I pushed myself back up, rubbing my palms over my leggings. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Liam smiled at me, the calm, serious smile of a man who’d endured and hardened. I wondered if before his ex’s death, before the duel, he’d slung around carefree, wolfish grins like my brothers.
“Hi.” Wait. Hadn’t I already greeted him? Crap. Heat crept up my neck as I grimaced. “I said that already, didn’t I?”
His smile grew a little more intense. “You can say it again if you want. I can’t guarantee you’ll get as many giggles from me as you got from this one at the wordgo.”
Storm palmed his father’s scruff to get his full attention.
I smiled, still a little embarrassed. “He does seem taken by that word.”
“Apparently, only when you say it.” He splayed his hand on Storm’s back, his fingers so long and strong. Solid. The sort of hands that kept you safe. “Looks like you and Storm had one heck of a playdate.” Liam nodded to the explosion of toys.
“Oh, that we did.” And now I was going to have one hell of a cleanup. I kneeled and began tossing toys inside boxes.
Still holding onto his son, Liam leaned over and helped me gather the plastic balls that had escaped the inflatable donut I’d converted into a ball pit.
“I’ve never taken care of a child, which you probably don’t want to hear considering I spent the entire day with your son.” I shot Liam a sheepish look. “So I have no point of reference, but Storm is really sweet. And funny. And enthusiastic. Okay, now I sound like a crazy person. I swear I’m not crazy. Well, nottoocrazy.” In truth, we all had a little wild in us. It was the nature of being part wolf.
Liam’s brows dipped, and a slender groove appeared between them. When Storm was thinking, he made the same face, which led me to assume Liam was contemplating how much risk there’d been in entrusting his son to us Freemonts.
Biting the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t spout more nonsense, I shut a picture book and slotted it back into the book box.
“I know you wanted to go out today,” he finally said.
Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been pondering my mental health. “Did you catch them?”
“We got the halfwolf.” He stabbed a hand through his hair, dislodged some bramble, probably from his time spent in fur. “We didn’t find the rogue.”
His gaze moved to the window, where the sun was spilling orange and pink light over the horizon. And all I could think of was: when did that happen? Last time I’d looked at the time, it was two.
“Thought I heard you, Liam.” Mom stepped out from the basement carrying a basket filled with a teetering pile of folded clothes. “Is everyone home safely?” By everyone, she mostly meant my brothers.
“Yes. They said to expect them for dinner. Except Nate.”
“Because he’s with the halfwolf?” I asked.
Mom’s eyebrows knitted. “You caught the halfwolf?”
“We did. Thanks to Nolan.”
Mom set down the laundry basket. “And? Did she . . .? Was she . . .?”
“Is she alive?” I didn’t think this was what Mom was getting at, but it seemed the more important issue. I mean, I was sure my brother was okay, or Liam would’ve led with that.
“She’s alive.”
My heart drummed a little harder. We’d have answers soon. Or maybe they already had answers. “Did you find outwhyshe was attacked? Did she know the wolf who attacked her?”
“She’s still stuck in that in-between stage of shifting, so she can’t talk. We’ve pumped her full of Sillin, so she should be in skin soon.”
The mention of Sillin made me grimace. I shoved the memory of those endless months on bedrest away. “Where are you keeping her?”
He nodded in the direction of the bunker, a concrete building a few miles away from the compound that was half-buried beneath a mountain. Although it boasted shelves full of unperishable items, Cassandra had transformed a part of it into a shifter penitentiary with four silver jail cells. She’d locked Niall up once for having disrespected one of her many inane rules, which had made my parents go ballistic and cemented their loathing for her.
“Don’t even think about it, Nikki,” Mom murmured.
I whipped my gaze toward her. “I wasn’t going to go out there.” At least, not in the middle of the night, with the halfwolf’s aggressor still on the loose. “Unless you guys want help interrogating the captive? I’m good at making people talk.”
