Well, not Helio, but that guy was kind of an ass. Thatfae.
But Kai? Night? Nix?
Actually, come to think of it….all three of those men were the kind that raised hairs on the back of the neck, just like Violet had been saying. Seth had just chalked it up to them being too hot to function or something. They were all inhumanly beautiful in their own way, like Riley’s moms. Like Riley.
Jesus, was Seth an idiot? Had everyone been laughing at him this whole time, the dumb human who couldn’t figure it all out even when it was right in front of his face?
But then again, if it was true…
That meant Riley really would wake up. Seth would see him again. He could ask him all the questions crowding his brain.
So many damn questions.
Assuming Riley didn’t eat him first…
Seth picked up the card he’d dropped on the floor when he’d collapsed.
Sybil Beauchamp. With an address. Did she want Seth to come find them? To make his way to their isolated house in the woods?
Seth didn’t know what to do with it. With any of it.
For now, he rose from the floor, removing his headband bandage. First thing first: he needed to wash his hands and put on a glove. Then he was going to go out and serve pastries. When the mind was running wild, it was best to keep the body busy.
Seth would do what he needed to do to get through the day.
The rest he’d figure out later.
10
RILEY
Riley screamed.
He screamed at the trees. He screamed at the birds. He screamed at all the stupid mud on the stupid fucking ground.
He’d been doing sowell. He’d been cautious, and he’d moved slow. He’d mostly kept his hands to himself. He’d stopped kissing Seth when Seth had asked. Riley had been like a person. Not an animal or a monster but aperson.
And then he’d completely, 100 percent, fucked it all up.
“It’s your! Fucking! Fault!” he yelled up at the sky. It had stopped raining, and the clouds were beginning to disperse for once, like they were mocking Riley’s bad mood by letting the sunshine through.
Riley wasn’t talking to God, obviously. He was talking to that stupid fucking voice. The one that wasn’t a voice at all but part of him. The vicious monster part. Thebadpart.
It didn’t answer him, that stupid voice. It was hiding. Sulking.Ashamed or maybe just biding its time. Riley didn’t know, and he didn’t fucking care.
He’d woken up in the back of Mama Sybil’s car. He hadn’t known how much time had passed at first. Riley’s healing was always erratic, sometimes much faster and sometimes much slower than that of his moms. So he’d had one horrifying, soul-destroying moment of thinking they were driving him away. Out of town. Out of Washington. Away from Seth. They could have been driving for hours and hours already, and he wouldn’t have known it.
Riley had panicked, his limbs flailing as he’d tried to open the door without unlocking it first.
Mama Sybil had turned around, looking at him with one raised brow. “If you kick a hole in my vehicle, we will be havingwords, Riley.”
And Riley had stopped. Not so much from the threat but from the knowledge that she wouldn’t have been nearly so calm and matter-of-fact if she’d been forcing him to leave his mate.
“Did—did I hurt him?” he’d asked.
Mama Sybil had turned back to face the road, sniffing at the question. “Of course not. We’d never let that happen.”
“And you made him forget?” Riley had asked, more to get it straight in his head than as a real question. Because ofcoursethey’d made Seth forget. Of course they’d compelled him—they wouldn’t leave him with the memory of Riley leaping at him like a deranged beast.
