“If it is true, why would she have brought Echo here?”
“I dunno, dude. But now that we’re talking about our mate, you realize that you’re angry with her for something she did before she even met any of us, right? Before she knew we existed.”
I level Brogan with a glare that I hope is enough to shut him up. Too bad that it isn’t.
“You know weavers don’t normally have mates? You certainly know that reapers rarely find theirs. It’s a damn miracle that the two of you have each other at all.”
I can’t help being pissed, though. She avoided us foryearsand, to me, that feels like a betrayal, even though we’d never met. Things could have been so different for us all if she’d just gone where she was supposed to.
We follow Madame into Wren’s cave, and I’m still thinking hard. When Wren went missing, it wasn’t the first time that Madame LaFontaine and I had met. That would have been just after the garden was founded and she came in person to deliver the news that our destiny weaver would not make it. She didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want us.
I hoped and hoped she was wrong, that our weaver had cold feet or something and would make her way here, eventually. For days and then weeks, I still held onto hope.
I guess she found her way to us, eventually. Not through choice, though, not because she wants to be here.
I must stare at Madame LaFontaine for a little too long as she turns around and catches my eyes still on her. The sultry smile and extra sway in her hips just seems to add weight to Brogan’s theory.
Fuck.
Who knows, maybe I’m irresistible to a woman like her.
And now I have to act like everything is normal, and she’s not right at the top of my list of suspects for Wren’s disappearance. Deep down, I guess I don’t believe that Wren and Camellia chose to disappear. Maybe it’s my fragile male ego at play, or maybe it's that I’m no longer panicking so hard that I can’t think things through. They were happy here; I think. I don’t think that they’d just up and leave us without warning. Cam, especially after she saw exactly how much it fucked us all up when the same happened with Wren.
“Do not leave me alone with Madame,” I beg Brogan via our connection.
“No chance of that, buddy. I’ll be sticking to you like glue until she’s gone.”
18
Echo
I’m so mad, I could spit.
Who the heck does Madame think she is, coming in here with her stupidrevelationsand her obvious need for drama?
She’ll have known the whole time exactly where I was supposed to be when she linked me and Soren up. I thought I’d gotten away without having a placement and that they’d slot someone else into any gap I left. I never thought that there was a space I should have been filling.
Sure, I’m mad at Madame for the big revelation and the fact she clearly relished the opportunity to show these men, my mates, what an… asshole I’ve been. Flaunting my choices, which until now I’d thought were pretty harmless, I thought I was doing something good. Maybe Madame’s right, I’m selfish and terrible and I never considered the consequences of my actions.
Yeah, it turns out I’m pretty mad at myself too.
The thought of these guys being hurt or on high alert because while they were doing their jobs, I was off gallivanting and shirking all responsibilities. It makes my chest hurt and my breath hitch.
If Finn had died the other day, or any other day before that, it would have been my fault.
All that stress and tension Soren carries. A big part of it must be because his garden has always been incomplete. He knows that every soul he reaped was just adding to the collection downstairs, the growing collection that’s been drawing the soul-eaters closer with every passing day.
And I’ve been avoiding my destiny foryears.
My breath hitches again and my eyes fill up as Finn leads me away from Soren’s angry glare.
I’m a terrible person, a truly awful mate. I wouldn’t blame any of them if they decided they don’t want me after finding out the truth.
Blowing out a breath, I can’t stop thinking how much this sucks. Poor Finn. I guess he’s stuck with me, unless there’s a way to break the bond. It can’t be all that strong yet, right? We only just formed it so it can’t be unbreakable.
Even if the thought of it breaks my heart, I’d do it. For him.
“You’re here now,” he says gruffly, pulling me into his chest as soon as we step inside his den. “That’s all that matters.”
