explained to me. “He thought that made me weak.”
“Well, he was wrong,” I replied. “That made you stronger. Your friends have always made you stronger.” I shot Marjory a silencing look when she opened her mouth. “Pick your battles,” I ordered.
She looked taken aback but nodded. “You’re probably right. Galen is tired. You were at the ranch late last night, correct?”
Galen wouldn’t want the information that I had crossed to another plane spread, especially to his mother. That news would become public soon enough — his men had big mouths — but this breakfast was already fraught. I planned to keep the information to myself, but Galen opened his big mouth and turned the entire conversation on its head.
“We believe Wesley was kidnapped and taken through a plane door,” he announced.
My eyebrows almost took flight.
“Excuse me?” Marjory looked confused as she whisked eggs.
I was desperate to seize control. “Do we think he was kidnapped or lured to the door?” I blurted.
Galen glanced over at me. “What do you mean?”
“If that killer shadow can get to this side to kidnap him, why not just stay? We’re considering that he wants me, right? It makes more sense for Wesley to have been lured there.”
Galen rubbed his chin before moving to the coffee pot. “I guess I never really thought about it that way but you’re right. It makes way more sense for Wesley to have walked into the same trap you were drawn into.”
“Unless there was more than one trap,” I countered. “I don’t think Wesley went that far out after the barbecue with his men. The trap I found yesterday was created for me. What if a different one was created near the house for him?”
Galen didn’t immediately answer but I could see him considering the possibility.
Marjory was a different story. “I need to be caught up on a few things,” she prodded.
It was inevitable that she would hear the story, so I figured it was better that we give her the facts.
“We kind of had an ordeal yesterday,” I explained before launching into the tale. It took about ten minutes to tell her everything. All the while, she worked on breakfast and by the time I finished she was folding theomelets.
“Well, that’s quite a tale.” Marjory’s eyes moved to Galen, who was at the kitchen table glowering over his coffee. “You must have been terrified.” There was no judgment in her tone for a change. She looked legitimately concerned for her only child.
