Fall.
Dark.
#
Seri
“Stay, Brummy. I’ll be right back,” I said, earning awooffrom the wolf sprawled across the Persian rug.
As I padded down the hallway toward the bathroom, three voices drifted out from the armory. My husbands were planning tomorrow’s hunt, discussing strategy, target locations, and contingency plans.
I pressed my lips together, staring down at my hands. They looked the same as they always had. Small, pale, with a scattering of freckles across the knuckles, but I knew what they could do now. The ward I was working on was complex, requiring hours of research and practice, but I was making progress. And I was learning more and more about my magic every day.
“No way in hell is she coming anywhere near that place,” Casimir growled, and I slowed my steps, hovering close enough to eavesdrop without being seen.
“You told her that once she was medically and magically cleared, we’d take her on a hunt,” Koa pointed out.
“Yeah, no shit,” Zane chimed in. “She’s been practicing her magic every day since it returned!”
“I know what I said, and I meant it, but she’s not ready for field work yet!”
“When will she be ready, then?” Koa challenged. “Next week? Next month? Next year?”
“A real-world hunt isn’t a training exercise,” Casimir shot back. “One mistake—”
“So teach her not to make mistakes,” Zane interrupted.
“I’m not saying throw her into combat,” Koa argued. “But she could monitor communications from the SUV, be our eyes and ears—”
“Thank you!” Zane exclaimed.
“And what happens when something goes wrong?” Casimir asked. “When whatever we’re hunting catches her scent and tracks her to the SUV?”
“One of us will stay with her.”
“Then we’re down a fighter,” Casimir countered Koa. “She hasn’t been trained for combat situations. She hasn’t—”
It was always the same argument, rehashed a hundred different ways. Casimir thought I was too inexperienced. Zane wanted a safe, easy hunt to give me a chance to prove myself. And Koa understood my need to do something, but he worried himself sick over my safety.
I wasn’t naive. I knew I wasn’t ready to pick up a weapon and charge into battle. My strengths lay elsewhere, but there were so many ways I could help if they’d let me!
I leaned my forehead against the wall. They loved me, and I loved them, but all this arguing was making me question myself. Made me wonder if I would always be their damsel in distress, their liability.
I needed to go into the field with them so I could learn how they functioned as a team. I needed to see how I might fit into their dynamic. I needed to know I could be part of this life, not just someone they had to protect from it.
And I needed to prove tomyselfthat I wasn’t worthless, wasn’t a victim, wasn’t broken…
“Look at this little dove with broken wings.”
Claudio Kane’s voice whispered from my memory, and I staggered back, my breaths coming sharp and fast.
Stuck halfway in the past, I hardly noticed my feet carrying me to the bathroom, my original destination. It wasn’t until I heard Zane call my name that I fully snapped back to the present.
“Seri? You okay, honey? Your heartbeat’s racing.”
Hand on the bathroom door, I nearly stopped at his unspoken plea for me to talk to him, but I needed a moment to myself. It didn’t help that my period had my hormones all over the place, and I didn’t want to cry in front of them again, so I did the only thing I could. I stepped inside and locked the door behind me, pretending I hadn’t heard him.
Pretending my heart didn’t ache at the sound of his sigh, at the soft thud of what could only be his forehead hitting the door in frustration before his footsteps went back down the hall.
