Brummy ran around us in happy circles, his mind-voice crashing into our heads courtesy of Zane.
Seri safe! All hana safe!
The wolf’s feelings that Zane shared with us were a jumble of relief and joy: Our scents, the warmth of a den, the absence of evil. Brummy’s concept of‘ohanawas intrinsically tied to Seri, always to her, but he’d graciously allowed my brothers and me inside his pack.
Catching him, Zane wrapped one arm around the wolf’s neck.
“That’s right, buddy. Our‘ohanais safe.”
As I carried Seri toward our bedroom, my brothers followed, and we started shedding clothing the second I crossed her bathroom threshold. I pretended not to see Cas’ white-knuckle grip on the body wash bottle and how Zane’s jokes came a half-beat too fast, words tumbling over each other like he was trying to outrun his own thoughts.
As for Seri, she drifted in and out of consciousness, never fully awake, but responding to direct questions with mumbled answers, as we cleaned her and ourselves, and therealrules hung unspoken between us brothers, the ones about stolen moments and pulse checks and how three idiots could suddenly taste their own death in the curve of a witchling’s smile.
Her head lolled against my chest as Cas dried her, and Zane’s fingers flew to the pulse point in her neck.
“Sweetheart?”
“Five more minutes, Papa,” she puffed into my skin, and my lips curved into a smile that was half humor and half heartbreak.
“Damn, you hear that, boys? Told you I was her Zaddy!”
Rolling his eyes, Cas scooped her up, and we followed him into our room only to find Brumous pacing next to his creation, a nest of our hoodies and sweaters in the center of the bed.
“Good boy,” I said, earning a small tail wag, but his blue eyes were locked on his lady, his moon, his goddess.
She was asleep before we finished tucking her, face peaceful in a way that made my eyes sting. The three of us stood there for a moment, watching her breathe. It was something we’d done too many times since we found her, this silent vigil, this reassurance that she was still here, still alive, still ours to protect and love.
“Who’s standing watch here?” Zane lowered his voice, although I doubted a hurricane could wake her now. “And who’s coming with me to help Harker torch that place?”
I knew heneededto do it; destruction was his catharsis, after all. And Cas and Iwantedto, but to leave her? Even behind Evermere’s extensive wards, even with Mrs. Wentzel’s surprise talents and Addison’s whirling meat cleavers, even with Brummy at her side, the idea made my stomach twist.
“We could…” The words shriveled in my throat like salt on a snail, and I swallowed hard. “We could askhimto stay with her again.”
“No.” Zane’s head snapped toward me.
Cas didn’t speak. His face gave nothing away, which usually meant he was thinking through ten scenarios at once.
“We already owe him one for the last time,” Zane whisper-hissed. “I’m not stacking debts to him!”
“He didn’t ask anything in return.”
“Yet. That’s the keyword.Yet. With Lucian Ro?u, the billalwayscomes due.”
“You have a better option?” Cas said at last. “We’ll be hours away. She’s Dark sick and more vulnerable now than she’s ever been.”
“I didn’t say I had a better option. I said I don’t likethisone.”
“I’m not thrilled about it, either,” Cas admitted, “but we’re not choosing between ideal and uncomfortable. We’re choosing between safe and dead.”
That landed with a thud.
Even in the sunshine pouring through the window, our girl looked pale. Hollow. There was a faint purplish bloom beneath her eyes, the kind that didn’t come from sleep deprivation. She’d pushed herself past the edge. And I knew she’d do it again. Forus.
Just as we would for her.
“I don’t trust him,” I growled. “Not with her. Not with anything that matters.”
“You’rethe one who suggested it!” Zane glared at me.
