And he’sbleeding.
Oh God.
Despite everything I try to go to him, but Con grabs my arm, stopping me.
Thankfully though, there’s someone else out here who cares about him.
His sister, Tempest.
She breaks away from the crowd and dashes over to her brother who in turn does the same thing my brothers are doing to me: he frowns at her first before sort of stepping in front of her as if to say that the world will have to go through him in order to get to her.
My heart squeezes again at this brotherly display of protectiveness, this whole other side of Reed Roman Jackson.
And I’m embarrassed that his sister is witnessing all this hatred, but at least she’s here for him. Also now shereallyknows how bad the blood is between my brothers and hers.
When our eyes clash, I mouth,sorry.
She smiles sadly and mouths,my fault.
Well, not really.
I mean she didn’t put a gun to my head to bring me here. She insisted and I agreed. I could’ve said no and avoided this whole debacle.
But apparently not.
Anyway my brothers aren’t satisfied with one punch. Because all three of them take a step toward him, but Con puts a stop to that.
“Enough. Let’s go.”
They hate it, of course.
But they don’t disobey him.
Out of habit, I guess.
He’s not only my father figure, he’s theirs too.
He’s the one person who’s stayed for us. Who’s protected us and loved us, fought to keep us together and be our guardian.
He’s the reason we’re still a family.
So they back off and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
But when the time comes to walk away, I look athim.
I look at Reed.
I’ve been avoiding looking at him directly. I’ve only thrown him passing glances ever since my brothers got here – I still don’t know how – and they caught me in his arms.
But now I look at him.
Only to find that he’s looking back.
That his wolf eyes glint and shine as much as his split lip that’s bleeding.
I don’t know what I see in his gaze but whatever it is makes my heart spin in my chest. Makes it race and pound and squeeze.
This is it, isn’t it?
