“About the hunt tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I might have a solution.”
Before I could elaborate, Cas’ sharp inhale cut through the quiet. It was a sound I knew all too well, a blade unsheathing, and my muscles tensed, battle-ready before I could even locate the threat. I turned to find him with his fingers frozen in Seri’s hair, his face marble as he stared at the back of her head.
“When?” was all he said, quiet and deadly.
“It’s nothing, Simmy.” Her shoulders jerked toward her ears, survival instincts overriding trust. “Just—”
“Five centimeters. Jagged laceration. Poor closure. Notnothing.” Each word was enunciated to within an inch of its life.
“Let me see.” I started to stand, but her hands flew up, catching my wrists.
“Don’t worry about it, Koko. It’s healed. It’s over.”
Casimir’s pupils dilated, black holes consuming green irises, and I knew the usual checklist was flashing through his mind in bright red letters: Check weapon, confirm exits, neutralize threat.
Only there was no threat present. Only our beloved.
“Tell. Me.”
With a sigh, Seri dropped my wrists, and I stood and shuffled around to see what he was talking about. There on her scalp, hidden by her mass of curls, was a thick white line where no hair grew.
“Arabesque locked me out of the house during a blizzard in early March, just before Josslyn was born,” she said after a moment. “I was trying to get to the barn. It was the only place I could think of to stay warm. I slipped on the ice, hit my head, and knocked myself out.”
My stomach knotted as I pictured it: Seri alone in whiteout conditions, blood freezing on her skin as she lay unconscious in the snow. No one coming to help her. No one even looking. No one caring.
“When I woke up, Brummy was there.” A faint smile ghosted across her lips. “He himself was still recovering, but he tried to wrap around me, tried to keep me warm. He kept nudging me with his nose, like he was trying to wake me up. I managed to crawl the rest of the way to the barn with his help. We curled up in the hay and made it through another night together.”
“That’s what he showed Zane.” Moving back to her side, I took her hand in mine, caressing her knuckles with my thumb. “The first time Z read Brummy’s mind, he saw you bleeding in the snow and the pup trying to help you.”
Cas’ jaw clenched tight, the muscle in his cheek twitching. His breath came faster and sharper, the black blotting out more and more of the green in his eyes, like a bomb counting down.
“Who stitched it?” he gritted out.
Seri looked down at her lap, fingers tightening around mine.
“Brummy licked it clean. We didn’t… There wasn’t…”
She trailed off, but we didn’t need to hear the words to know there wasn’t anyone to help her. No one to clean the wound, to close it with stitches, to check for concussion or frostbite or infection.
Cas moved to stare down at her, radiating nothing but rage, cold like shards of ice flying through the air. His hands had curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white.
“She left you to die.”
Seri’s head snapped up, her eyes wide.
“I lived through it, Simmy.”
One sentence, and it slipped through a crack in his armor like a hammer-driven chisel.
“You shouldn’t have needed to!” he erupted. “Each injury, each hurt, each scar will be the battle map of my vengeance. I’ll peel the flesh from her bones.Slowly. Let the maggots feast while she still screams.”
I started to reach for him, to try and calm him before his monster terrified her, but one glance at Seri stopped me. She wasn’t cowering. She wasn’t trembling. Her body might have been conditioned to recoil from sudden loud noises and fast movements, but in that moment, her eyes held nothing but understanding. She knew he wasn’t angry at her. She knew that his fury came from a place of protection, of love. She didn’t fear him. She didn’t fear any of us. She trusted us completely, even in our darkest moments.
“She needs to be stopped.” Seri never dropped her eyes from Cas’. “But I don’t need her to suffer to make up for anything or for revenge. All I need is for her to die.”
As Cas stood there, chest heaving, looking like he wanted to tear the world apart, she stood and wrapped her arms around his torso, nestling her face between his pecs and kissing his bare skin.
