DeVille shrugs. “Yeah, so?”
I laugh quietly. “You want to drive?”
“Fuck yes!” DeVille is already pulling back from the loose embrace. “Keys?”
“In the car,” I say, guessing. Because I actually have no idea.
“Take Presh with you,” Rought says.
“I’m not a piece of luggage,” Presh grouses, but she steps back willingly enough. Her gaze is fixed to me, though, as if she’s concerned I’m going to disappear.
“I met your brother Cal,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “What? Another brother?”
I nod. Rath and Rought exchange a glance that confirms they didn’t know. “I’ll tell you all about him on the drive to the pack house.”
“DeVille,” Rath rumbles, arms crossed, feet still planted by the back wall with the map, “if you go against the Outcast, even just in Zaya’s wake, you’ll never patch in.”
DeVille pauses at the open door, glancing back. His gaze falls on Presh instead of Rath though. “Yeah.” He shrugs again. “I already knew that.”
Rath shakes his head but doesn’t stop the teens from leaving.
“Make yourself useful,” Rought says to the cu-sith, clearly pissed. Though presumably at his elder brother, not the beast.
The cu-sith eyes him malevolently.
“I’ll be right there,” I murmur, though I know that Reck isn’t presently in control.
The cu-sith blinks at me, then pads silently from the bar. Literally silently. A creature that size should not be able to move that quietly, especially with the squeeze through the door so tight.
Rath starts to speak. “Zaya, I need to know —”
Then Rought sweeps me into his arms and off my feet for a blazing, soul-encompassing kiss. Wrapping my legs around him, I thread my fingers through his hair, gripping him tightly.
Time stills as we slide into one of those pockets, those protected bubbles, where it’s just us — lips and tongues, bodies pressed as close as they can be while there’s too much clothing between us. Rought holds me hard at the back of my neck, gripping my ass with his other hand. Energy — pure essence — shifts between us everywhere we touch, and my chest warms where the bond hooks into my ribcage.
He pulls back just enough to speak. “Not again. Promise, Zaya. Not without me.”
“I promise. It shouldn’t have happened even that once, but —”
He cuts off my justification of my actions with another rough kiss. Even the hint of a promise that I’ll take him with me next time was all he needed to hear.
“She should have been safe,” Rath rasps. “With Reck.”
Rought pulls back from our kiss just enough to nod. Anger and frustration filter through our connection. Though at his eldest brother, not at me or the situation.
I press my face against Rought’s to meet Rath’s gaze. Rought’s new unruly beard is delightfully scratchy, but it’s a completely inappropriate time to remark on that … or where exactly I might like to feel it rub next. “Reck couldn’t have known —”
“He knew,” Rath snaps. “We all know what the Cataclysm is capable of, and him even more than us.”
“Let him hide in his beast,” Rought says. “For now.”
Rath grimaces. “Dangerous.”
“Not with Zaya home.”
Rath’s gaze narrows on me. “I need to know if he’s coming for you. We don’t have eyes on him, but he ran from us.” He hesitates before adding, “The three of us, together.”
