“I don’t want toownyou, sweetheart. I just want to talk to you. Hell, I’d be your goddamn punching bag if that would make you happy.”
Iain’s amber gaze meets mine.
“I’m only askin’ you to put in a good word for me. Convince this stubborn little shit to stop by some day since I don’t do dates,” Iain says with a wicked smile.
“You horny old bastard,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“Is everyone done talking about me like I’m not even fucking here? Great! First, Aurora, thank you for sticking up for me. I love you. You’re perfect. Don’t ever change. Ezra, mate, stop pouting. At least someone taught you. Most men go to their grave still looking for the clit. And Iain,” she growls, planting both feet on the floor as she leans forward in her chair. “You can suck my lady balls. I ain’t got time for some pathetic wrakh simpin’ over me. I’m fucking out of here.”
Louie stands up with so much force that her chair slams to the floor. She spits at Iain’s feet, gives him a smug smile, and then stomps toward the front door.
I reach out instinctively, my voice cracking. “Wait. Lou. Please don’t leave. I … I need you. I’m … well, I guess I’m scared.”
You know those huge life events you can feel coming? The really terrible ones? Where your body clocks it before your brain does? Where everything in you just knows you’re on the edge of something you won’t come back from?
That’s how this moment feels.
Sure, Ezra is amazing. He’s all-consuming, protective, and makes me forget my own name in bed.
But Lou? She’s my tether, my voice of reason, my fanged constant in a world that won’t stop shifting.
Louie rolls her eyes, then growls.
With a harsh screech, she drags her chair across the kitchen and plants it beside me. Then she grabs the hand Ezra and his shadows aren’t currently manhandling and bares her fangs at Iain.
The wrakh just grins, like he’s been waiting his entire life for her to growl and bare her teeth at him.
It would almost be cute if it weren’t Iain.
“Alright, queenie. Give me your hand so we can figure out what’s going on here.”
I offer Iain the hand Ezra’s been holding, brushing eddy #4 off my wrist. It resists, tightening like a stubborn vine before finally slithering away with a shiver of reluctance.
Iain gently takes my hand and closes his eyes. A light tingle travels through my body as he sifts through the magical and non-magical parts of what makes me … me.
But that light tingle becomes more intense, until it burns through every inch of me.
Iain’s grip tightens around my hand, pain shooting through my arm.
I look to Ezra, panic pooling in my stomach.
He moves to pull Iain away, but the wrakh suddenly goes flying, slamming into the wall with a sickening thud. Smoke from the hand he used to sift through my magic twists and twirls in the air like some fucked upSwan Lake.
“No. No, no, no. This … what the ever-loving fuck? This … isn’t real.Can’tbe real.”
Iain’s eyes blur, words tumbling out in frantic mutters, curses flying too fast for anyone to follow.
Ezra and Louie exchange a look, both clearly trying to make sense of the rambling.
I just stand there, staring at my hand, the air still humming with leftover magic. My gaze slides to the wrakh slumped on the filthy linoleum floor. He’s clutching his smoking hand, the table’s cracked down the middle, and he’s screaming at the ceiling in a full Gaelic rage.
And what’s my coping mechanism? Internally becoming that cartoon dog surrounded by flames.This is fine.
Nothing is fine. And I’m not sure it ever will be again.
Ezra squats in front of Iain and slaps him hard across the face.
The wrakh’s eyes snap back into focus and immediately find me.
