I know that these are the people who have been chosen as lovers by my previously soul-bound mates — Doc Z with Rath, and Cay with Reck.
Lovers by choice, not forced together by essence-enforced bonds … yet another aspect of our lives that I don’t have any control over.
So there’s no point in dwelling on it.
And maybe I’m reading it wrong. Perhaps Doc Z’s and Cay’s wariness is directed outwardly, not toward me, because I’m no longer a concern.
Bellamy steps out of the back seat of the car, once again keeping herself between Presh and everyone else. She’s wearing bright-purple-framed sunglasses that must have come from Presh, though I hadn’t noticed her giving them to her half-sister.
Tension twists through both shifters. Bellamy sneers in response, all but challenging them to a dominance contest with a mere look.
Doc Z bares her teeth. “You killed my sister.”
Bellamy hums dismissively. “Very possible. And you are?”
Doc Z takes one step forward.
I turn my head away from the view, leveling my gaze on the pegasus shifter. She pauses, hands fisted at her sides.
Presh opens her mouth, poised to offer some of her always-ready compassion.
“Kris made her own choices,” I say mildly, pointedly interrupting Presh because I won’t have her taking this extra grief on.
“And so have you, apparently,” Doc Z snaps without looking at me.
“Fuck me,” Cay mumbles, shifting her stance slightly, though I can’t quite tell if she’s backing Doc or readying to step between her and me.
I eye Doc’s profile. Her attention is fixed on Bellamy. “I move as the universe wills.”
“Or,” she snarls, “however Precious asks of you.”
That’s also true.
“I don’t need you to stand between me and her,” Bellamy snaps at me, leaning back against the car and crossing her arms in a classic mage pose to appear nonthreatening. But awry don’t need their hands to cast essence.
It could be that the purple sunglasses, shadowing Bellamy’s still-disconcerting eyes, are just enough of a disguise for Doc Z to forget what she’s truly capable of. I quash an inappropriate grin at the badass, belligerent, former dire awry wearing them just to please her youngest sister.
“What are you going to do, shifter?” Bellamy taunts. “Or is having a go at my baby sister the best you’ve got?”
Ah. It was the jab at Precious that bothered Bellamy.
Doc Z hesitates for a moment, glancing toward Precious. As if maybe she’s momentarily forgotten how everyone is related.
All the light that Precious was radiating has been snuffed out at the mention of Kris. She watches Doc Z with wide, guilt-ridden eyes. “That was my fault,” she whispers.
Bellamy stiffens.
“My fault that Kris was targeted by my father,” Presh adds, firming her tone. A single tear trickles down her cheek.
“No,” Bellamy says, jaw set with tension and glaring at Doc Z. “It fucking wasn’t. It was a test of the Outcast MC. Which, if Zaya hadn’t been in play, they would have failed. Spectacularly.”
“Oh, so now you’re forthcoming,” Doc Z says sarcastically.
“You’ve got your snout so far up the Outcast’s ass that you can’t see him for what he really is,” Bellamy says mildly. “You just want the life you visualized so desperately to stop unraveling. But no matter how many mood boards you obsess over, my brother never belonged to you.”
Doc Z vibrates with energy, clearly holding back her beast. “You can twist anything. All of you awry are the fucking same. Rotten, tainted. A corruption of nature. How fucking … dare … you …”
She sways on her feet, as if her own words have filtered back to her. She takes a shaky breath.
