“He’s down there tryin’ to figure out what he said that made ya’ so angry, and Cade and Liam are lettin’ him spin his wheels a bit. It’s good for our men to grovel from time to time. We can’t tell them everythin’, now can we?” Drawing back, Caitlin smiled. “Let Eli sit with his memories for today. By the time ya’ come back from town, I suspect he’ll have changed his tune about wantin’ to return to that ‘old life’ of his. Or at least about wantin’ to return alone.”
“I never wanted a mate.” Swiping at her cheeks, she dashed away the fresh tears and sniffled softly. “Makes ya’ soft.”
“It doesn’t. It makes ya’ stronger.” Caitlin nodded towards the stairs. “Ya’ see Cade and Liam every day. Do they seem soft to ya’?”
“No. But Cade needs to calm down. He’s drivin’ Mara batty.”
Caitlin tried, unsuccessfully to stifle her laugh. “He is. But he’s still the alpha of this pack. Before Peter left, ya’ saw how the two of them were together. And the pack meetin’ yesterday? Was there any question Cade was still very much in charge?”
“Does it matter? Eli doesn’t want a mate.” She had to keep telling herself that. It would make the inevitable moment when he left her easier. “I need to get to town before I say—or do—something I’ll regret. Like beggin’ him to come upstairs with me and get naked.”
Leaving Caitlin with her mouth agape, Farren ran down the stairs and out the front door, not stopping for even a second when Eli said her name.
“Later,” she called out. “Be back before dinner.”
Or after. She’d stay out however long it took to get her emotions under control or find something useful about Eli’s parents. Hopefully at least one of those two events would happen before the end of the day. If not...well, she’d spent the night running in the woods before. She’d just do it again.
* * *
Eli
“Leave her be, mate.” Tierney, the younger of the two werewolves in Farren’s pack, clapped a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “When Farren needs some space, ya’ best give it to her or ye’ll regret it.”
“She’s your alpha, right?” Granted, he knew little about a pack’s power structure beyond what Farren had told him, but he wasn’t sure Tierney should be talking about Farren behind her back.
“She is. We’re a family, the three of us. Used to be six, but…” His blue eyes went misty until he blinked hard. “She told ya’? What happened to Colin and Brian? How Abagail disappeared too?”
He nodded.
“Farren thinks she failed us. She didn’t. No one could have stopped that arsehole when he took her and Colin, and Brian…he ran off after Cade ordered us all to stay inside. Farren stopped Fergus from carvin’ her up and takin’ control of her, then helped Caitlin get her air back.” Tierney gestured toward Farren’s study, and Eli followed him. “Fergus wasn’t yer average elemental,” the werewolf continued. “The Thirteen branded him—like the bloke did to Colin and tried to do to Farren—and that allowed him to use some of their power.“
The boy pulled an extra chair around to the front of Farren’s desk for Eli, and Caitlin brought in a pot of tea and three mugs on a tray. “There’s coffee too, if ya’d rather.”
Eli arched his brows at the air elemental. “Coffee is for hangovers. Tea is for getting things done.”
With a laugh, Tierney slapped Eli on the back lightly. “Good man. After Cade showed up with half his pack in tow, we switched to coffee every mornin’. It works well enough, but it tastes like shite.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Caitlin poured the tea and sank into her own chair in front of the book. “Good coffee is the nectar of the gods.”
The banter should have made him feel better, but he couldn’t forget Tierney’s words. “Why does Farren think she failed you? Because some crazy arse tried to kill you? How is that her fault?”
“It’s not,” Tierney said sharply. “It never was. But she blames herself all the same. Part of bein’ a leader, I think. So when she tells ya’ to stay here? She’s not tryin’ to be bossy.”
Caitlin stifled a snort.
“Fine. Maybe she is a little,” the young man said. “But she’s also protectin’ her mate the only way she knows how.”
Her mate.
Was he? Out on the lawn, when she’d come to his side, he’d felt such an intense connection to her, it had almost knocked him off his feet. Without his element, it might have. But he didn’t believe in that sort of thing. Even with the memories he now had of his father and mother.
They’d loved one another completely. So much so, they finished each other’s sentences. The last day they’d had together, Mum had told him he’d one day find his mate, and that he’d know her without question. Could he say that about Farren? His heart wanted to say yes, but his head…that was a different matter.
“Eli?” Caitlin’s voice brought him back to the task at hand, and he focused on the book she’d slid in front of him. The symbols made no sense to him. Dozens of letters were jumbled together. Upside down, right side up, sideways, backwards. “What is all this?”
“Sigils.” Taking a notebook, Caitlin wrote a short sentence in delicate flowing script. “You make a sigil by crossing out all the vowels, then arranging the consonants in any shape you want.”
“That’s so bloody random,” Eli said. “You could have a hundred sigils for the same damn sentence.”
