Maverick gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. A small, rueful smile curled his lips as he considered me.
“Then you need to tell him that. Silence fills up with doubts. You’re his mom. Your opinion will always matter to him, Poppy.”
One tear fell. Then another. “I know. I just... I can’t let something happen to him, and I can’t… lose him. I physically, mentally, spirituallycan’t.He’s my baby, and he’s in dangeragain.”
“And that is not your fault,” Wanda said, bracing one hip against the table. She towered over me like that and used every inch of height to lob an annoyed look down at me.
“But—”
“But nothing,” she snapped. “Something broke into your home and attacked you. That isn’t your fault. Andre got hurt, and that wasn’t your fault either. Finn is safe. You’re okay. You won.”
But it didn’t feel like a victory. Not with the house trashed and Andre concussed.
“Say it,” Wanda ordered. “Say ‘I won’, Poppy, or so help me, I will hex you.”
“I... won?”
“Say it like you mean it.I won!I kicked that scaly bastard’s ass and sent him scurrying.”
“Do you want that verbatim?” I asked.
Lines fanned out around her eyes when she smiled. It was a rare and beautiful expression.
“You know what I mean. The destruction was contained to one room this time, and you got a look at the culprit. That’s plenty.”
“I won,” I said, testing the words. They still didn’t sound quite right.
“Damn straight you did,” Wanda said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I won’t hear a word otherwise.”
I might have argued further if Imani hadn’t entered the kitchen looking grim. She hooked a thumb behind her and said, “Olga thinks she’s found something.”
I heaved myself to my feet, though every weary muscle protested the motion.
“Show me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Imani led me up the suspiciously well-scrubbed stairs to the second floor bedrooms.
I wondered if I should have been upset that my midnight visitor had trashed my staircase too. In the end though, I just let the worry trickle past the anxious walls I’d built up on the way back home. Wanda was right. It had been a victory, even if it wasn’t the total smackdown I’d grown accustomed to giving beasties that invaded my house.
That was what had really bothered me, if I was being totally honest with myself. I’d started off my tenure here in Haven Hollow by roundly defeating a hulking wendigo. Then I’d outfoxed vampires and out maneuvered faeries. I’d wed my magic to a group of dark witches and graduated into a new and confusing world of alchemy. How the hell had one comparatively tiny dragon or whatever the hell it was beaten me?
“Penny for your thoughts?” Imani asked, an amused lilt to her voice.
My head whipped toward the sound of her voice fast enough to pinch something in my neck. I winced, fighting the urge to massage the pain away. But I decided not to just so I could spare myself the conversation in which Imani would, no doubt, offer some kind of potion or cream, and I didn’t need to add more magic to my already precarious situation. Besides, this was just a natural part of being forty-eight. Things ached. Things you never even knew you had before. And why should I be any different than the average peri-menopausal woman just because I had powers?
“Thoughts?” I laughed. “My brain is a mess at the moment.”
Heat rose in my cheeks when I realized I’d paused halfway up the steps. Imani had already reached the top and was leaning one leanly muscled arm against the bannister, watching mewith knowing eyes. She’d pulled her hair back, leaving her face strikingly bare. Between the cheekbones and the piercing shade of her eyes, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being x-rayed.
“Sorry, I’m not exactly good company at the moment,” I mumbled.
“Don’t be,” she said with a shrug. “Just share. Maybe I can help.”
“You’re already helping. Cleanup wasn’t even on my list of priorities.” I paused as I contemplated everything they’d already done. “It means a lot that you guys were thinking of me.”
“You would have done the same for any of us. In fact, youhavein the past.”
