I stand there for a moment, phone still in hand, and try to summon the will to move. My mind is already running through the likely scenarios: confrontation, accusations, maybe even tears. There will be no catharsis, just an extra layer of emotional sediment for me to carry around.
I wish I could get away, but that’s not in the cards.
Time to face the music yet again, and I hope I don’t do anything stupid I have to fix later.
??????
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All is ready.
I set the stage.
It cannot fail.
The Blade Is Betrayed
TALIA
“Where the hell is she?”
It comes out like a screech, reverberating through the halls of the main house as I stomp in. I’m in the foyer, one boot off, as I discard my shoes so I don’t fuck up Hex’s clean floors. The house is calm and shadowed, but I am vibrating with betrayal so foul that it leaves a metallic taste in the back of my throat. My free hand spins Baby, a nervous tic that usually comforts me, but today is failing. I climb the stairs, searching for the cat, my voice furious and raw, as I shout, “Someone tell me where the hell she is right now!”
My husband pops out of his studio at the end of the hall, his expression full of surprise. He was clearly elbows-deep in damp, ochre-clotted clay—a new project, I assume. Rafe never tells us about them until they’re done, as if the act of creating is more intimate than the results. His hair is tied back tightly, and his cheeks are streaked with concentric arcs of dust. He blinks at me as if I’ve materialized from nowhere, which I didn’t.
He won’t be happy with what I’m going to do, but it cannot be helped.
I want to scream my suspicion at him, but the words swell and jam in my throat. It’s the cat and her stupid groupies; it’s always the fucking groupies. I’m not sure why she can’t kick them to the curb, but she can’t, and it’s going to fuck everything up. I didn’t find her in any of the usual hiding spots—the garden, on a mission, or at that stupid Town Hall with Lily. She is not anywhere she should be, nor was she yesterday—which is the problem.
Why, why, why?!!
My husband wipes a hand on his sweatpants, leaving a streak of red clay that will never, ever wash out. His expression is not apologetic, or even curious, just tired. “What did she do now?” he asks, his voice heavy with resignation.
“Tell me where she is,” I hiss. The word splits the air like a lash. “She’s not upstairs, or she would have heard me screaming as I came up. Where the fuck is she?”
He stretches the ache from his shoulders as he shrugs. Rafe is a tall clone, but he appears smaller because of the sadness shrinking him. His hands hover in front of him uncertainly, caught between defense and surrender. Looking at me, he stays quiet as if the answer to my question might pop up out of thin air.
“Did she not come back last night?” he asks, his voice gentle in a way that makes me want to destroy something.
Since he was with Taurus, of course he doesn’t know. What was I thinking?
“She didn’t come back,” I spit. My anger is irrational, volcanic, but I don’t care. “What was she doing after work? Do you know?”
Rafe pauses, his brow furrowing as he thinks. “I thought she was here with you. Did you check the closet? She hides there and blocks people if she’s really upset, you know.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving a dollop of clay just above his left eyebrow. “I didn’t see her this morning, but I figured you were all off on missions.”
“She didn’t show up there,” I snap. “I checked with Mikhail, and then I stopped in to see if she was with Lily. I checked the beach and your old house. She’s not there. And obviously, she’s not fucking here.”
My husband blinks again, finally registering the scale of my panic. “Did something happen? I felt nothing, nor did Simba last night. Did you?” he asks as he throws the studio door to walk back in. He stops the wheel and grabs a towel, hurriedly cleaning himself up as he waits for me to tell him what I know.
As if I have anything to report beyond what I just said—damn it.
I consider telling him the one thing I know that isn’t her location. There was a note slipped under the windshield wiper of my car in the Company lot, with a crude sketch of the cat and a bunch of hearts with names in them surrounding the words ‘everything changes.’ There was a web address on it, and what I found there is why I left work to hunt down our mate like a gazelle on the Serengeti.
But I don’t say any of that; I just stand there, Baby still twirling, and let the silence vibrate between us. I’m not ready to share my reasons for finding the cat yet; otherwise, he might not beas helpful as I want him to be. Rafe is still her primary, just like Taurus is mine, and occasionally, that bond makes it hard not to protect them over everything else.
As he pulls on clothes, Rafe looks baffled. “I swear I haven’t seen her since yesterday. Did you check the stupid, evil bar?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” My sarcasm is razor-edged and unfair, but I can’t help it.
