“Not to her.”
Quen didn’t accept Elysia. Her home was what she grew up with. Her lab. Her brother. Kin meant little without loyalty. And the Gods had given her nothing.
“And you’re happy to watch her go?” Erik asked briskly.
My aura flared out around me. “I didn’t see you banging on Hunter’s door to bring her back home.”
Erik had the decency to look embarrassed. But I understood. This wasn’t his fight. He might have been fond of Quentin, but he had a family to protect, and the way to minimise collateral damage was to step back. I might have been pissed at him for the decision, but I respected that he chose to protect what mattered to him most. I would have done—was doing—the same.
A wave of uneasiness rushed through me and my aura faltered.
Erik looked up. “I truly am sor—"
“Gray?” Quen’s voice rang through the house, laced with panic. “Bubba!”
She ran into the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt, and it was clear to see why. The tile on which her bare feet touched had changed from my signature black to glittering gold.
“It keeps happening,” she whispered, looking up at me with wide eyes. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
I beckoned Quen with my index finger. “Come here.”
“You come here,” she replied. “I’m not sure what else I’m going to do.”
“Come here,” I repeated. “Or I’ll bring you here myself.”
When a tendril of my aura reached towards her, she let out a frustrated sigh and walked towards me. Each step she took changed the black tiles beneath her feet into a glorious rippling gold. I bit the insides of my cheeks to stop myself from grinning as she walked cautiously into my arms.
When I enveloped her into a hug, she buried her face into my chest, and I dropped a kiss on her head. I was the comfort she sought.
A faint red glow emitted from my brother as he joined my side. “You won’t be able to stop it,” he said, glee clear in his words. “The house recognises you. It’s wonderful.”
She turned her head so that she looked at Erik, but still rested it against my chest.
“Quentin,” he said warmly, but the smile soon dropped.
She didn’t move towards him or beam at him the way she usually did when she saw my baby brother. Instead, Quen stared at him like he was a stranger.
“Did you need something?” she asked, tone icy and detached.
I suppressed the smirk that tugged at my lips. My soulbound knew how to hold a grudge. She wasn’t happy, and she wasn’t about to bullshit Erik into thinking things between them remained the same. The lack of contact was taken as a personal affront, and it wasn’t my job to patch things up between the pair.
Erik rubbed the back of his neck, gaze flicking to me and back to her before he answered. “I wanted to come and check on you. See if you are okay.”
“Well—"
Her rebuttal was cut short as a trickle of electric blue appeared beside the coffee pot and disappeared, leaving a scrap of paper in its place.
“Fucking fantastic,” I mumbled as Erik grabbed it off the counter.
His eyes skimmed along the paper. “Hunter’s expecting you to see him at your earliest convenience.”
“He wasn’t that polite,” I stated.
“No.”
I rolled my eyes. “A solo visit, I assume.”
“No,” Quentin said, looking up at me. “I’ll come with you. I want to speak to him.”
