Maybe Grant?
In any case, it would look terrible for me to press the issue before Grant and his pack had a chance to recover.
Still, it was torture to go home and do nothing and wait. I felt worse, knowing that I’d have to keep waiting.
There was nothing I could do, and these dangerous dipshits would hang around my city in the meanwhile.
If I was lucky, Grant would second-guess himself and go home, but then what? Could I just let them retreat? That seemed impossible, knowing what I knew now—the lengths Grant was willing to go and how he’d hurt his own people and?—
I didn’t know what to do, and I had to do something. My skin itched with the need to see this settled.
All night, I didn’t sleep. Once we got home, Dakota and I showered, though I didn’t think he’d have bothered if I hadn’t dragged him in by the hand and held him up while I ran the loofah over his skin.
The next morning, he slept in. He’d spent so much energy trying to curb and control the flames until we could figure out what to do. In the end, we’d called the fire department.
It was an accident. We were there on a company retreat.
I was just lucky that my clothes were on the ground where I’d left them, so I could talk to the mortals without having to explain why me and a bunch of my nearest and dearest were hanging out naked in the woods, setting bonfires to our own home.
After a whole night staring at the ceiling, I slipped out from beneath the covers. Dakota needed sleep, and I didn’t want to wake him with my restlessness.
Most of the house was quiet. The pack members who’d stayed over—Jillian and Maia and Seth, but also others, wanting to stay close with the present threat looming outside—were either keeping to themselves or just as exhausted as Dakota was.
Since the house was quiet, I knocked on the door of the guest bedroom where Cash had been staying.
He, at least, was awake, and responded promptly. “Come in.”
When we’d gotten home the night before, he’d peeked his head out of his room and frowned at the scent of smoke. He’d asked in a tiny voice what had happened, but no one had the energy to give him specifics. We’d told him there was a fire, and that everyone was safe except Giselle.
Cash had bitten his lip, and if I weren’t mistaken, he wasn’t too bothered by the idea, though he’d been quite keen to get assurance that no one else had been hurt.
That morning, if he wanted more answers, I’d give them. If he didn’t, well, he was a guest in my home and I meant to see him comfortable while he was with us, particularly given how hesitant he’d been to hide away in the guest room and not come out or impose in any way.
“How are you feeling this morning?” I asked as I slipped inside, speaking under my breath so we didn’t disturb the others.
Cash shrugged, sitting up against the pillows piled behind him. When he’d come to us, he’d had stubble on his cheeks, but it’d grown now and turned into a scraggly beard. He hadn’t asked for a razor—hadn’t asked for anything. At this point, I probably needed to just start getting him things. It wasn’t that he looked bad in a beard, but I’d never seen him with one before, and this one looked more neglectful than intentional.
“Fine,” he said. I was pretty sure no matter what I asked him, he was going to insist that he was fine and didn’t need a damn thing. “I’m—ah, I’m feeling better. Mostly. I think? I know I’m taking up a bed?—”
I shook my head. “You’re not taking anything we’re not all happy to give, Cash. I’m glad you’re here.”
He shrank into his neck. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“You know you can stay, right? If you want to join the Crescent pack?—”
Too fast, Cash shook his head. “That’s very kind, but it’s—it’s not home. This city, I mean. Not that you’re not—well, everyone’s been great, but I don’t belong here. I belong?—”
“With a pack that cast you out?”
Cash flinched, and guilt swelled up to choke me. I’d been too sharp. But he hadn’t seen himself, opened up like a present, guts spilling all over a motel room floor.
“Cash,” I said more gently, “you don’t belong anywhere they’d let that happen to you.”
He stuck out his chin, something flashing in his eyes that looked closer to anger than I’d seen before.
“Nobody let anything happen to me. It just... happened.”
“Grant attacked you. It was Grant, right?”
